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How To Lose Your Job, Thanks To The Internet

Posted by Zonk on from the it's-easy-if-you-know-how dept.

The New York Times has up an article discussing the trend of employers tracking the 'free time' activities of their employees via their web presence. "When they do go off the clock and off the corporate network, how they spend their private time should be of no concern to their employer, even if the Internet, by its nature, makes some off-the-job activities more visible to more people than was previously possible. In the absence of strong protections for employees, poorly chosen words or even a single photograph posted online in one's off-hours can have career-altering consequences." The piece likens this activity to the 'Sociological Department' that the Ford Company ran to monitor the home lives of their workers. Overstatement, or the corp as Big Brother?

1 of 654 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not much is new here. by Snooby2008 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think the main problem is that we can't really separate personal opinions from business ones.

    Freedom of speech is a nice thing, but in real word people don't say to employers what they think if it means they lose their jobs. Goverment mostly protects citizens being harassed by goverment itself, but it does very little if private citizen limits other persons freedom of speech or goverments agencies as employer do it.

    Or lets phrase that again. Yes, anyone can say anything and freedom of speech is almost without limits. But no law guarantees using that right won't have consequences like losing your job or business. On private or public sector.

    And thats the fundamental problem of political rights. If they don't protect people who exercise them economically too, they are just laws that state 'you can do this or that - if you can afford it'.

    In real world it means that if you can't afford it, you have to give away your rights. Even those protected in name by constitutions. So actually, freedom of speech for example, knows bounds.

    Fundamentals question is then, shouldn't political rights be also economical rights?
    Shouldn't they be if they can't be separated in real world?

    What are those rights that can't be taken away, but you can't afford to exercise? They are no rights at all far as I can tell.