Should we be Facebook paranoid?
I’ve been asking myself this question ever since I’ve had a series of conversations with a teacher friend of mine. A police officer had come to his school district to give a presentation on the “dangers” of social media, and a point he made is that employers can easily request your Facebook record (whether or not they themselves can access your profile) from Facebook itself; and the company will readily comply.
To me, this sounds like utter bullshit, but my friend has reassured me that this is a) part of the Facebook TOS, and b) the reason why employers can do this is because Facebook is “technically” a public domain website. To be honest, I’m not so sure and I’m no legal expert, but I find it hard to believe that employers and Facebook have some carte blanche agreement where user information is so readily given. Of course, if someone knows better please leave a comment!
But getting back to the question: should we be paranoid of Facebook, to the point we very carefully analyze our decision to post something? My teacher friend cited a case where an employee was fired for posting a Facebook status critical of NJ Governor Chris Christie (again, this reeks of civil rights violation to me). Or do we just need to rely on old common sense?
Like I’ve said, I find it hard to believe employers can so easily request your information. Personally, I enjoy Facebook and I like having one because it puts me in control of my online identity. I recommend my friends to have a Facebook so they can do the same, and some businesses I’ve worked with I’ve implemented Facebook Pages. But my teacher friend? He won’t even go on Facebook anymore.
