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"Pre-Crime" Comes To the HR Dept.
storagedude writes "Like something out of the Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, a startup called Social Intelligence is mining social media to weed out job applicants based on their potential for violence, drug abuse or just plain bad judgment. The startup also combs sites like Facebook and Twitter to monitor current employees, presumably to monitor compliance with company social media policy, but as the criteria are company-defined, anything's possible. Just one more reason to watch what you post, folks."
It's better than the "IQ" test if it predicts behavior.
It's better than the "drug" testing because not every drug user is a drug addict.
It's highly focused on what actually matters.
If you are rational you won't go online saying and doing stupid things in a way in which it's linked to your workplace persona. If you are irrational and completely lack self control then you might, but then you might be like that Barksdale Google engineer and I'd rather people like that guy be filtered out than to continue with hiring irrational but brilliant.
That being said nobody is rational 100% of the time, but those people who are at work using their work computer to search for pornography -1, those people who are spouting idiocy under their real name -1, those people who don't protect their name, their reputation, as they would protect their company -1.
Create a persona that is unbelievably wonderful. Give that persons a handle and its own email account. Then if you are asked if you go online give them that persona's handle and email address. Your live in uncle must own all those other handles and he uses your PC a lot. But you are the one who constantly emails about rescuing orphans and stray dogs and cats and attends all patriotic functions ad nauseum.
In a bad economy, sticking it to the individual worker through HR seems to always creep up.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Guess what? You are advertising yourself.
You agreed to it when you signed up.
You agreed to it when you decided posting your life on line was a good idea.
Not only to future employers but to the marketers who are sold your data from Facebook, Twitter, et al.
You already sold your right to privacy by:
a) agreeing to the terms of service.
b) thinking there are no consequences for permanent and historical archiving your stupidity.
Companies already have the option to fire you for most any reason they see fit. You've just now made it easier.
They do, however there are limitations on what they can do. They can require a drug screening and back ground check, references, but something like this is questionable at best.
Basically sounds to me like their trying to find a legal way of going back to pre-affirmative action times and hire people based upon things other than fit and qualification. Perhaps I'm a bit cynical, but this looks like a convenient way to not hire minorities.
Just one more reason to watch what you post, folks
Or one more reason to make ethical career choices, such as not working for a company that doesn't respect your right to a private life.
The hardest thing about being in HR is justifying your existence. The HR department where I work spits out a constant stream of useless projects, purely so they can claim to be doing something. For example we have a program to encourage employees to find people to apply for jobs at our company, but there are no positions open to apply for. The list goes on.
Snake oil products like this are ideal for HR. They take maybe a fifth of an HR person to administer, so it looks great on the HR managers resume (always looking for that next job, go home and update your resume). They use money (administered a budget of $DOLLARS, also great on the resume). They sound like a good idea. Its sounds really web 2.0 and hip to be involved. Really, it can't fail.
It just won't work.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Hah! For that to happen, they would have to notify the people they defame.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
If these people can't get a job, what motivation do they have to change? If you've got nothing to lose and no prospects of anything better, why not commit crimes? Do we really want violence prone drug addicts wandering the streets with nothing to do?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The thing is, more people get caught in the crossfire for no reason. For example your boss might object to your political stance, or he might not like you being a atheist, or he might think you're a drunk when there's only one picture of you at your birthday. Maybe he sees you dressed as a woman at a halloween party and fires you because he's homophobic. If your name is John Smith, good luck cleaning up your online identity.
Sure, some of those things are technically illegal reasons for firing, but really, in the US it isn't that hard to fire you for any reason (sometimes even no reason). Until the position descriptions have "24hr company representative and diplomat" in them (with appropriate pay), what you do on your own time and dime is your business. This just smacks of companies trying to squeeze people by the balls even harder.
And best of all, you can find out things through Facebook that you are prohibited by law from asking your employees. Want to discriminate against employees on the basis of religious or political beliefs? Gotcha covered!
It's highly focused on what actually matters.
What actually matters is job performance, period.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
sorry there are a small number of jobs that require any background checks and a much smaller number of ones that require serious background checks - sounds like a lot of HR dept's in the states have a vastly overinflated sense of their importance.
sucks if your dyslexic though
Shouldn't we be giving credit to Phillip K. Dick for authoring this story idea instead of Spielberg who, undoubtedly, has enough credits to his name and merely directed this film?
FUCK. THAT. SHIT.
That is all.
(Goddamn filters for caps.)
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Yeah. It would be just like life before 1995.
they specifically mention the fact that if you're tagged in an image your boss is contacted
What a great way to get rid of workplace rivals! This will enable a whole new level of viciousness in company politics!
Seriously, it would take very little work and very little risk to completely ruin someone's career.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
Aside from the fact these people are monitoring pictures tagged with your name, which are not necessarily posted by you. Are you going to walk around in an invisibility cloak all the time to keep people from taking pictures of you?
And how are you supposed to know if someone decides not to hire you because you're a catholic/wine taster/gay/republican/metalhead/model/democrat/atheist/country fan/jew/bagpiper/brewer/etc. I think you put far too much faith in the rationality of managers.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Your phrase people who selectively adhere to the law as they see fit sounds to me like a euphemism for "people who think". I know that's not how you intend it, and I'm not sure if the opinions in your post are yours, or your view of how employers operate, but it bears noting that laws are sometimes ridiculous, sometimes capricious, sometimes arbitrary. Frankly, I wouldn't *want* to hire someone who blindly follows all laws, without regard to how sensible they are -- not least because such a person would very likely be bad company. I'd much prefer hiring someone who thinks.
Granted, that can be difficult to ascertain from an online profile. But online evidence of lawbreaking wouldn't automatically rule someone out for me -- depending on the law(s) in question. Being discriminating is not in and of itself a bad thing; it's all in how one goes about it.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The assault on workers happening in the U.S. is going to continue unabated until those well-fed people you see on TV marching around dressed as Sam Adams figure out that there are bigger villains out there than the black guy in the White House.
I'm continually surprised how many /.ers are really right wing, pro-corporate, anti-union, anti-tax freeloaders. 40 years of "government is bad" has become a lifestyle for a lot of people here.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Most likely they'll provide a series of risk factors with a score for each on a scale of 0 to 100.
Drugs: 30 Violence: 6 Judgment: 45 ------------- Overall: 27 (risk: moderate)
Huge difference between that and "this person is a druggie with lousy judgment".
Why not? They already have the general public by the balls based on FICO scores. And just how is a FICO Score calculated?
"Your FICO score is calculated each time it is requested according to a proprietary formula by Fair Isaac Corporation, based on information reported by the three credit reporting agencies, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Each time it's calculated, it uses the most recent information held by these credit bureaus."
The exact factors use to calculate FICO score depend on the person."
You can't dispute a FICO score because the exact process is proprietary.
They are right-wing, anti-union, anti-high-tax citizens. The left wing faction unfairly tacks on "pro-corporate" and "anti-tax freeloaders" to demonize them.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
You really haven't been paying attention for the last forty years if you think that bad practices will be competed out of the market. I mean, really?
40 years of bad government has a way of doing that
They are right-wing, anti-union, anti-high-tax citizens. The left wing faction unfairly tacks on "pro-corporate" and "anti-tax freeloaders" to demonize them.
It's not that unfair. While no one can speak for me or my views any more than I can speak for his, "small government" types usually think that government should be small across the board--including regulation of corporations. This is effectively pro-corporation, as few corporations have ever demonstrated self-restraint. Worse, there aren't many real "small government" politicians anymore. Conservatives (/Republicans) used to be, but the neocon movement has somewhat changed that.
Personally, I'm more of a populist, which is an ideology which is demonized by both liberals and conservatives.
Oh, you mean the same Europe where they are trying to pay of the same financial abuses of the their Financial system by sticking to the little people rather than accumulating debt and then sticking it to little people like the US. Yep, in Europe those cheeky Europeans are refusing to be stuck with the debt and burden of the rich and greedy and are forcing those governments to rethink their choices and basically stick it to the rich and greedy for screwing up the financial system.
Sure looks like the rich and greedy in Europe aren't going to get the "we take all the profits and you take all the risks" free ride, whilst in the US it is all "please sir may I have another" from the bottom while the top whine they still don't have enough. The free ride for the rich in Europe is certainly coming to an end and no amount of mass media bullshit will stop the free exchange of thought going on between the majority via the internet and then taking it to the street as a public show of determination.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I match two of your three criteria. I suppose pretty much all three since I brewed beer a couple times. Thanks for calling me a racist narcissist. That's really awesome of you.
I'm assuming that you are simply uninformed or confusing people that believe in small government with today's Republican party. They are not the same thing.
Democrats and Republicans disagree on many things but there are some fundamental issues where they are in lockstep.
They agree that the First Amendment is not as important as the needs of the federal government.
They agree that there is no problem that cannot be solved with enough tax revenue (even though they disagree about where to get it).
They agree that it's totally fair for government employees to retire a full decade before the rest of us, and they agree that only an idiot would rely on Social Security when you can vote yourselves nice pensions funded by the taxpayers.
If you look at your 1040 and are happy with what you see, good for you. As for me, the value I receive for the money I spend really pisses me off.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
And, oddly enough, that "evil" Democrat Bill Clinton's administration probably had the best economic policies out of the last four Presidents' (inclusive of the current one) administrations.
Yeah, but he had sex. Little things like a balanced budget, reducing the deficit, a strong relationship with our allies and the lowest unemployment in decades .... don't get fooled into believing those are good things.
This is completely untrue, and I don't think I've even seen tinfoil hat types claiming that before now... Facebook offers targeting to groups of people based on criteria the advertiser enters, it never reveals who the users are that meet those criteria, nor who clicks the ads, etc.
That's my point, we don't live pre-'95 anymore and the richness of the online experience has become integral to our modern lives.
And if I don't have a rich online experience that can be publicly related to me (using pseudonyms and such), does it make me a freak, a suspect or both?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
And you get +1 funny instead of insightful. This is how reliable the "online experience" is. Good luck explaining to your boss why "someone on the Internet" called you a rapist.
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
Ok, so let's say I decide that it's in my interests to have no online presence (not that I have much of one now). I will delete and disown everything about me that is online. How long before having no online presence is seen as subversive behaviour? Nothing to hide nothing to fear right? Well if I'm not showing something then I must be hiding it...
-- Margaret Thatcher
Both Europe AND the US needs leaders like that now more than ever.
I hope you're kidding. People like Maggie Thatcher are what got us into this mess.