Long ago, just calling three references was enough for an employer to make sure that you are a normal (enough) person to hire. Now, as we live our lives online through social media, employers are increasingly monitoring Facebook and other social media outlets in order to keep their employees under watch. First we began reading about employees being fired for things that appear on their Facebook accounts. For example Ashley Payne was asked to resign for photos that appeared on her Facebook account of the school teacher drinking wine while on vacation. She lost her case because of technicalities under her union contract. But if she were an at-will employee, she would have been out of luck as well. This article outlines several other Facebook-related firings. In one, the employee won the case because the employer was found to have violated the Stored Communications Act when it forced employees to give it access to a Myspace page created for employees, but not managers.
And what if you vent about your boss on Facebook? Complaining about your boss is an activity as old as time, but it used to take place at the water cooler in whispered tones. Today, if you have something to complain about, you do it online. I have a personal experience with this aspect of social media: years ago I made a comment on twitter about students being less than enthusiastic on a given day in class. It didn’t identify where I worked (at the time I taught at two different schools), and it was a fairly innocuous statement that I had actually echoed in class in a more obnoxious way (I know, shocking). One of my former students (not at BU, so don’t bother speculating), was following me on Twitter, and actually called the Dean to complain. I was shocked when I got the phone call, but quickly realized that I needed to reset my privacy settings, and refrain from saying anything about work online. I occasionally break down, but that one phone call certainly had a chilling effect.
As controversial as all those cases may be, recently we have crossed into new territory: potential employers asking interviewees for their social media log in information during an interview, or even on a job application. As you can see from this article, this intrusion is becoming standard fare for many government employers, as well as for universities offering scholarships to athletes. But I am increasingly hearing stories from my own students about this happening to them during job interviews. The linked article does a good job raising some of the legal issues presented here, and there probably are more. Try in your comments to brainstorm about what law might come into play on this issue, and we will discuss it on Monday in class as well.
14 Comments
Alexandria Chong posted on March 31, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Another thing they are asking to do it “Log in and I’ll just watch from behind you”
I think it’s a major infringement on privacy rights. There is no reason for an employer to log into someones facebook. If they want to know someone subjectively then invite the person out to lunch and get to know them that way. Its wrong for someone to try to get to know you from what you do online. For some people their online presence may be the complete opposite of what they are in real life. So personally I think there are other ways of learning who you are interviewing without having to ask someone’s login. I also think facebook’s terms and conditions say you can’t give out your log in to other people or am I wrong?
James T. Curtis posted on March 31, 2012 at 11:58 pm
I completely agree with everything said in the previous post on this topic but I have another issue with this topic that is being so publicly discussed lately. Employers are looking at their potential employee Facebook where they can be who they really are. If they are forcing them to log onto their own Facebook then clearly they cannot learn anything about their Facebook because of their privacy settings. This shows that their potential employee is responsible. Everything beyond that privacy setting is private! Employers are looking to hire workers who are professional workers. I can understand wanting to know how your employees are as real people and know who they are but there must be a line drawn somewhere in this process. There are ways to get to know people besides looking at their recorded personal life. Because that is what Facebook is, a piece of your personal life that is all recorded.
Julianne Kodack posted on April 1, 2012 at 5:26 pm
Asking for passwords and detailed information about someone’s personal account is an infringement on policy rights I believe. I do not believe that employers should be able to ask for you password or even have you type it in while they look behind you to see what your account looks like and the details of your life. I agree that companies want to know about their employees, but there are other ways of going about this. Just because the times are changing and the world is becoming dominated by social media does not mean that employers cannot pick up a phone still and call a reference like they used to do in the passed. A Facebook account can only tell so much about a person or it can tell a lot. Any picture can mean a thousand words and can be taken the wrong way or out of context. If employers still called references, they would get a more accurate idea of who the person actually is I think .I believe that if you ask for someones Facebook password or twitter account it is the same thing as going through someones email or looking through their phone and no employers would ask to do that since it is clearly an invasion of privacy. Therefore employers should not be able to ask for employees passwords and should just go back to the old way of doing things and pick up the phone.
Spencer Li posted on April 2, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Personally, I would never work at a company that asked for my facebook password, etc. I suppose that’s just the at will employment at work.
But forget invasion of privacy. I see this as a issue of respect. As an employee, would I feel comfortable if my boss had access to my facebook? Would I feel comfortable looking an an employee’s facebook? I answer both of these questions with a firm, “no.” If people do a good job at work, I don’t think that their facebook photos should affect how I see them.
That’s not to say that people should be careful of what they write/say online. Social media is more or less public to all. I think being careful of what you say is a different issue than employers asking for facebook login information.
Finally, I’m mostly interested how successful these companies are/will be. If the best employees are the ones that have “bad” facebooks, would companies that don’t have this regulation be doing better? Or maybe looking at facebook profiles actually increases revenue.
Ryan Gee posted on April 2, 2012 at 5:17 pm
I agree with Spencer and having an issue working for an employer who has access to my facebook and other social medias I use. However, from the prospective from the employer, I believe this strategy is ultimately beneficial (if this really is not illegal that is). Here me out. For one, you can loosely monitor your employees to ensure that no sexual harassment or defamation is occurring. Second, those who are willing to give up their facebook password are probably people who are conservative and just smart about the information they display to the public, and therefore are not worried about potential employees finding “skeletons in the closet.” These types of employees are definitely employees that an employer would want, those who closely monitor information that is released to the public. Third, there are many people out there looking for jobs, so replacing someone with the same qualifications who does not provide this information during an interview process should be fairly easy. There are definitely other reasons why this is beneficial for an employer. I’m not saying that this is not unethical, but I believe by employing this tactic to hire college graduates is a smart decision in which the benefits outweigh the cons.
James T. Curtis posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:29 pm
After our discussion in class today, I will admit I’m not quite sure how I feel about this topic anymore. I think that asking for someones Facebook password actually might be appropriate for VERY specific work positions. Another solution would be a situation where employers must be looking for something specific on their employees Facebook and can only look on the Facebook if that is the most efficient way to discover whatever they are looking for. These are just a few thoughts I wanted to mention that I had after class today. Also, I wanted to post this article that I JUST read online:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/grade-school-teacher-aide-fired-refusing-hand-over-172305406.html
rspooner posted on April 3, 2012 at 7:21 am
Thanks for that article, James. The request for login information seems to be more and more common. Although it is nice to see Facebook taking a position on the action, that won’t make a difference in the world of employment law. I think James’s commments highlight how complicated this issue is. Although most agree that it seems like an invasion of privacy, there are lots of good reasons for an employer to monitor social media.
From a business perspective, the answer seems to me to be that the businesses need to recruit employees with good judgment, and build a culture of trust and pride in the employer. It seems to me if you treat your employees with respect and instill in them a sense of pride, those employees will, in most cases, refrain from posting harmful things online.
Jinfeng Cai posted on April 3, 2012 at 11:38 am
I agree with Spencer’ opinion. Personally I would never work at a company that ask for my facebook access. I think bringing facebook as one of the factors that affect offer decision is very silly. In other words, a company hires an person for his/her qualified job skills and good personalities. As long as the employees behave properly and work well, they should be fine. It’s not wise to invade their employees’ privacy and judge them when they are off working.
Sophie Park posted on April 4, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Although I don’t agree with this tactic at all, I believe that from here on out social media is only going to get more intense and pervasive in our everyday lives. So as much as I would like to say “managers shouldn’t be allowed to do that” or “Facebook can be a misrepresentation of what a person is really like,” all we can do now as we enter the business world is to filter our Facebooks, Twitters, and Tumblr/Pinterest so that any one, including peers and managers, would not believe these social media outlets are an accurate representation of ourselves.
Phoebe Chao posted on April 6, 2012 at 2:17 pm
It’s definitely interesting reading about these kinds of issues as they pop up more and more. Our generation is definitely the one that is most affected by the perils of social media/networking websites. My personal opinion about this issue is one that is similar to Jingfeng’s. I think who we are on Facebook doesn’t necessarily factor into how we work, and this is why I disagree with employers asking for access to one’s FB account. As long as the job is being done right, why does it matter? However, Sophie brings up a good point- even though that’s my opinion on the issue, I’ll still (reluctantly) need to set up some kind of filter since the presence of social media is so strong in our society today.
Hope Blalock posted on April 9, 2012 at 1:41 pm
I do understand that businesses want to hire respectable employees with good judgement, but I don’t necessarily agree that logging into someone’s Facebook account is the best way to monitor that. The way someone portrays there life online can be significantly different (for better or for worse) than the way someone really lives his or her life.
For the sake of consistency, it seems one should also have to log on to every other website that the perspective employee uses: email, Pinterest, AIM, eHarmony, etc. It seems that in certain situations, any one of these could tell more about a person than Facebook.
Regardless, I think that these measures that businesses are taking to learn more about their employees is a violation of privacy. This is a very hot topic at the moment, especially in the college community, since we are (hopefully) the next wave of people to be employed. BU media even seems to be taking an interest in this debate: http://www.bu.edu/today/2012/youspeak-your-facebook-password/
Yuting Su posted on April 17, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I don’t think employers have right to get access to employees fackbook account. According to what we learn in our class, employers have right to monitor employees’ email and anything employees public onlline. I agree with the view that posting something on-line means that you are agree to pubilc it and you don’t have privacy right in it. However, giving employers your password to facebook is different. Password is what you never want to public. Also, if employers can log into your facabook, they can not only view your information in facebook but also control your facebook, which I believe violet your privacy rights.
Evan Weinreb posted on April 22, 2012 at 3:35 pm
This kind of infringement on employee rights is absurd. If the person fails to put on privacy settings, I believe it legally should be able to be viewed by employers and used in decision making regarding employment because that user decided it could be publicly viewed. However, if your Facebook has privacy settings on, under no condition should that private material be able to be viewed by employers. Especially the fact that you have to provide your password should be illegal. What’s next employers asking for bank account #’s and passwords to monitor what you spend your money on?
Stephanie Nowak posted on May 1, 2012 at 11:01 pm
My mom is always, and I do mean always, making sure my facebook is “business appropriate.” She’s nervous about the trending issues of businesses being all too involved in the cyber lives of people. I think the invasion of privacy is obvious, however, the internet is in no way a private place. I think that businesses need to trust their own judgment based on interviews and getting to know people for who they are when hiring someone. If a profile is a direct reflection of a persons character then employees should feel comfortable that the people they choose to hire are trustworthy and diligent people. The culture instilled in the company should be one that will uphold a standard of honesty that employees feel they want to comply with.