Facebook Protection Amendment Voted Down In House – http://huff.to/GYbgAc
In my writing this or any blog for any publication, unless instructed, I would never be overtly Democrat or Republican. But, this is just distastefully repugnant.
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Two big topics emerged last week in the world of social media.
First: Pinterest, an up-and-coming site, changed its terms of service – http://pinterest.com/about/terms/ – that will go into effect April 6.
Second: It was reported that a company asked for a person’s facebook password.
Talk about a thumbs up/thumbs down week.
I’m thrilled that Pinterest listened to critics and is taking actions to protect copyright. You can read more about it here: http://pinterest.com/about/copyright/. Without this there, it was rumored that the site was going to be “sued into oblivion” like Napster was.
The second big story of last week almost made me spit out my morning coffee. Some companies are now asking for potential employees’ facebook passwords during the interview process. The requests are raising the issue of privacy.
Two U.S. Senators are now calling on the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to look into the legality of the issue: http://zd.net/H6GABQ
I know times where doing anything to get a job seems to be the way to go, but this is going too far. Employers aren’t allowed to ask certain questions when interviewing potential employees. This, in my opinion, would give them a backdoor to find out that information. I hope that law will catch up to the digital times we find ourselves in.
Now, on the flip side, as someone who has looked at potential employees, Googling that person’s name is the first thing I do. If that person has an open page, I feel it is fair game because they are putting it out there for the world to see and anyone could link them and a company by doing the same thing.
But, I would never have the audacity to ask for their password if the profile was locked.