I was going to say something similar - the field I’m in has many, many openings and can’t ever seem to get them all filled, so I’d be able to look elsewhere.
I’m pretty sure the practice (which I doubt is very widespread, but makes for great shock reporting) of asking for passwords will disappear after the first company gets sued over it. They’ll keep looking everyone up on Google and Facebook, though, and I can’t really get mad at them over that. If you’re posting stuff that could get you in trouble, you should be better with your security settings.
When MySpace, Facebook, and all the others first came out, I envisioned something like this prospective employer/job interview thing happening. And I couldn’t understand how people were just publishing all this stuff from their private lives. Even if they expected only a few friends to look at it–you never know when a “friend” suddenly might become an enemy.
So I don’t give damn about Facebook’s policy. From the very beginning, I could see nothing wrong with having one Facebook account for nosy employers, et al, and another one for anything else.
Of course, that’s not necessary on this board (nor is it permitted or justified), because really, most people don’t even know that this board even exists. However, considering how many people come here to complain about their employers–it really would be a better place for them to be checking than Facebook.
What with your advanced degrees and all what part of the op’s creating the hypothetical
did you fail to understand?
Nope. It wasn’t. Your comment was threadshitting.
To the op: IF I was in that circumstance (specified as desperate) I would hope that I’d have enough spine to state that my private life is just that and to refuse. But I have nothing incriminating posted anywhere and desperate is desperate. I’d probably cave.
For those who have so many job offers they can laugh off an employer that asks, here’s a different take: what if your current employer announced that all employees were to give up their username and passwords? New company policy, to check up on any illegal outside activities. Anyone who refuses gets reprimanded and possibly fired. Do you hand over your passwords? Do you quit? Do you sue?
I’m just trying to posit a similar kind of no-win situation as the desperate person in the hypothetical in the OP.
Honestly, in that situation I would consult a lawyer. If it came down to me having to give them my passwords or be fired, I’d be looking for a new employer.
You’re not a Moderator, so you don’t get to declare that, “Dr.” If you want to accuse me of having broken the rules about “threadshitting” you should have reported my post to a Moderator. I can’t possibly understand why you don’t know this.
Given your last campaign of insults and personal slurs against me just because I seriously owned you in the last debate in the Pit, I expected nothing less from you than a drive-by insult here as well.
I would delete any unnecessary accounts and hide the others. I would not turn them over. I’ll wager my ability to hide accounts is orders of magnitude better than the ability and effort our IT people would want to spend on it.
Time for the SDMB to re-consider their sock policy - have a real account, and have the fake, Potemkin Village account to fake out employers.
That actually brings up another problem with Facebook - the way Facebook desperately wants to connect all of your online activities together. I can see having a fake Facebook account to let employers look at, but Facebook would connect all my accounts together and defeat that.
Una Persson and DSeid, please keep your personal squabbles out of this thread; Una you, in particular, should dial it back. We’re not in the pit thread where you were allegedly “owning” people.
In Europe and the UK this would definitely be a breach of the data protection laws.
Even if you didn’t get the job, you could sue and win.
There is of course the issue of how the employer could force it anyway, but the mere requirement of PW would be a criminal offence.
There would need to be a warrant for disclosure, and even that is not in the remit of employers such as the military, police and other security services.It would have to be part of a criminal investigation.
Out of interest, how does the US deal with password to such accounts and the fifth amendment?
I am now so damn glad I’ve been impersonating my cousin here all these years instead of being me.
I think some folks are getting a bit off track with the whole password thing. The password here helps but its your user name attached with the real you they are thinking of hiring thats mostly going to possibly get you in trouble.
And congrats to all you folks that can easily say “fuck you” and look for another job. Plenty of other folks are not in that position.
Right now at least, I suspect a company CAN say something to the effect “tell us where you spend time on the internet posting about stuff”. If you need a job its either lie or tell em to fuck off (which doesnt pay the rent BTW). Tell em to stuff it and you don’t get the job you need. Lie and it could well bite you in the ass down the line since its my understanding that many corps have a lie about the smallest thing on the job application and its definite grounds for firing (I personally know someone that happened to…and it wasnt even a lie, more of an ommision because they thought they knew of it from stuff other than the standard application form and this was something from 17 years ago! and their boss and their bosses boss WANTED to keep the person…but no go Joe…out the door).
Ironically, much of my company’s business model involves mining social networking data.
But no, under no circumstances would I provide such information. I wouldn’t be confrontational about it. I’d simply not do it. Much in the same way one of the other managers just doesn’t fill out his timesheets.
No worries Ellen Cherry. If Una Persson has a personal squabble with me it is a one way affair and no concern of mine. I honestly don’t comprehend how anything I said was out of bounds or inappropriate but you’se da mod. If you want to explain further to me via PM fine but please feel no obligation to do so and I will, as requested, say no more here.
Returning to the op: seriously, the hypothetical includes desperate. There are principals that I would risk my home and next meal for, that I would risk my ability to help my kids get through college for, but what I post here is, in my mind, not even private, let alone ever embarrassing or incriminating. I have no delusion that I am anonymous here or perhaps anywhere on the net. If I wasn’t desperate such a demand would perhaps make me less likely to choose that job, but OTOH, given that most jobs involve dealing with communication using tools not too dissimilar to a MB environment, and require dealing with all sorts of behaviors from others in those environments, I could see an employer making an argument that they want to see how I communicate in those casual but sometimes conflictual circumstances. If such an argument was made I might not consider them so poorly.
Yep. I’ve implemented enough policies to know that you never get 100% compliance. Hell, my last company you had to fill out your goals at the start of the year and then at the end of the year that was what they used for your performance review. 90% compliance - 10% of people didn’t bother and they and their boss filled out some bullshit together at review time.
At that point, I’d rob them blind and leave. No you can’t have it. If you require it as a condition of continued employment, then I am going to consider you a target, worthy of no ethical consideration, whatsoever. If you can’t consider me as a worthwhile person, then I refuse to give you the same consideration. Prepare to be robbed. Prepare to be fucked. I’m going to do exactly that to you. Bend over.
