Washington D.C.-lawyer Bradley Shear:
"I can't believe some people think it's OK to do this,” he said. “Maybe it's OK if you live in a totalitarian regime, but we still have a Constitution to protect us. It's not a far leap from reading people's Facebook posts to reading their email. ... As a society, where are we going to draw the line?"
Great question. Where DO you draw the line?
The comparison to revealing one's Facebook status and their subsequent posts to being able to read emails is a slight exaggeration, but it's a fair point. With personal email, it's a social, not work or school related thing, and the same goes for Facebook. One of the most important things in this world is the ability to socialize outside of the bubbles of work and school, and Facebook is the world's largest medium of socialization. Sad, isn't it? We socialize more with people on an internet sharing site then we do face to face.
So, what will happen when these passwords and private posts are revealed to the schools and employers who desire to track them? Simple. People will stop using them to do anything that could be considered the slightest bit immoral, whether it be talking about having drinks with others, or sharing the details of their romantic lives. When this happens, what will employers and schools do then? Require access to text messages and the ability to tap phone calls? It's a slippery slope as to where this stops.
I understand the concern- Employers don't want loose cannons at their workplace, especially given the type of job. I doubt McDonald's will be participating in this, but Im sure medical professions will. I know in my line of work, a drunk driving offense from 10 years ago can provent someone from ever working in the field per most employers. Hell, this was the case with one of my staff, who got a DUI 8 years ago. She couldn't get a job anywhere, and she's the best employee Ive ever had, with a perfect track record otherwise. So while I understand some of these concerns, and the need to ensure some measures to be taken, this is incredibly and unneccesarily invasive.
Should schools and employers want to identify warning signs? Sure, that's smart business, and it's an accountability measure as well. I understand that. You see issues like the boy from the school in Ohio whose Facebook posts were disturbing, and noone picked up on that. We're all aware of the sad situation that occured there. With an increase in these violent incidents, places are going to want to do all they can to take preventative measures.
But in the end, it's not going to matter. You can place all the restrictions you like on social media sites such as this, and people are simply going to stop using them to update their social lives. And if they are that loose cannon the school or employer are trying to weed out, they're going to both stop using Facebook for social means, and that behavior is going to come out anyways.
And in the end, you're going to be left with the other 99% of people having their right to privacy violated, in the truest lose/lose situation you could ask for. The logic is understandable, and it may weed out a bad seed or two, but the giant possibility is there for innocent people to unfairly lose their jobs or school status because of innocuous comments they make, or misinterpretations by the school/employer.
If you think privacy settings on your Facebook and Twitter accounts guarantee future employers or schools can't see your private posts, guess again.
Employers and colleges find the treasure-trove of personal information hiding behind password-protected accounts and privacy walls just too tempting, and some are demanding full access from job applicants and student athletes.
In Maryland, job seekers applying to the state's Department of Corrections have been asked during interviews to log into their accounts and let an interviewer watch while the potential employee clicks through wall posts, friends, photos and anything else that might be found behind the privacy wall.
Previously, applicants were asked to surrender their user name and password, but a complaint from the ACLU stopped that practice last year. While submitting to a Facebook review is voluntary, virtually all applicants agree to it out of a desire to score well in the interview, according Maryland ACLU legislative director Melissa Coretz Goemann.
Student-athletes in colleges around the country also are finding out they can no longer maintain privacy in Facebook communications because schools are requiring them to "friend" a coach or compliance officer, giving that person access to their “friends-only” posts. Schools are also turning to social media monitoring companies with names like UDilligence and Varsity Monitor for software packages that automate the task. The programs offer a "reputation scoreboard" to coaches and send "threat level" warnings about individual athletes to compliance officers.A recent revision in the handbook at the University of North Carolina is typical:
"Each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitoring the content of team members’ social networking sites and postings,” it reads. "The athletics department also reserves the right to have other staff members monitor athletes’ posts."
All this scrutiny is too much for Bradley Shear, a Washington D.C.-lawyer who says both schools and employers are violating the First Amendment with demands for access to otherwise private social media content.
"I can't believe some people think it's OK to do this,” he said. “Maybe it's OK if you live in a totalitarian regime, but we still have a Constitution to protect us. It's not a far leap from reading people's Facebook posts to reading their email. ... As a society, where are we going to draw the line?"
Anyone care to make the over/under on the lawsuits that will arise from that?
