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California Employers Can't Ask For Your Facebook Password
J053 sends word that California has passed legislation making it illegal for both colleges and employers to request social media account access from students, employees, and prospective hires.
"Assemblymember Nora Campos, who authored the bill, called AB 1844 a 'preemptive measure' that will offer guidelines to the accessibility of private information behind what she calls the 'social media wall.' ... According to Campos' office, more than 100 cases currently before the National Labor Relations Board involve employer workplace policies around social media. Facebook has also said it has experienced an increase in reports of employers seeking to gain 'inappropriate access' to people's Facebook profiles or private information."
Privacy is not dead, it's just losing the war.
Take arms and fight back!
If a business I worked for or was interviewing at asked me for my passwords to anything not work related, I wouldn't be working there anymore.
What I don't understand is why employers even think this is reasonable. Yes, yes, I know, corporations bad, but corporations are still made up of humans and you would think some of those humans would understand that this is overreaching into people's private lives.
I don't see what someone's social media accounts have to do with their ability to work. Sure, they may party hard, or bad mouth their employers, but it's not exactly uncommon and it's not going to stop just because people don't put that on their FB account.
I suppose I am not surprised that someone would try this, what I am more surprised about is that they have gotten this far with it. Forcing people to turn over personal information should be something that a corporate legal department knows is going to get them in legal hot water.
You aren't going to starve without a job
nice denialist.
come spend time in any major city and see the homeless.
in the bay area, some homeless were even IT people that got pushed out of their jobs.
btw, as a person, YOU SUCK. you have less compassion than a shark. I hope - and I really do - you find yourself blacklisted and jobless someday. and I hope you have to borrow $2 for a tin of tuna to eat that day.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
this is why we need unions.
corporations were being somewhat tolerable after the union days, 50-100 yrs or so ago. things go measurably better; pretty much for all of society.
we have fallen backward, though; and we need to restart the fight for employee rights.
if the republicans have their way, they'll make us all slaves. we cannot allow this trend to continue. please! this is breaking the backs of the working man.
just another example of unrestrained corp power over the common man.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
So get one at a company that doesn't do this. Most (the overwhelming majority of) companies do NOT ask for your FB password. Pick one of those. If everyone does, the companies that ask for FB passwords will either go out of business or change their policy.
I changed jobs about 5 months ago, interviewed at 6 companies, and was never once asked for a FB password. It isn't that hard to find a job at a company that doesn't do this.
People need to grow a fucking backbone.
What the hell is wrong with you? Is it really so impossible for you to imagine not everyone is in the same position as you? There simply aren't enough jobs to go around, and some people around the bottom of the pile are in the position of supporting a family, bills, etc and have very limited options.
This is one of those things that sounds like a good idea, but isn't.
Here's why.
There is probably real and tangible damage that would occur if someone disclosed confidential information on your company. There may or may not be if they disclose their social media profile information to you. It's really not for YOU to assign a value to THEIR resources any more than it is for THEM to assign value to YOURS.
Your test is also not one of backbone at all, but one of perceived value and desperation. As I said, you may be asking them to give up something they don't value, so they don't mind doing it. Not just perceived, but actual, in many cases. I have older relatives whose facebook profiles are barren. They almost never log in and have 8 friends who also almost never log in. They could post their login and password to the world and not actually lose anything. You may also be interviewing someone who desperately needs to bring some money in to keep a roof over their heads or feed their kids. Everyone has a backbone when the cost of stiffening it is low. Everyone has a point when they have to bend. I will NOT give you my facebook password...unless it's the difference between my kids eating or not. I will NOT give up my right to free speech...but I might shut up now and speak later if you're going to shoot me.
That's actually why laws like this are good. Asking people who really need a job for information you shouldn't is implicitly coercive.
Don't play games like this with people. You turn interviews not into true tests of what people are made of, but a silly multilevel thinking exercise where I have to figure out if you're just some jerk who doesn't respect my privacy, or someone who thinks *I* should and is just testing me. Understand that your candidates don't have a way to know which of those people you are.
This, if you don't own a facebook account nowadays, you're clearly a terrorist pedophile serial killer mime who hates freedom.