Does that mean you should always conduct yourself on FB as if you are in a work place environment?
So no sex jokes, No half naked ladies, etc…
I would. I might post some mildly risque stuff, but no racist rants (not that I would do that anyway.)
I think anything you do personally on Facebook can come around and attach itself to you professionally, so it’s best to conduct yourself accordingly. Unless you are looking for a total career overhaul the hard way.
Personal opinion: watching your proverbial tongue on social media is just common sense, at this point- as much ‘fun’ as reading other peoples’ political rants is, there’s a time and a place for all things… time and place, not being the platform where your co-workers/random acquaintances/aging aunt frequent. “Is it true/is it helpful/is it kind” continues to be a pretty solid rule for post vetting.
As we’re all remote workers, some of us got together a few years back and created a ‘secret’ FB page where all we do is bitch and moan about our work. Only a small minority of workers are part of that page…it’s invitation-only of course. 
And those who I am actual ‘friends’ with on FB, well, we keep work stuff off our timelines etc, but Personal Messaging gets a bloody good workout somedays.
Apart from that, whilst I might get political on my own page at times, there’s no crude jokes, naked fire-fighters or racist screeds. Think I’m pretty safe.
Yeah, I never say things I wouldn’t say at work (well, that’s not true. I’ll say more politically charged things. I’d never say that at work because it’s best to keep your opinions to yourself).
But I try to moderate language and content because you never know when someone will see your page.
I am friends with a guy I very vaguely work with who “likes” a constant stream of Suicide girls, sexy geek chicks, and related images. Lots of them are just terribly trashy and NSFW–I mean, no nipples or genitals, but barely.
I consider it horribly ill-advised, and it’s certainly given me a bad impression of him. Especially since he apparently friends everyone he even vaguely works with, including tons of women he doesn’t know well.
Pretty much, you should act around them the way you want to be perceived.
I remember a real example of Facebook with a client of mine. They put off payments to many people on promises that everything would be paid after a big lawsuit got settled. After the lawsuit, they told many people (including myself) that it wasn’t as big as they thought and they still didn’t have money to pay past-due bills. However… they posted on Facebook many extravagant purchases that totaled about $50,000.
And when the IRS audited them, copies of Facebook postings were used to show that employees were working on days that payroll records said had no employees.
These are just some of the reasons I don’t have a Facebook page at all. There is nothing in my life that should be public information. (And, yes, I know that permissions have evolved. Doesn’t really matter.)
Personally I don’t have any friends on Facebook from work, I don’t use my real name and I don’t have my employer listed.
Work and personal lives, separate things.
Everything on the internet is in one way or another visible to EVERYONE. Any FB friends or people you message or anyone could do a screen-grab of anything you post and send it out for all to see.
With a few exceptions among very few people I trust (like, three), I keep internet stuff “mom proof” - even here for the most part. If someone with basic skills started sleuthing it wouldn’t be that hard to dig up who I am.
Good Facebook hygiene is always a better idea than posting stuff that can make you look like a creeper/bigot/idiot, no matter who is on your friends list.
I got into an argument with some idiot in FB who was a friend of a friend. He went so far as to Message me. I screen grabbed what he sent me, because he’s too stupid to know how shit works, and sent it to our mutual friend. I couldn’t tag him or send it to his friends because no one was a facebook friend of mine, but our mutual friend could. She blasted it to everyone on his friends list and then unfriended him.
This is why people post pictures of food and cats.
I always kept social media and work completely separate. When I left my last job, I “friended” two co-workers (because I was leaving and liked them as friends). 6 months later, I went back to work there for a different team, remotely, then transferred back to the original team that had had some changes while I was gone. So I went from always keeping work and social media separate, to having my boss and my team leader as my facebook friends. I didn’t unfriend them, because they are genuine friends, no matter our work situations
As far as different behaviour… nothing has really changed. I wouldn’t post about looking for a new job on facebook now though. And I wouldn’t bitch about my job. But then, I never used to bitch about my job anyway because who wants to hear that, so really no change other than being discreet if I ever start job hunting.
Do I care if my boss knows I had a big Friday night? Nope. Do I care if my boss knows I took a long lunch break and went for a horse ride? Nope. Does my boss care if I did X, baked Y or had funny thing Z happen to me? As a boss, no, but as a friend, yes.
That said, I do think keeping facebook and work separate is a good general rule, but there are exceptions
My activities on facebook are not work activities, so the limits are not like they are at work. That said, I wouldn’t post sex jokes anyway, due to what selection of friends and family I have there already.
You should in general act in “work safe” way on Facebook. If you have friends you do that other stuff with, they should probably be in a separate group, and you only do that stuff with them. You really shouldn’t do that stuff uninvited.
I mean, my cousins do that. And they’re pretty much all thought of as rather crude, and my family talks about them behind their back about it.
BTW, the same goes with getting into public fights. Do it in private–you can be private on Facebook, even.
I filter the utter hell out of everything.
My coworkers are on my general feed. None of them have access to any of my filters.
I rarely post on my general feed, so there you go.
I’m generally not FB friends with co-workers. Mostly because I’m (in my best Thurston Howell III voice) management, so when someone new shows up, especially someone older than me and friends everyone, I won’t accept. The next morning sometimes ask why I didn’t accept (or even deny) the request. I’ll start with and easy ‘yeah, I just don’t go on that often’, but if they push it I’ll tell them I’m not friends with anyone from work. Other than family, they can see that I’m not even friends with my ‘work wife’…um, work husband?..best work friend there it is? The guy most people, customers and (new) employees alike, think is one of my best friends…not a facebook friend, and I keep it that way.
Now, of course, the fact that 90% of my employees are 16-19 and I’m in my mid 30’s changes things as well. In that they usually don’t even think to friend me and they usually instantly friend each other.
Also, don’t forget, you can accept a friend request from whoever you want, then unfollow them, and put them on a restricted list. You’ll never see anything they post and they won’t have access to anything you post.
Quick note about this, though. When you unfollow someone you know, it doesn’t hurt to check up on them once in a while. A close(ish) friend of mine had a baby without me even knowing she was a pregnant? Whoops. Luckily I saw her walking down the street before I bumped into her face to face. Also, I’ve had people confront me about not being able to see any of my posts. I’ve used two excuses 1)"Oh sorry, my facebook friends are automatically split into two categories, everyone and then like 2 or 3 friends and a few family members that can see my posts and/or 2)errrr, there was a 2, but maybe I’ll think of it later.
TLDR, you can be friends with someone but still not see what they post or allow them to see anything you post.
I generally do. Facebook for me is about 75% funny stories about work or my kids (not humblebragging, unless making my kids sound like tiny little weirdoes is humblebragging). I’ll post pictures of hilarious kid writing, minus the names, or tell anecdotes about something kids did that will make people laugh. That sort of thing, the sort of thing I’d gladly share with co-workers.
When I engage in politics, I do my best to keep it as respectful as I can. Sometimes I fail in this, which I’m sure is a giant surprise to people who know me from here :).
This is what happened with me re my coworkers. One of them, in particular, is famous for following people but not posting anything except for inspirational epigrams. He was starting to get a little too nasty-nosy with the whole thing, so I said fuck it, I’ll re-follow everybody and just won’t put any of you on any of my filters.
The coworker who started friending everyone, including me, was somebody I initially felt bad for because it was obvious he didn’t have many friends to begin with. He’s since friended a bunch of upper management. It leaves me with a very bad taste in my mouth, which is why I now seldom post in my general feed.
Anything of substance I want to post there goes on a filter and can only be seen by a select number of longtime friends.
I don’t accept Facebook friend requests from my co-workers, no matter how friendly we are IRL. When I leave a job (which I’ve done twice in the FB era) I will accept or friend the people I want to stay in touch with. But if we’re co-workers, then I probably already see or communicate with you almost daily, and who knows if someday one of us might become the other’s boss or any number of conflicts could arise. Nope, no co-worker friends on FB for me.
I think you should generally conduct yourself on Facebook and other social media in a manner you are comfortable with the entire world seeing, as opposed to hoping to hide it from specific groups.
I’m generally FB friends with coworkers if I’m friends with them outside of work as well, or if we are friendly at work. I think it’s actually kind of odd to keep your work and personal life completely separated. You spend 8+ hours a day with these people doing the same work. There’s no one who you would want to hang out with socially? You never grab a beer after work with some coworkers? I generally view it as a shitty place to work if people just show up, do their job and go home like automatons.