Slashdot Mirror
Why Making Facebook Private Won't Protect You
itwbennett writes "Facebook's privacy settings, such as they are, don't hold up in the face of prospective employers who demand to see applicants' profiles. In an MSNBC report, Bob Sullivan found that '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. ... Meanwhile, on the other side of the barbed wire fence, coaches and administrators are forcing student athletes to 'friend' them in order to monitor their activity of social sites."
Never register there, period.
Ezekiel 23:20
Think a prospective employer could do this without knowing an applicant's age, race, sexual orientation, marriage status, and so on? Doubtful.
Facebook?
A job?
Some colleagues and I were discussing this yesterday, and came to the conclusion that we'd dump facebook first, but the job wouldn't be far behind. The problem is when every company is doing this. (The excuse our HR gave to justify ramming random drug tests down our necks).
Another reminder of why one shouldn't social network at all. Some may say that an employer or coach may force you to get a facebook profile, but it's much easier to fight it, let it slip through the cracks, or even comply when you get to start from a clean slate.
Between cell phone location and call logs, and Facebook, Americans now volunteer for a kind of self-surveillance the former USSR only dreamt of having on its citizens!
I'm happy to live in a country where such practices are illegal.
We all seem very determined to turn our countries into fascist states don't we? This sort of intrusion into people's private lives shouldn't be tolerated, but the public outcry is negligible.
What matters most to you? Weigh it up. Right to personal privacy off-the-clock vs need for immediate employment under debasing conditions.
Then excuse yourself, grab your jacket and leave the building.
It shouldn't be hard to allow users to add a distress password that would make Facebook appear logged in but would hide anything that would not be visible to outsiders.
And likely never will. I suspect that's so far out of normal that they simply won't believe me. So I'll create an account that's simply never used. Maybe they won't believe that either. Who knows.
Seriously, if someone tells me that I have to go through a whipping session to get a job, I'd decline. The same goes here.
Apple built a platform for their ideas, Google built one for everyone's.
I have a FB account, but it's virtually unused, and of very little utility to a prospective employer. Nevertheless, any employer who demanded to make such an invasion of privacy would be one I would cross off my list in that same instant.
The facebook acct I use is not my real name. Just provide the acct name to your friends that you want to interact with.
John Smith Jr XXXVi
The moral of the story(as always) would appear to be that purely rules-based protections(even when they aren't fundamentally flawed by design, as facebook's certainly are) are essentially useless in the face of a real power imbalance.
Facebook is a bit novel in that it produces such a very juicy target for lifestyle police, and one that is fairly persistent; but it isn't as though there is any conceivable privacy policy/enforcement mechanism that could protect you from somebody who has the real world power to make you defeat it for them.
They ask you to log in to your Facebook account before they even know you. If this happened to me, I would refuse and then politely excuse myself.
Requiring future employees Facebook profiles access is just dumb.
Job seekers just have to make one more profile (preferably when registering the first time), a fake, neutral profile (name.firstname instead of firstname.name, etc.). I bet one day you 'll find specialized services for maintening fake/neutral profiles. Facial recognition should not be a trouble with "adequates" shooped profile pictures.
I mean hey...if they want to see our "private" facebook page, they might as well pay a private investigator to follow us around and see what we are up to in case we forget to post something to facebook. I'm sure there were a few "shady" things I've done that an employer would love to know but outside of the 8-4 they don't have much of a right to know what I'm up to. Maybe I'm wrong but I guess there should be an certain expectation of privacy. Then again, if they really want to see my facebook profile they will see how boring my life is and how I only post pictures of my dog.
Are they also asking to log into my bank accounts so they can monitor my financial status and transaction history?
I used to use facebook since the early days.
But then I deleted it. My google+, facebook, all gone.
Got sick of the privacy issues, having my personal information being sold for money (while I get NO benefit from it), and now THIS ....
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
What about having a google+ account for work and a hidden/private facebook account for your friends?
facebook lets you group friends and assign permissions to those groups as to what they can see. just group the boss and your teachers into a dead end group, set it up in the permissions not to allow them to see anything or the very bare minimum and that's all
Why is no one raising the issue that demanding users hand over passwords violate Facebook's Terms of Service?:
4. Registration & Account Security
8. You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.
9. You will not transfer your account (including any page or application you administer) to anyone without first getting our written permission.
Unfortunately, with the job market so tight, I'm sure applicants would be reluctant to push back on interviewers who either ask for passwords or ask for the applicant to login to one of these sites. However, I would be suspect of any employer that demands I violate terms of service as a condition of employment. Indeed, I would be suspect of any prospective employee who so readily violates such agreements.
Not if they are making those sorts of demands of me. Same goes for any other "activity". If they are demanding i give up my privacy to make them happy, I'm gone.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It stopped being your private life when you posted it to the Internet.
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
This (perhaps naive) effort is an attempt to prevent gang agents from infiltrating the department. Local gangs are actively recruiting relatives and acquaintances without criminal histories to work as correctional officers. Many of those job applicants are barely literate and do not realize that their Facebook pages are a give away of their gang connections. They simply give up that information. Apparently, the next step would be full lifestyle checks akin to what fed agencies do. Much more expensive but also effective. Disclaimer: I do work for MD DPSCS.
That's all I have to say about Facebook really: Too bad something that has potential to keep you in touch with old friends OR maybe make new ones (or even dates) has "gone sour" & is being abused/misused!
Yes - this is a HUGE part of the "why" of WHY I don't use it myself - & I really wouldn't be silly enough to post EVERY DAMNED THING I do on it either, because no matter what you put down, someone's either not going to like it, or find fault with YOU by it...
Man - I see this shit going on constantly by employers or law enforcement lately, etc./et al... it's taking away from using the thing imo!
(I also do feel that people might post TOO MUCH of their personal lives in it @ times as well - they're using it as a 'daily journal', except the entire planet can see it... is this a 'good thing'? I think not...),
Worse still?
I, for a FACT, know that many people create & start using 'fake accounts', in addition to their true one...
E.G.-> I've watched an old friend I know do this after a breakup of a 4++ yr. relationship use facebook to 'stalk' & track the doings of his former girlfriend.
Do I think that's 'right'?? No. In fact, I think it's a WEE bit 'sick' but that's what *love* (for lack of a better expression here, because I do NOT consider being possessive to such an extent, love) does to people @ times.
In fact, I keep telling him what my subject-line above says - to stop doing it, quit playing a game you CANNOT WIN, and get her OUT OF HIS THOUGHTS & LIFE for good (she's gone anyhow, has another guy).
Anyhow/Anyways:
This is the kind of crap that makes me realize that being single has a LOT of savings on "drama" if not trouble. The worst kind of trouble - the kind one can create for themselves.
(Yes, just like they do on this website & others with 'registered luser' accounts)
They use these multiple/doppleganger accounts to surveil &/or stalk others no less....
* In the end?? Yes... it's just "Human Nature @ it's Finest" I suppose... Seems that the bogus side of us always seems to "shine through" - how sad.
APK
P.S.=> It's truly interesting watching Facebook "play out", because it only mirrors what I have seen (doubtless many of yourselves as well) online from the days of IRC for myself (1994-2001), & right into forums boards such as this one!
... apk
.... is not to play.
Seriously. Lots of my friends want me to join facebook but I staunchly refuse.
Call me old fashioned (at 35) but I consider Facebook and social networking a fad.
Maybe it doesn't help that I still check my mail with (al)pine. :)
-Miser
Better solution if you do use Facebook: laugh at the people demanding to see what you're up to and walk away.
It must be wonderful to have the luxury of never having a hard time getting a job.
You should remind them that accessing another user's account is a violation of facebook's terms of service, even if that user gives them permission, which potentially makes it a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. 1030), i.e. a felony.
In addition, there are various other questions that employers cannot ask during interviews because doing so violates federal equal employment opportunity legislation, meaning that accessing a user's facebook account opens them up to lawsuits.
There is however one valid legal use for asking users for their facebook accounts, namely screening out employees who'll create a security risk by being especially vulnerable to social engineering. If an employee will have access to sensitive user or employee account information, then you might reasonable ask them for their facebook account password. If they provide it, you politely tell them they have failed the interview, thank them for their time, and send them home early. If they refuse, then you tell them they answered that question correctly and continue with the interview.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
So what the fuck stops me from having two or more facefuck accounts? One that I actually use, and one for shitheads who demand to see my fucking facefuck page?
Not a fucking thing. That said, I'd only need one, since I facefuck and fuckspace and shitter are all waste-of-time sites.
If I were an employer, I would ask anyone applying for a job with me to show me their social media or networking pages, or whatever the shit. If they do, they're spineless pussies so I wouldn't hire them. If they refuse, but they acknowledge having accounts, I would not offer them jobs because they obviously have time-management problems. If they have so much free time that they can waste it on facefuck or shitter or myshit or whatever the fuck, they are shitty potential employees, so they can fuck off, I'll hire someone who doesn't waste time on fuckface or fuckshitter or whatever useless waste of time bullshit site there is on the interwebs then.
Anyone else tired of hearing about Faceshit.com, Myfuck.com and Fuckr.web or whatever the shit?
Never before have so many people with nothing to say, said so little to so few.
Say you're not on Facebook. Hide yourself from search, or deactivate your account temporarily
Could you deactivate it before the interview, then reactivate it later? Change your password to a random string from http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/ so that you can't know it and then reset your password later. Do this for everything they'd want to look at.
Thoughts?
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
...enemies don't deserve honesty, you should lie, cheat, evade, obfuscate and bullshit as expedient.
I enjoy deceiving people who piss me off. They deserve it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
And this is why e-voting should be killed off. FB is something that is neutral. Employers and employees don't have any issues talking about why they want or don't want to reveal profiles. Overseeing someone's e-voting is taboo at the moment because for decades that hasn't been an option. Give it a generation and we'll have Tuesday Church Services where everyone who goes to your church is expected to attend for a voting party, where the computers are not hidden behind curtains and your neighbors can look over your shoulder. We'll have some straglers who claim they can't go to their Church event because their boss wants them to do the same. They'll tell their boss that their Church requires them to be there and since bosses don't want to run afowl of the 1st amendment, they'll let them go saying 'bring a print out to work.' When in reality they go home where their spouse watches over their shoulder instead and then as they doctor up a screen shot so their boss doesn't know they voted.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
If anyone buckles to this or can't think of an excuse as simple as "I'm not on facebook." is a fool. More importantly, that site is nothing but mouth breathers.
Almost all the savvy kids have been creating *two* on line avatars, one personal and one SFM. Safe for Mom. Now may be they will use SFM as SFE (Safe for Employers) or they will create yet another separate avatar for SFE. Looks like the only thing easier than creating on line avatars is creating corporations. "Corporations are people my friend". Now "Avatars are your friend my corporations".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...and refuse to let people invade your privacy. I would delete my Facebook profile before letting a prospective employer login and browse it.
If you're asked in an interview to provide your FaceBook login details, then ask everyone on the interviewing panel to do the same. And then go through their profile bit by bit, querying all photos and status updates. They'd soon change their ways.
But seriously, is this getting to be the normal thing to do in the USA? I've never heard of anything like this in the UK. It sounds horrendous.
Just Linked In. Do I not get a job?
(Seems that if you are over 30 and have a Facebook account, it calls into question your maturity anyway, no need to actually look at your profile.)
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
a) I have a FB account, but never use it. Nothing I've put there is private.
b) I have 1 friend on that account a guy with my same, fairly unique, name - he is a distant relative
c) I could not log into my own FB account since I don't know the password at a drop of the hat. That data is stored elsewhere and is probably a 55 character, randomly generated passphrase. I honestly do not know it.
d) My home network blocks facebook.net/.com/.org and about 10 other permutations. Nobody on my home network using any device gets to FB or twitter anything or to much of google. Every few months, I comment out the settings in my DNS and allow FB long enough to login and keep the account "active."
**Anything** you post to any online service should be expected to become public and be posted on the front page of the new york times. If you have some other expectation, you are wrong.
Have you ever read the facebook privacy policy? Anything you post can be used by them, forever, for any purpose. Don't be stupid.
How about saying NO?
What would you do if a potential employer wants to see you naked?
What if he wants the keys to your house?
Well, same principle.
Why Making Facebook Private Won't Protect You?
- Because posting something you consider private on facebook (aka publishing it on the Internet) is stupid and careless
- Because facebook employees have unrestricted access to your account
- Because it will be hard if not impossible to *actually* remove your information from their servers and backups
- Because facebook contracts moderating content to outsourcing firms and everything you post there risks being reviewed by an under-vetted, unfulfilled person on a dollar an hour in an internet café in Marrakech.
This is for all you "If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?" and "You're one in a million, nobody cares about your insignificant neck-beard life" apologists: Don't you see why it is bad that all that private information is aggregated and under the control of a single entity?
Even if it is done with reasonable safeguards and the best of intentions, which is definitely not the case with facebook, the simple fact that all this information exists online, tied to your real name, means that the potential for abuse is immense. And this is time it's not even facebook doing the abusing and profiteering, it's just an external third party.
And when you've been unemployed for a substantial amount of time and you are desperate for a job, who has more power over you than a potential employer?
Give up your privacy, pledge allegiance to your employer. Don't you love the neofeudalist world we live in?
lie - just like everyone does on job interviews
See , a lot of younger people may have facebook, but my experience is that people above a certain age do not have facebook. You would then be discriminating people by age if you reject any entry not having facebook or any social network. You better got a good layer if it comes to light.
Coaches and School admins have NO business butting into or forcing "Friend" status on student athletes. What the FUCK is wrong with this country? The founding fathers could power the world cleanly and permanently if we hooked up dynamos to the their corpses these days...
Some potential employers might demand you to take them off, and then make them a lap-dance.
Come on!
From an employer perspective, I will never "pre-screen" a candidate by their Facebook profile - sure, I could discover your age, gender, nationality, and social activities by doing so, but these are all things I can guess from your application by comparing it to the position you applied for (and any others), the manner in which you applied, the other candidates who applied, and the contents of your resume/cover letter. Besides, none of these things will affect how employable you are before the interview. The contents of your resume, will.
Once inside the interview, I will never ask a potential candidate to show me their profile or "friend" me on Facebook to give me access to their personal data. Instead, I will simply have a conversation with you - ask you what you do outside of work to relax, what's important to you on a personal level, and how you cope with certain work environments. No Facebook profile or resume can convey this, but it is the most critical portion of the entire process.
Every candidate is different, but the thing that most forget is that once you get to the interview, the employer already knows you can do the job - you're just there so they can assess whether you're a good fit for the team. If you keep that in mind, you will ace every interview you go to. You may even start to ask yourself if the job is a good fit for you - a question which will eventually land you your dream job.
Disclaimer - I regularly recruit for one of Canada's Top 100 Employers.
I know this is /. and everything typically has to be boolean/polar, but how about some more processing before rendering a knee-jerk yes|no and running to the high ground of your position ...
Ask the interviewer "Can you tell me what reason you need to see a personal account of mine such as Facebook?" If you're on track to a high-profile position, support of one or one where security is paramount, they may have a reason. I mean ... I know no politicians or folks in the public sector have done inappropriate things such as maintained inappropriate relationships or done shady business using just such accounts, but hey ... it just might happen someday, right!?!?!? So ... they may have a good reason to ask from their side. Some jobs do require background checks. This could be filed under that. That doesn't mean you have to give it to them. It just means that they have a [potentially valid] justification for it. If it's a wal-mart greeter position, I go report them to corporate and/or file a lawsuit. If it's part of the foreign service officer application process with the state department.
Ask/point out that you are uncomfortable with exposing friends/families information (as well as your own). Again, a security/background check may trump that anyway (if it's a condition of the job). While it's a policy, the human in front of you may actually consider that point.
Ask "How do I know what I show you will be kept confidential?" ... "Is any of this recorded digitally?" ... "May I ask how this factors into your selection process?" ... maybe even without being argumentative.
Maybe even ask them ... "Don't you wish you could forget all the inane* conversations/posts/etc. that you've seen doing this?"
Then ... if you don't get the job, ask "Can you tell me why I didn't get the position". If you feel it was related to one of your (or your friends') inane posts on facebook and/or it's discriminatory (e.g. they didn't hire you because they saw photos of you with blond hair on your facebook timeline and they don't like people who dye their hair) ... go for your lawyer ... or move on to a different job interview.
*Because yes, there is a whole heck of a lot of inane stuff on Facebook.
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
Should I ever require social media profiles for a job I hope I can afford to pay to have it created and 'managed'. This way I need not waste the time and can deduct it as the job seeking expense it is at that point.
I could have sworn I'd seen an article about this a month or two ago (maybe not here). If my memory is correct, a judge told the prisons they couldn't do this anymore, so they had to stop.
if you think this is a real possibility in your line of work, there's always the classic teenager move - the decoy account. The decoy account using your real name gets very bland, vanilla posts with bland, vanilla pictures, just active enough to make it look real (Mary Sue now LIKE'S the United Way and Habitat for Humanity). The other account with a fake name has those ones of you with the stack of red solo cups on your head while you're passed out and the sharpie drawings all over your face. The employers get free access to your decoy account, which not coincidentally, links to your parents' accounts and other decoy accounts.
2 accounts. one for bosses, one for making fun of bosses.
Some people don't,
Some deleted theirs,
Some are under aliases, with all of the privacy settings locked down such that searching under their real or fake name will yield no results.
So, what does a potential employer do if the applicant claims s/he doesn't have such a page and searching on his/her real name produces no results?
The motivation behind this Orwellian move in the first place is discretion. They don't want employees who will embarrass the org.
As far as they should be concerned such people will deliver on that.
The only reason this happens is that Facebook is a comparatively new thing, and it takes a while for issues likes these to work their way through the courts. Employers are nuts to ask for the irrelevant personal information that almost any Facebook account contains.
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/02/checking-out-job-applicants-on-facebook-better-ask-a-lawyer/
Better yet, you wrote all your emails and sent them online. They're all now public property, by your reckoning. Please post the contents of every email you've ever sent or received for everyone to laugh at.
It's clear that you thought you were posting a reducto ad absurdum argument, but nominees for high-level positions within the U.S. Executive Branch are required to provide the Whitehouse with copies of all their emails (as well as social network postings, blog postings, etc.).
Sadly, this not intended to eliminate corruption, ideologues or idiots but only to ensure that no overly embaressing surprises can come out during nomination hearings.
Do what most FB users do already: have more than one account.
I admit, when I first joined FB it was for games. That account has thousands of friends.. all sorts of spam and useless information in it.
If I absolutely positively had to .. eg.. served by a warrant.. sure. I go to nice police officer's machine. I login. They rape the account for all it's worth. Pity it's worth nothing. Yes, it's my name.. now prove that it isn't 'my' FB account.
In the meantime though, I'd be de-friending and deleting all other FB accounts.
Have 2 accounts.
If you're ever asked to produce 'an account', go ahead and produce the duff one.
What's the difference between them viewing your Facebook and asking you to provide access to any computer you used so they can check what software you have on it, and if it said software is licensed, and check any and all browser caches as well as your IP address so they can check other websites that show ip address logs to see where you have been?
Also it's it been said that you should know something about the company your are looking to work for. So in return do you get to see the companies books and access to all the employees Facebook accounts so you can see who you will be working with and for so you can make up your mind as to if you really want to work with them? It goes both ways. Also if I give them access does that mean that they will do Facebook checkups on me to make sure that I'm still what they want? Also I want a list of all smokers since I can't stand being around the smell of smokers (I'm an ex smoker and you know what that means). Also I want a list of all drinkers and as well as a list of every persons medical records since I want to know who can party and who is most likely to die in the next year or at least with the medical records know who to stay away from. Also I want to know who in the office does one night stands since that shows a lot about the person also. Where will this end?
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
My mother is always telling me to remove this post or that post from my facebook which I hardly use and is only visible to friends. I occasionally make a comment about something political or internet politics related. She said my employer might find it. I said that aside from the fact they're not on my friends list, if any employer a) wants to look at my facebook and/or b) is offended by a relatively innocuous political viewpoint, seriously screw them.
I hire for a Fortune 500 company which shall remain nameless
because of the possible legal ramifications of this post, the possibilities
of which are exemplified by the post written by "Ledow" above ( this guy sounds
like a real piece of work, and I am not making a compliment when I write that.
Companies dread dealing with idiots who use the law for frivolous vendettas. ).
I won't hire someone who has a Facebook account, period. And I _will_ know whether they
are telling the truth about this before the hiring process is completed.
Before you ask, no one is ever told that use of Facebook prevented them from being hired.
They are simply told that we found a more suitable applicant, and that is the end of it.
But the simple truth is, use of Facebook in and of itself indicates poor judgement, and we do not
want those people in our company. And this IS company policy. It is unwritten policy because keeping
it unwritten is the only way to avoid lawsuits.
If you want to project a top-level professional image, stuff like Facebook works against you in some
business environments. And no amount of whining about this being unfair or "wrong" is going to change
that.
Plan accordingly.
If you RTFA then it talks about the Maryland Department of Corrections. To work in a prison, you get background checked. In this case I don't think their demands are unreasonable but if it were @ McDonald's flipping burgers, then it would be none of their business but a guard or a cop, come on?
This is a fascist corporation problem, of which Facebook is merely one of millions. If I worked for a communist institution for 8-12 hours per day, you'd probably call me a communist. So I guess we're all fascists, since even though we have the power to stop corporate tyranny, we allow them to continue operating the same lousy way. Although I'm not a genuis, like some of you seem to be, I've thought a lot about this and I think it can only be resolved with serious campaign finance reform...like go medieval on campaign/political contributions by corporations/business. If they continue to insist corporations are people, then we'd have to go medieval on the Supreme Court. What I know is that corporations have been getting the upper hand on actual people for years and it's about time they were knocked back a few hundred steps.
If you wanted to get into social networking in the first place then wasn't the intent to let people see, know and read what your doing? We seem to always hear how there isn't enough privacy on Facebook or MySpace or Google+ but in the end why did you make a networking profile is you want to keep your life private. Once you put data on the Internet it's available for anyone who wants it. Sure you can claim people don't have the right to view it but then why did you put it up in the first place? The bottom line is if you care about the privacy of your actions / data then don't post it online.
What the hell!? Why in the world would any person allow a potential employer impose on their personal life like this? Would you let an employer have your cell phone and randomly call people in your contacts list? Have them browse through your personal computer to verify you're watching the correct type of porn?
Seriously, for the employee, this is silly for them to allow such practices. If an employer were to demand this sort of action form me I'd simply laugh in their face and walk away.
Also, for the employer... In this case, the MD Dept of Corrections. What the hell do they hope to achieve by doing this? I'm quite certain they aren't going to magically stumble on some big prison conspiracy that just happened to be posted on the applicant's wall. Is this really the kind of bat shit insane screening they use?
a legal situation that obviously does not protect job-applicants from getting forced to do this. How is that different from the employer demanding to get his boots licked as part of the interview? Or the applicant letting the employer read his secret diary book over his shoulder?
Unfortunately there are obviously too many people desperate for this kind of job, cause the correct answer to a demand like this would be "Go fuck yourself. Goodbye".
If everyone just refuses to go along with this demand the employers won't be able to hire anyone and they'll have to give it up.
It's not just your privacy they are taking away.
They will also get to read posts of friends that may have posted messages in confidence that they were private.
The potential employer, should also seek approval from all persons on your friends list before they themselves gain access.
2 bits, written poorly and so problematic on that basis, but with the right idea at their heart:
1) To protect students from having to provide their personal login info for social networks to coaches or administrators. This is in response to NC State (or is it UNC?) requiring exactly that, after the NCAA faulted them for NOT doing it after some NCAA student-booster violation of some sort. Nothing illegal mind you, but they broke NCAA rules.
2) To protect employees (or prospective ones) from having to turn over these credentials.
I say they're poorly written because they are too specific, and somewhat inaccurate, in their technical prohibitions. The university system testified that they were problematic because they would potentially prohibit US from requiring students use antivirus programs or other security measures when on our networks. We hope they're fixing that bit.
The right to work is mis-envisioned. Most people who think they have a right to work don't realize that it translates to a requirement to employ liabilities and lose one's business. The bigger issue, though, is that most people see the having of a job as the only means by which they can subsist, and so they consider it an extension of the right to life.
We are entering an era of such technological ascendency that very few people must actually work in order to provide for the subsistence of the entire population. Capitalistic values do not work well in such an economic landscape. The fact that civilized governments pay landowners to NOT grow food, in an effort to protect a market, while children go to bed hungry within their own borders, demonstrates the absurdities of this disparity.
Of course...people who can't find jobs are not content to just die. They absolutely will turn to crime instead, where they will either:
a) take your wealth from you by stealing it, to your detriment, or
b) receive free food and clothing, paid by your tax dollars, in jail.
We will be providing for their subsistence one way or the other. It would be better, however, if humans could maintain a more enlightened means of solving the distribution problem.
You might have to tinker with a minor lie... but seriously ... what happened to the hackers I thought were here. People that know it isn't just about computers, but hacking people, society, the law...
Step 1: Second profile
Step 2: Indicate you are a gay post-op transgendered 1/10 hispanic, 1/10 native american, 1/10th black zoroastrian 40+ male/female/something else I know shit about right now unmarried mother/father of 1 child with allergies that cause olfactory disorder once a year.
Alternately, asthma, diabetes, or IBS may count as disabilities.
Step 3: Insert a webbug to your webserver in FB profile so you can log the request, referrer page, time spent on the link. Not sure if this works with FB or not, but if you can't do a web bug or a full image--you can almost certainly file a civil suit, subpoena, drop suit and refile later. And if you're not willing to do that--you certainly *can* put links on the profile to your "wild party" (I recommend cheese tasting) that they will click on.
Step 4: You now have proof that the interviewer saw a LOT of things they shouldn't have seen. Probably coming from a company IP address
Step 5: Profit
- get the job because they should be too terrified not to hire you
- win a lawsuit because they went looking for things they should not have.
For extra epicness, be sure to have a link on your personal website to a password protected area anyone *can* register to access. Be sure your clickwrapped terms of service contains appropriate waivers, indemnifications, and confessions.
At a minimum, it should indicate anyone other than you is in violation of various computer fraud & abuse acts, separability, invasion of privacy, fraud across state lines, and provisions to collect damages for breach.
Now, your real goal isn't to collect on this -- it's to get whatever is inside to engage in a confessed act of Fraud (and unauthorized access) After they forward to someone else it's two counts (or if they just forward the login and impersonate another unauthorized user), and they're eligible for prosecution under RICO.
Now--nobody will take that case with a thirty foot pole--because the law is for rich connected people, not unemployed sots... But you do have analytics and logging on the portal right? So you've got a username, a registered email address that likely is HR@company.com, a trail of them clicking, a copy of the agreement at the time.
Now you get to say all sorts of HORRIBLE things about the company and they're all completely TRUE.
And you can settle with them and offer to take that proof offline for the low low cost of a year's salary, plus legal fees.
In the United States, employers are barred from asking about certain things during interviews (e.g., marital and familial status). Besides the generic privacy argument, perhaps someone will think of refusing to cooperate because it would expose aspects of the applicant's life that the potential employer may not consider. Perhaps HR teams will get wind of this, as well, and start telling their hiring managers to cease and desist before they end up as first-named-defendant on a lawsuit challenging the practice.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
What's next, are they going to ask to read my diary?
Just decline to confirm or deny that you have a FB account or a cell phone or a TV or anything else that is outside the work environment.
Its none of their business.
Look, if you fatally shoot yourself in the face there's almost always a benefit to the flower shop, but that doesn't make the overall experience even close to "a good thing." There's a difference between "no benefit whatsoever" and "overall not of benefit" that is not resolved by small compensations, especially when those compensations could be had in other ways.
Facebook is there to mine your presence and your postings and your contact's postings for profitable information which it then sells to corporations and gives away to the government, all without any reasonable oversight on the part of the Facebook member.
But wait, there's more: They encourage third party targeting of your personal life by linking other people's images and postings to you without your consent, they store your stuff after you thought you deleted it and they make it available to others, they actually sell their database of stuff (including yours) to corporations (just like Twitter, I should point out)...
On top of all that, they have extremely odious terms of service, terms that toss the idea of rehabilitation aside and promote the existence of an unrecoverable, unredeemable, unemployable, untouchable low class. Pee on a bush, or streak, or do any one of a number of not particularly troublesome things and end up on that magical, won't-save-the-children sexual offenders list? Not only can you not live near a playground, get a decent job, or ever vote again... even Facebook deems you unworthy. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad and misguided. Not to mention based on entirely wrongheaded ideas.
Facebook is not a good thing. Popular? Sure. That's because people just aren't very well informed (a good number of them don't even have the mental capacity to understand the issues), and because even people who could understand if they were clear on what is going on are just very poorly educated and not well versed in critical thinking.
And then there's these last couple of generations amazing propensity to share until conventional social boundaries are inverted... I'm talking about the kind of behaviors that lead to a clutch of teenagers walking down the street or sitting at a table in a restaurant, all with their cellphones pressed to their ears or fingering out a text, all the while ignoring the people right at their elbows. That is truly bizarre behavior. Facebook encourages it, and that's clearly a bad thing.
Me, I have no Facebook account; I turn off my phone when I have a guest, or am a guest; I don't talk or "share" when listening to music or perusing a film; and I don't respond to being told something by immediately turning around and spewing out some similar experience (that's just part of being a good listener, but I have noticed that particular misbehavior is very prevalent in the younger generations right now... it may be related to the whole social media thing. When someone tells you about X, the good listener listens, enquiring about that incident of X, rather than trying to riposte with their own experience of X-prime.)
Popularity does not equal goodness. Slavery was popular. The Nazis were popular. The drug war was popular (not so much these days, but look at the harm that's been done in its name already... lots more to come before society kills prohibition V2, I'm afraid.) Religion is popular. And hey... Facebook is popular, too.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Back when the internet was young, and I saw that everyone was using pseudos, I thought, "Why shouldn't I use my real name online?" Let's just say I learned why not. I do not use my real name on Facebook, just as I don't on /., or anywhere else. My friends know who I am, just as I know who they are, so pseudos work fine. When an employer, or any other nosy stranger wants to see my Facebook page, they're not going to find it. "I" don't have one. Of course, they will see some slightly embarrassing comments I made in the '90s....
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Felt that way myself @ times (like this lady you note) but, in the end? Heh - I am STILL trying to figure out just EXACTLY what that little 4 letter word means (probably just like everyone else on the planet & basically being driven by reproductive urges to perpetuate the DNA strand/human race, when you come down to the "brass tacks" of it)...
Thought I knew what it was once (i.e. - feeling like you'd give your life for that significant other person etc./et al) but I am finding it's a HELL of a lot more than just that is all, and you have to be responsible to others & NOT hurt them (use them only basically for sex, support either psychological or financial etc., or whatever - LOT of that going around, not cool imo or smart "long-term" either) & most importantly - be responsible to yourself, first.
Without that?
Imo @ least - & in the end (especially when women start looking into you & asking questions) You CANNOT be good to others!
(Hence why self-improvement & making personal goals first are important, ala "be ALL YOU CAN BE" 1st, then look for the right girl that's in your 'class' or what you desire... I'm 'big' on that, because you have to feel like a million bucks to get that 'ideal girl'...)
* Yes, it's another 'social experiment' on MYSELF actually I am doing, but I think it will have good results (after years of NOT getting good results because I was not following that set of 'rules'/playbook).
APK
P.S.=> Per my subject-line above - "Want to get the QUEEN? Well, 1st, you've GOT to make yourself 'The KING'" but, what do I know? I am just like the rest of us, experimenting with life...
...apk
Anyone who voluntarily goes to work in an environment like that is (hopefully) the kind of individual who accedes to authority and willingly subjects himself to a level of scrutiny that normal people would never consider. I'm not sure I would knowingly associate with such a person. I would assume that they either have one foot in jail themselves and working in "corrections" is a path out of trouble, or that they are the kind of person who gets off on the level of authority that one can only get in a profession like "corrections." I personally would never be able to do it, not even if it was the only employment prospect. If that was my last and only option, I'd seriously begin walking in any direction until any other option arose.
But I'm sure there are people who not only choose that path but even compete for the privilege.
Here's another one by this troll/stalker of mine:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2705955&cid=39247051
* Now, I KNOW there's a lot of "geek angst" going around, especially amongst computer freaks - but, I truly must have 'dusted' this idiot that stalks/trolls me here, for him to keep this up as much as he/she does!
The samples from this week you provided as well as this one I just put up are only a TINY FRACTION of the sum of them all...
Fact is, because I bookmarks when this dolt does this to me here?
Well - I could literally probably post 100's like it from the past 4-5 yrs. here now, and far more from years past I literally bookmarked for occasions just like this one, to expose this sick dolt that is an obvious victim of his own "geek angst", obviously, in trying to 'take me on' in computing tech and losing, constantly, then resorting to his 'sicko online psycho-stalker" tactics (as you have noted and I also).
* He's also impersonated me here and other spots online... he has, to be NICE about it, "issues"... serious psychological ones (but I am not a 'shrink' so, take that for what it is).
APK
P.S.=> In the end/bottom-line:
Thanks for 'sticking up for me' though, I appreciate it - you don't see much of that nowadays... apk
Besides all the privacy issues there is another reason to refuse: security.
I try to avoid typing passwords on any computer that I do not fully control. There is a real chance that the computer is infected with some kind of spyware. For my own systems I use two-factor authentication in the rare cases that I truly need remote access from somebody else's computer.
Unfortunately that is not possible with Facebook. While my Facebook account/password by itself is of little value, it could be used in a social engineering attack. Besides that it would break my habit of not typing passwords on other peoples computer.
Any job that I would apply for would (should) appreciate this position.
I'll allow a perceptive employer to see my Facebook page if they'll let me see the company financial books. That way we can both know there's no funny business going on.
Otherwise we can both agree to trust each other and get some work done.
"I bet you also tell him to blackhole her in his hosts file, eh?" - by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08, @08:45AM (#39286827)
See subject-line & subsequent replies beneath your trolling/stalking attempt (they show many others this week you've tried & shot yourself down on in with technical errors in them too, lol)...
* No hosts file involved, but in a way, yes - 'blackhole route' thoughts of her OUT of his life/mind, period!
Just to save himself the heartache that's in vain (because she's not coming back, and imo, would cut off his balls IF she could & was given such opportunity and yes, she TRIED to, not literally cut his nuts off, lol, but to ruin him.
(Amazing, because he IS the 'good guy' in the situation, I know them both well enough to make that assessment)).
I hate seeing either guys or gals go thru it, as I have BEEN THERE MYSELF... not worth it.
You either:
1.) Dispense with useless efforts in vain - get over it, get over yourself (boo-hoo my feelings are hurt - join the club, it's happened to ALL of us).
or
2.) Find someone else (crutch basically, & often bogus to do because your heart's STILL 'stuck on' the other person for a while even when you find someone new many times)
or lastly & imo, the BEST:
3.) Get feeling better about yourself, & improve your lot in life so YOU feel better about yourself - this often means being by yourself for a bit (this one I'd recommend above the other 2 above in fact) to get over it, and feel good about one's self again, because once more - without that? You cannot be confident enough to be good to others, not really.
* Still, the bottom-line others noted here was that you DO INDEED, prove my point on sicko-stalkers using the internet... irc, forums like this, myspace, facebook, you-name-it.
(You're kind? You help ruin a good thing for everyone else!)
APK
P.S.=> Still, I do NOT know why on earth you keep up this stupid stalking of myself, especially regarding hosts files, because there's nothing you can do to disprove my technical points on them and that's just plain dumb of you to even TRY... let alone be constantly shot-down on your technical mistakes in (always)! You're either an illogical immature adult in my estimation, & yes, a "geek angst" riddled idiot whom I have 'gotten the best of' on tech issues online, OR, you're just some juvenile child - take your pick either way? You lose... apk
Most prisons are built as public-works projects in remote communities where your other choices are making minimum wage at McDonald's or the gas station. Prisons can get away with this because the local workforce is often desperate for a good-paying job.
Advice: on VPS providers
Which is just one of the many reasons I foresaw as sufficient to never join this little fucking scam named Facebook. Thank god.
Re: their stock price.... I'm thinking stampede away from FB.... I'm thinking bubble.
One with your real name and bullshit minimum information that you don't care if anyone sees.
The second with a fake name (fuck you facebook) and your real life, as much as you don't care gets shown though it'll be more difficult to tie it back to you if you bullshit the essentials.
Anyone who puts anything on facebook has to assume it's private. Facebook doesn't give a shit for anyone's privacy.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
I legitimately no longer have a facebook account. I did. But deleted it well over a year ago. I hated that my friends were no longer my real friends. No need to get together and chat when everyone already knew everything.
Getting invited to events from across the country due to some idiot with just a blanket invite? Yeah, some friends they are...
Old college buddies saying: "I can't wait to catch up again!", and then never messaging me back. Making me realize why we lost touch in the first place. ...
So my question, after that rant, is... What if you don't have an account? You tell the employer that you don't have one. Of course they won't believe you as EVERYONE (/italics) has an account. Will they accuse you of lying? Is there any way for me to prove myself? Being self-employed, I really don't give a rats ass in the end, but this is going to affect someone somewhere as folks leave Facebook for Google+ or the multitude of other all-encompassing sites fighting for your attention.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
smart persons will refuse, so they pick only the refusing ones as future employees.
"Facebook's privacy settings, such as they are, don't hold up in the face of prospective employers who demand to see applicants' profiles."
"My home computer's security settings, protecting the personal diary I keep, don't hold up in the face of prospective employers who demand to see my private writings."
"My front door's lock, behind which I keep lots of private stuff, doesn't hold up in the face of prospective employers who demand that I give them access to my home, follow me around for a while while I lounge and generally do private stuff."
"My pants zipper doesn't hold up in the face of prospective employers who demand that I give them drop trou and display my junk because the guy who wants to hire me is afraid if I sleep with his secretary, she may see that someone else's penis is bigger than his."
Where is the security problem and failure here, really? Is facebook to blame when you give someone else your password?
So what does that say about my prospects of getting hired by a dumb employer? Oh wait!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I NEVER had one ... nyah, nyah, nyah!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I had one job offer that would have required me to take a drug test in order to take the job. While I knew that I would pass, I felt that it was something that I would never do for a job. I told the company that if my word that I don't do drugs was not good enough for them, then there was no point in hiring me. I walked away from the whole thing. Honestly, if you don't like the requirements to get the job, don't take the job.
Maybe I should create a Facebook page ... and fill it up with stories about how I filed lawsuits against numerous businesses that refused to hire me, and won millions in awards.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I would turn the table and ask them who has time to play games. Facebook is a toy. They are wasting their time, and they are wasting yours.
This is America. You are free to be self-employed. Grow a pair.
Now I have real work to do.
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Didn't think athletes could read or write? ;)
Okay, seriously... Why would they be particularly interested in athletes? Wouldn't regular students also write 'interesting' stuff on social media?
I mean... take Columbine... The jocks probably just wrote about cheerleaders and keg parties, while the Trenchcoat Mafia just might have written something more serious and interesting...
There's also the reverse issue... What if you were monitoring things and FAILED to spot a student planning to shoot everybody... Is the school now responsible?
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
The simple act of refusal based on the argument of one's privacy is always an option.
This act of coercion should never be allowed.
There's business and there's pleasure.
That is ridiculous, I would have to say your facebook account is part of your personal life and no ones business unless you allow them access to it. I can't believe I even read that, I would tell the interviewer, couch etc. to fuck off.
bkw
"You don't have any friends, and none of your so-called "old friends" want to keep in touch with you. " - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14, @04:34PM (#39357343)
That's funny - could've fooled me! How would YOU know anyhow?
---
"Yeah, we all know this "old friend" is actually you " - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14, @04:34PM (#39357343)
No, sorry, it's not me: I don't & CAN'T even use facebook (the way my system's setup, I can't even access it, oddly enough - not without a heck of a lot of hassle, and to me? Facebook's a waste of time to be honest... it's for people seeking attention imo, more than anything else (sure, there are legit uses for it, such as staying in touch with people, but that's about it)).
---
"I bet you do tell yourself that." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14, @04:34PM (#39357343)
You're right, but, I don't just "tell myself that", I do & have done it, because it works. You eventually move on, & realize there's a lot more in life of immediate concern that demands attending to, not some failed relationship.
It's the right thing to do, for yourself, & for the 'former significant other' to just "let it go", because there's no point once things go shitty in a relationship.
We've all been there.
---
"How's it working?" - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14, @04:34PM (#39357343)
It works! You simply "move on" is all... & either find someone else, or you stay by yourself & work on things that need doing that are FAR more important for daily existence.
* Pretty much 'common-sense'.
APK
P.S.=> By the way - You can stop 'stalking' (and libeling) me now by anonymous coward posts (I have 100's of them recorded by this point so you know) which you have been doing like some mentally troubled sicko, through many of my postings on this website...
That is stalking you know, & against this site's policies, AND, the law itself as well... apk