New Software For Employers To Monitor Facebook

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports that a new service called Social Sentry has been released to monitor employees' Facebook and Twitter accounts for $2 to $8 per employee. The service also plans to support MySpace, YouTube and LinkedIn by this summer. 'Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, a research and advocacy group, called the automatic monitoring of social networking a "disaster," and predicted that it would lead to people being fired for online griping, the airing of political views and other innocuous conversation. There is a tendency to react to an off-color joke or complaint that appears online more harshly than to the same comment made in a cafeteria or company picnic.'"

Comments

Easy enough to avoid

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Don't use Facebook on company computers
2. Keep your profile private
3. Don't post work related topics on other user's profiles (they may not be private)

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[Red Flayer]

1. Yes
2. Yes.
3. Yeah, too bad non-work-related posts may be damaging as well. Your personal, non-work opinions and writings can get you into trouble at work, whether that's fair or not.

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[drachenstern]

No, the way this would work is that they monitor ALL your usage and so you get screwed when you're not at work and are griping.

Nothing to do with being at work and using the services.

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[Kamokazi]

1. Don't use Facebook

Why did you type all that extra text when you had the perfect solution from the beginning?

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[Culture20]

1. Don't use Facebook

Why did you type all that extra text when you had the perfect solution from the beginning?

Because if you don't use Facebook, Bob will for you. You know Bob, the weasel who's looking at the same promotion you are? Yeah, that Bob. A profile picture of you from either linkedin or the company website, then add some pictures from Girls Gone Wild, etc. None of the ggw ones have to show you, just show that you hang around with a wild crowd. Then some photos of a KKK meeting, and "fan of Grand Wizard Cletus" for good measure. You might not get fired, but you're not getting promoted.

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[Albatrosses]

You used to, but they opened it up to everyone a couple years ago.

I still think the best solution overall is to just not use Facebook at all :)

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[JLavezzo]

I've never understood the appeal in social networking.

It's the white-listed email system everyone was speculating we'd need when spam got too bad.

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[Anachragnome]

I entirely agree with you.

From a security perspective, social networking appears (to me at least) to have more damage potential then having your identity stolen. You'd still have a job after someone cleaned out your bank accounts, but the stuff that people put on social networking sites will haunt them FOREVER.

FOREVER.

Finally got that 15 minutes of Fame? If so, expect every single thing attributable to you on the web to be instantly scrutinized by everyone with whatever motives, good or bad. The paparazzi-types will have a field day with what they find.

 

Re:Easy enough to avoid

[vitaflo]

One interview actually got ended when the interviewer told me that I was a fossil and too behind the times to be part of their company because I didn't have accounts.

Whether you know it or not, this person did you a favor.

This seems a little overblown

[grahamsz]

In particular it seems that this service is monitoring publicly available posts and also flagging how many of them happen during work hours. Considering employers are likely within their rights to monitor when their networks are used to make private posts, this doesn't really seem so bad.

It might serve as a wake-up call to people who share too much publicly.

Re:This seems a little overblown

[vux984]

Considering employers are likely within their rights to monitor when their networks are used to make private posts, this doesn't really seem so bad.

Given how many of us own personal laptops, personal smart phones, and have personal wireless data plans, this doesn't really seem so bright either. I am also legally entitled to breaks from work.

I'm actually all in favor of IT locking down and monitoring the corporate network to -protect the corporate network-. However, attempting to monitor or restrict the corporate network as a measure to control employee behaviour and/or productivity however is doomed to failure.

If the employee has a blackberry and a 15 minute break, who is management to tell them they can't update their facebook page. (Sure there are perhaps a few isolated work environments where it would be reasonable to prevent the employee. But the VAST majority of jobs out there... it just wouldn't be realistic to even attempt to enforce such a policy.

Re:This seems a little overblown

[grahamsz]

Well you are posting on slashdot during normal work hours in the US, so there's a good chance you already know the answer to that question.

Most employers i've had have a fairly reasonable policy on that stuff. I'll post when i'm waiting on builds or during my lunch break, or sometimes when i'm just pissed off and need to "walk away" for a bit.

Your public activities outside of work have always been fair game. If I wrote a letter to the local newspaper slamming my employer then I'd fully expect that to come back to me, why should a blog post about it be any different?

Re:This seems a little overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you be posting while you are supposed to be working anyway? If you are stupid enough to do this at work then you deserve what you get.

That mentality ignores that many salaried workers stay late to complete projects or tasks that are important to the company, even when they do not get paid for the extra hours (yes, they are being stupid).

Or, instead of a smoke break, maybe they respond to email on their pda.

Of course I don't use any of those sites, except for linkedin.

Re:Jeebus - just block facebook, it's not that har

[dancingmilk]

Communications manager who uses Facebook for the company's Facebook group.

There's a reason for you. One of many in my place of work. Facebook access is blocked for the average drone, but there are a few folks that have reasons to use it for work purposes.

'Learning" Social Networking

[whisper_jeff]

Prior to Facebook, social networking sites were pretty much utilized only by the "geeks" of society. Now, with Facebook, everyone and their mom and their grandma has a page. With this flood of people unaccustomed to "life on the internet", people are learning how to conduct themselves on social networking sites all over again. Not only are the non-geeks learning how all this techno-babble works - geeks are also learning how the new social networking environment works. For example, prior to Facebook, on other sites (LiveJournal, for example), my contacts understood that what I said there was to remain there. They were virtual conversations with my friends. Now, however, I'm realizing that the people I have on Facebook do not have that innate understanding of "how it works." Things I say on Facebook, just as a venue to vent, become an issue. I'm being forced to re-evaluate how a social networking site "works" because of all the people who are now using it who just don't understand how it _should_ work.

All of this is to say that it's a very dangerous time to be active on a social networking site. _YOU_ may understand how it all works. Your _FRIENDS_ may understand that you're just venting about a shitty day at work or whatever. Can you be certain your MOM or your BOSS similarly understands these things?...

Re:'Learning" Social Networking

[mcgrew]

You seem to have forgotten MySpace.

Lucky bastard!

Re:I would like to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Hire better people. If you have to be concerned about this you need 1) a good web filter or 2) a new job because you can't manage.

Hardly enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's hardly enough. Suppose you're an American who holds Democratic views. Your superiors happen to be hardcore Republicans (the fucking crazy kind).

They're monitoring your social media profiles, and see that you've joined Facebook groups supporting health care reform, joined some groups opposing the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, you've made some comments suggesting you think it's fine for homosexuals to marry and adopt children, and you once twittered a pro-abortion news article link.

Now, they wouldn't have known this about you otherwise. But now they do know. Even if they don't fire you outright, they'll treat you differently, for sure. Maybe they won't trust you. Maybe they won't give you tasks that would allow you to further your career. After all, they probably don't like you any more, just because some political views you expressed differ from theirs.

All that can happen without you using your account at work, without you discussing work-related matters, and even if you keep your profile "private" (which for Facebook these days seems to mean it's open to just about anyone...).

Re:Hardly enough.

[Wizard Drongo]

Well, the founding fathers kept slaves, and thought that was just dandy so yeah, holding the same views as 18th century folks in the 21st century does make you fucking crazy

Re:Hardly enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

hardcore Republicans (the fucking crazy kind).

If holding on the constitution with the same exact views as our founding fathers did is crazy then, I am a complete loon and proud of it!

That doesn't make sense. Do you imply that you're a hardcore republican? Or do you hold the same view of the constitution as our founding fathers did? They're mutually exclusive (if any of the writings attributed to our founding fathers in any way reflect their thinking).

Re:Hardly enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

I must have missed the part of the Constitution where people could be held indefinitely and tortured. Not to mention the obviously massive writings of the Founding Fathers on the subject of hating gays and abortions.

Re:Hardly enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

hardcore Republicans (the fucking crazy kind).

If holding on the constitution with the same exact views as our founding fathers did is crazy then, I am a complete loon and proud of it!

You are a loon, for two reasons. First, I don't think the founding fathers had any one view; they were as split politically as we are. Second, even if they were unified, why should we adhere to views that are over 200 years old? Views that consider slavery to be just fine, and that consider blacks to be 3/5ths of a human being for reasons of district representation, but then deny them any say in that representation, not even 3/5ths? The Constitution, as originally conceived, allowed only white men who owned property eligible to vote. Not women, not blacks, not Native Americans.

Times have changed, bud. Mostly for the better. The founding fathers weren't infallible. They weren't smarter than we are and they weren't better. To infer that we should do things their way is to say that our system of government is authority-driven rather than subject to the will of living voters, and that's a load of crap. We need to make our own way in the world, and that has to include everybody, not just rich white people.

Re:Hardly enough.

[iamhassi]

"Perhaps you should actually learn about our founding fathers views [wikipedia.org] on slavery before you condemn them."

Did you even read the article you linked to?
"According to historian Stephen Ambrose: "Jefferson, like all slaveholders and many other white members of American society, regarded Negroes as inferior, childlike, untrustworthy and, of course, as property. Jefferson, the genius of politics, could see no way for African Americans to live in society as free people.""

Re:Hardly enough.

[twidarkling]

How's that a strawman? The GGP said "The exact same views." The GP pointed out a view that the founding fathers had, and pointed out how that exact view is no longer universally acceptable. That immediately destroys credibility, since you can't hold *all* the *exact* same views, unless you're down with slavery.

Further, anyone who thinks the constitution is a dead document, never to be altered or changed is a fucking moron, in my books. The founding fathers never could have conceived of the world we live in today, nor of what would become hotly contested issues, and so never addressed it in the document. To hold today's world to a piece of paper that was never meant to address the state of current society is narrow-minded and specious at best.

Re:Hardly enough.

[Shakrai]

It's the farce of "at-will" employment. You're not really free when expressing your political opinions outside of work could cause you to lose your job.

So what do you purpose to replace "at-will" employment?

You're not really free when expressing your political opinions outside of work could cause you to lose your job.

So if you found out one of your employees was a member of the KKK, you'd keep him on the payroll?

Re:Hardly enough.

[Beardo the Bearded]

That's because both Democrats and Repblicans are facsists. They're trying to get bigger and control what you're doing.

See, I'm a conservative. I think the role of government should be as little as possible -- provide services that are otherwise impossible, like a military force, roads, water / sewer, police, fire, etc. There isn't a party out there that agrees with my views. I'd like to think that my views are widely held, but as my friend say, "hmm, I seem to be the only one who thinks sandwiches should be made out of brick".

The response to things like abortion, gun control, DRM, and gay marriage shouldn't be "we'll make it legal" but "that's not the role of the government". So am I pro-free-market? No. Again, there are things that require regulation for public safety. Between informed consenting adults, then there should be no limits as to what they can do. If I'm not informed about your water distribution's quality, then I can't be informed and consenting.

I'm neither left nor right wing, nor am I centrist. I don't fall into any category, and I'm just disillusioned with any of the options. And hell, I live in Canada where we've got 5 or more mainstream parties to vote for. You guys are fucked.

Re:Hardly enough.

[Dutch Gun]

Further, anyone who thinks the constitution is a dead document, never to be altered or changed is a fucking moron, in my books. The founding fathers never could have conceived of the world we live in today, nor of what would become hotly contested issues, and so never addressed it in the document. To hold today's world to a piece of paper that was never meant to address the state of current society is narrow-minded and specious at best.

Yes, if only the founding fathers had considered the notion that the Constitution might need to be changed someday.

Re:Hardly enough.

[nine-times]

The founding fathers never could have conceived of the world we live in today, nor of what would become hotly contested issues, and so never addressed it in the document.

Once, while I was advocating the government taking a greater role in regulating the Internet (in terms of infrastructure, i.e. Verizon, not in terms of content), a Republican relative of mine complained, "If the founding fathers wanted the federal government regulating the Internet, they would have put it in the Constitution!"

I literally face-palmed on that one. When I reminded him that they didn't really know about the Internet in the early 19th century, he said something like, "Well they didn't say anything about cars or telephones either!" Double face-palm.

Finally I pointed out that the most advanced technology that they would have had at the time was someone carrying a handwritten letter by horseback, and that the Constitution had specifically given the government the power to get involved in those kinds of communications. Essentially, the Constitution gave the government the power to build the most advanced communication and transportation infrastructure available at the time: to hire people to carry letters all over the country and even build a network of roads for them to travel over. He didn't believe me, and asked, "Ok smart guy. If the government was allowed to do that, why didn't they ever do it?" I would have tripple face-palmed if I had three hands.

Re:Hardly enough.

[dwinks616]

I think the role of government should be as little as possible -- provide services that are otherwise impossible, like a military force, roads, water / sewer, police, fire, etc.

Except things like AFFORDABLE health care are also not available anywhere other than from the government. Last I checked, the goal of private health care is to cover as little as possible, reject as many claims as possible and charge as much as possible for it. Government health care is 180 degrees opposite that. Don't go trying to claim that "competition" between companies promotes anything other than than the claim-denying, pre-existing condition denying, price-gouging system we have today, because that's false, not to mention I can't buy out of state insurance, so it's not really competition anyway.

Re:Hardly enough.

[s73v3r]

Nobody has ever said its "Free Healthcare for All". Even the post you're replying to says that it comes out with his taxes. The only difference is that he doesn't have out of pocket expenses for most things, and he doesn't have to worry about his financial future when something happens.

Re:Hardly enough.

[The Yuckinator]

So you're saying (and please correct me if I'm wrong..) that:

1) You would rather not be taxed for a single-payer healthcare system because you don't want to have to pay for other people's medical needs, except horribly-diseased children. You would prefer to pay for your own medical costs and wish everyone else would do the same.

2) "One price for everyone, insured or not" isn't what happens in a single-payer system.

3) Some procedures such as sex changes, boob jobs or granny hips shouldn't be covered in a single-payer system.

This is the easiest format I could think of to reply with any sort of coherence:

1) I'm not even sure what to say here. A friend of mine (Canadian) had a pneumothorax while in Buffalo at a concert. She didn't have out-of-province coverage (around $10/day) for the few hours she was going to be in the USA. An ambulance brought her to the hospital, the hospital performed assessment and informed her of her condition. She asked to be taken by ambulance back across the border and the hospital refused, citing liability reasons. One surgery and six days later she is released with a clean bill of health and goes home. The following month she receives an invoice for over $40,000 USD.

Ok. Fair enough. That's the way it works and she wasn't covered for her trip outside of Canada.

I'm still trying to figure out why you would prefer to pay out of pocket (e.g.) $40,000 for an issue that
puts you in the hospital for a week. One could live very comfortably for an entire year on that much money in most small towns in Canada.

I am honestly curious as to how you see this as "a better option" compared to simply paying for it in small increments through a payroll tax that everyone else pays too.

Interesting Fact(?): I have recently left the unemployment rolls, the payroll tax was deducted from my Employment Insurance cheques for the entire 9 months I was off work.

2) Actually, this is exactly what happens in a single payer system. We just don't pay at the hospital, and the run-away prices that you mention are regulated by the "single payer".

3) Cosmetic procedures are not covered under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. Boob jobs are definitely not covered, and I can only imagine it would have to be an incredibly extreme case where the patient must absolutely change their sex or they will die (hey, I said extreme) - they MIGHT be eligible to get that surgery on the public dime. Probably not, but it would definitely make the papers.

Old ladies' hips are definitely covered. Old men's, too.

By the way, I'm pretty sure people are blaming your insurance companies for happily accepting payments for years from loyal clients only to deny them coverage in their time of need through what appears to be any means necessary. It reminds me of Bill Gates on The Simpsons "not getting rich by cutting cheques". It just seems so....wrong. As a nosy neighbour Canadian watching from the North side of the fence, it has always baffled me that you kept letting them get away with it. I'm shocked that this has been such a point of contention down there, and really I suspect it has a lot more to do with politics and hurt feelings than really thinking the government death panel is going to kill Grandma when she turns 82. Did people really believe that line?

I cannot deny that single-payer doesn't fix everything but it sure seems to fix a lot more sick people compared to what you guys have had up until now. At least the insurance weasling is being dealt with, that is a great start.

On a personal note, how grey is the sky in your world? Wow. 80 year old grannies? Really?

Re:Hardly enough.

[twidarkling]

See, I know that, but I don't feel that's good enough. Remember my whole "a different world when it was written" bit from a few posts up? Things like the Internet absolutely cannot, nor should be, regulated by individual states, especially with the influence the US has on the Internet in general. But due to the original phrasing of the Constitution, the Feds aren't allowed to say shit about it, technically, unless they try and pull the "crosses state boundaries," which unfortunately opens up all kinds of problems. It's a shit stop-gap measure, and not nearly enough. It's a way to stifle conversation and forward movement, not find a way to improve how the governments act and interact. Hell, I see similar shit in Canada all the time. The provinces tell the Feds to go pound sand, the federal government threatens them, and it's all a big "juris-my-dick-tion"fest, and that's with the powers a fair bit more defined. What it should be is "the powers not delegated by this document will be fairly debated and apportioned, with the ability to revisit as the world changes." Health care? Probably best managed by an entity not concerned with profit, and with funding requirements spread across as wide a pool of people as possible. Thus, it makes the most sense to have a properly constructed health care system overseen by the federal government. But that would never have been foreseen back when that was written. Alternatively, roads are most often used by the people living in an area, and so should be planned and maintained by those with the greatest interest in their use, so that should be a State thing. And tying the whole drinking age to road funds was just dumb. That should have been a state thing too.

Smart Employers

[tpstigers]

Smart employers don't give a crap whether their employees go to Facebook or MySpace or whatever, so long as the work gets done. Nitpicking over every minute is an idiot's response to an unproductive workplace.

Re:Smart Employers

[Skyshadow]

You must be new to the workforce.

Hurray!

[stovicek]

Nothing being said about monitoring slashdot!

Re:I would like to know

[SirGarlon]

the time and resources they spend on personal items while getting paid by me is no less than stealing

If they're assembly-line workers, then probably yes. If they fall in the "knowledge" category, then I disagree in principle. To expect a human to mentally function at top efficiency without breaks and diversions is not reasonable. So, if you are the kind of employer who has hourly-wage employees with scheduled breaks, then you have a right to complain if your workers are slacking off on the clock. If not, then I think you are shooting yourself in the foot with a policy that equates employees taking a necessary 10-minute break every 2 hours with "stealing."

Obviously, if their personal activities are interfering with their productivity then that is another matter. I think you should evaluate your employees on productivity and overall quality of work, not on whether they keep their noses to the grindstone all day, every day.

Re:I would like to know

[Anonymous Coward]

>the time and resources they spend on personal items while getting paid by me is no less than stealing.

On the other hand, you like to steal your employees' time by not paying them overtime?

Re:Firing Reason

[Phrogman]

What is to prevent them from merely listing the reason as "inadequate performance" or some other description?
When you have a job, your employer has you by the short and curlies and can more or less dictate whatever the fuck they want - in one way or another - if you want to keep the job. Its not fair or right in any sense, but it is Capitalism in action. Only in cases of outright discrimination, or where the employer has been remarkably stupid, do you end up with any legal recourse if they violated the law. Any smart employer can fire you for any reason they want while saying its for some other reason I am sure.

The solution is not to work for an employer who is that fucked up if at all possible.

Re:This is not just happening INSIDE the workplace

[Anonymous Coward]

Try EFF as well.

Works well until...

[Mirele]

...your mom starts using the nickname on everything.

My legal first name is five letters and frequently (as in "always" outside my family) mispronounced. Searching it straight also brings up a website I don't want my employer or my parents to see. So I went with a three letter nickname. Easy to pronounce, works great, a romance author has the same name. My elderly mother likes it so much she now uses it on everything. The point was to keep work and non-work life separate--and she's blurring the lines. Oh well, it could be worse.