Another reason to think twice about posting THAT on Facebook....

[East Coast Hustle]

Implying facebook doesn't hand over info to the police already.

They don't have to. The police have a master password. At least the ones in Maine do, I can't speak for other places. But I've personally witnessed it in use there.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Implying facebook doesn't hand over info to the police already.

They don't have to. The police have a master password. At least the ones in Maine do, I can't speak for other places. But I've personally witnessed it in use there.

Makes perfect sense to me.

[navkat]

I have a problem with the entire concept of accepting that the corporation who employs you is also paying for the rights to your personal life...that's essentially what this is.

Corporations have had a long tradition of ownership of the intellectual property rights over their workers free time. I can almost guarantee that every single one of us who works white-collar jobs has, at some point, been required to sign one or more of the following:
1. A non-disclosure agreement (mostly to protect corporate and client secrets but some of which are a thinly-veiled bypass of whistleblower laws and a way to make you legally finacially liable for badmouthing the company)

2. A discovery/background check agreement which states they dig through any part of your life, using any methods they choose (calling your friends, hiring a P.I., criminal history, banking and credit reports) at any point during your employ or consideration for employ or promotion and for any reason.

3. Drug/toxicology screen including pretty invasive stuff like follicle, sweat patch, blood, etc. You agree they also have the right to enter you into an "ongoing drug screen program" which means they can make you submit to a surprise whizz quiz AAAAND enter your (medical) data into a database accessed by other employers.

4. An at-will employer/non-liability agreement which pretty much states that the company can verbally abuse you or fire you simply because you drive the wrong kind of car or who you're fucking and you can't say shit.

5. An Implied Intellectual Property Rights agreement that pretty much means if you're an engineer at Asshat Inc. and while you're on vacation with your family, you suddenly solve the room-temperature superconductivity problem on your own time, with your own equipment, they own it. This is often extended to discoveries or inventions you hatch within 3-10 years after you are no longer with the company. This one started out on the up-and-up to avoid high-white-collar employees from using company time, equip or discoveries as the springboard for their own profitable ventures but during the oil spill, I had to make my fucking janitors sign one. I've also seen ones that require the employee to declare and surrender all projects, ideas and inventions to the company that occurred prior to employment.

6. The Honesty Questionnaire and The Temperament Suitability Test (*ahem* Read: psychological profile. Another invasive, medical diagnostic that Corps have managed to annex into their domain).

7. The giant, catch-all employee contract/agreement which (read ALLLLLLL that fine print) covers everything from agreeing not to discuss your salary with anyone to circumventing labor laws (*cough* Limited Brands *cough cough*) to the right to do a physical search of your handbag, its contents or to require you to surrender all electronic devices brought onto the company property or used for any and all company purposes including cell phones, personal computers, etc (does this ambiguous, all encompassing language mean if your boss emails or calls you on your personal and later is discovered to have leaked info about the company to the SEC, you can be sued if you don't surrender your shit?). I've seen ridiculous paradoxical "team player type," "eagle eye" bullshit--like requiring you to keep abreast of company, industry and competitor trends but disallowing you to utilize company time or resources to do it. Just a whooooole bunch of indulgent, kagaroo-court, child-emperor "I can make you do whatever I want" hoops to jump through designed to make workers keep their voices a little more hushed, relax a little bit less, feel a little more frightened of termination, lawsuit or yet more hoops to jump through just to collect a paychecque and feed their families.

I've seen these, I've signed these, I've had to make my employees sign these. I am filled with vitriol when it comes to this particular family of topics.

Note: You, (hereafter, referred to as "the employee") agree that data collected from all tests, questionnaires, screens, background and personality research, employee monitoring devices (keyloggers, cameras) by Totalitarian Corp, LLC (Hereafter referred to as "The Company") become the property of The Company and its affiliates (including, but not limited to contractors hired to collect, aggregate or otherwise utilize said data, partner companies, legal firms, data collection/reporting agencies (read: blackballing agencies), advertising firms, etc and its retention, use, transfer or deletion will be performed at the sole discretion of The Company and its affiliates and that neither The Company or its affiliates are responsible or liable for any injury, loss or damages, real or implied, to the employee, the employee's friends, family or associates, dead or living, or to the employee's affiliated companies, holdings or other places of employ, future, past or present.

Sign and date______________________________

You can't ask a woman if she's married though. YAY, RIGHTS!

[AFK]

Well, in some cases I think it is completely warranted.  For example any profession where you are dealing with kids.  Teachers, day-car workers, camp counselors....It would be nuts for these folks to NOT go through some kind of background check.  Anyone can check a box that says they've never been convicted of a felony, I personally am fine with a little more depth in that particular area.

Trolling Facebook is a whole different animal though.  Background checks typically are getting into whether or not you might be a criminal.  Trolling Facebook is about screening for personality quirks, likes/dislikes, etc.  And I think it's really going too far with college students. 

But there are instances where some of these checks are a good thing to have in place. 

[navkat]

Well, in some cases I think it is completely warranted.  For example any profession where you are dealing with kids.  Teachers, day-car workers, camp counselors....It would be nuts for these folks to NOT go through some kind of background check.  Anyone can check a box that says they've never been convicted of a felony, I personally am fine with a little more depth in that particular area.

Trolling Facebook is a whole different animal though.  Background checks typically are getting into whether or not you might be a criminal.  Trolling Facebook is about screening for personality quirks, likes/dislikes, etc.  And I think it's really going too far with college students. 

But there are instances where some of these checks are a good thing to have in place.

Sure. Prior work history upon consideration for employ, criminal BG for people dealing with kids, guns or airplanes. Before you get promoted to guns or airplanes, though they'd damned well better know what you're like on the job without having to read your LiveJournal or find out how much you're paying for your mortgage.

And it's not limited to crucial or high-risk positions or I'd be a little more likely to believe it comes from honest practice and safety concerns but they're making kids at McDonald's sign and submit to this type of shit too. WHY THE FUCK DOES A 17 YEAR OLD KID NEED TO SUBMIT TO A DRUG SCREEN AND A PSYCH WORKUP TO MAKE A BIG MAC?

It's data collection and it's a spirit of indentured servitude, plain and simple: "These are our terms and conditions. having a job is a privilege, not a right and while you're sucking off our teat, you'll play by our rules. You don't like it? Don't work here. Go somewhere else." Problem is, everyone's doing it so it's becoming industry standard that you'd better watch yourself on your "free" time or BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.

And the truth is; the people with police records are still getting jobs. McDonald's and WalMart are still hiring them, just for a little less pay. Knowledge is power. Knowing that you once popped pos on a tox screen when you were in High School only means you're cheaper. And for the lowest paid workers, that means there's a good chance they'll have to ride the crest of Fed mandated minimum wage requirements welllllll into their 40s and 50s.

No, these companies just wanna know. And they wanna be allowed to sell or profit from what they now know. They wanna know and they feel entitled because no one is stopping them. Those who need to the most can't afford to rock the boat and those who have the means to rock the boat are on the receiving end of the benefits.

[El Sjaako]

Sure. Prior work history upon consideration for employ, criminal BG for people dealing with kids, guns or airplanes. Before you get promoted to guns or airplanes, though they'd damned well better know what you're like on the job without having to read your LiveJournal or find out how much you're paying for your mortgage.

This is probably to trusting-the-govermenty for Americans, but around here we have, IIRC, a pretty good system for this. The potential employer tells the government what the job will be. The government looks at the criminal record of the candidate, and they report any relevant items to the potential employer.

[navkat]

Sure. Prior work history upon consideration for employ, criminal BG for people dealing with kids, guns or airplanes. Before you get promoted to guns or airplanes, though they'd damned well better know what you're like on the job without having to read your LiveJournal or find out how much you're paying for your mortgage.

This is probably to trusting-the-govermenty for Americans, but around here we have, IIRC, a pretty good system for this. The potential employer tells the government what the job will be. The government looks at the criminal record of the candidate, and they report any relevant items to the potential employer.

That'd be great if we had a truly representative government here. The problem is: "Government" and "Corporate Interest" are analogous terms. All that would happen if we put the Government in charge would be that the data would be used and shared with some pet corporate interests, more legislation would be passed to give the gov't power to obtain and share more of it and lobbyists would see to it that mom n pop employers or weaker competitors would have to pay more than large "job creating" corporations to access the system through unethical manipulation of the tax code.

I guess one could argue that both our corrupt government and many of the corporations already have much of this data anyway, they just still have to be "in the closet" about it for the time being.

[aanti]

man this sounds like an april fools joke

[Doktor Howl]

man this sounds like an april fools joke

It is.  And the joke's on us. 

Sometimes I laugh until I can't stop screaming.

[Doktor Howl]

Well, in some cases I think it is completely warranted.  For example any profession where you are dealing with kids.  Teachers, day-car workers, camp counselors....It would be nuts for these folks to NOT go through some kind of background check.  Anyone can check a box that says they've never been convicted of a felony, I personally am fine with a little more depth in that particular area.

Trolling Facebook is a whole different animal though.  Background checks typically are getting into whether or not you might be a criminal.  Trolling Facebook is about screening for personality quirks, likes/dislikes, etc.  And I think it's really going too far with college students. 

But there are instances where some of these checks are a good thing to have in place.

I'm okay with this, as there is no expectation of privacy. 

I am okay with certain jobs requiring the facebook thing.  I am not okay with certain jobs requiring that you turn over your diary.  The line is somewhere in between those two situations.

[aanti]

so either dont use fb or use a fake account or use it without really posting content that some folks/companies/etc should never see since it doesnt matter in the end which people you share to..
i use diaspora for internet fun, its a gold mine for finding things on the internet that matter to me

[navkat]

I disagree with you for once, Rog.

My thought is if you put it out there where an employer can see it, that's your oh shit.
If your employer pretends to be a hot blonde from Destin and you friend them, that's your oh shit.

Requiring you to hand over your password or log in and let them peek at your protected entries is crossing the line. Some people honestly use FB to keep in touch with friends and family and their posts, comments, pictures and shares are an ongoing reflection of that. For some of us, FB has replaced the big, giant "reply all" email conversations and meme-mails of the late 90s until 2003 when MySpace got big...except now, there are a lot more people on the "CC" list in on the joke/convo. Would it be okay for an employer to require you to log onto your email and poke around in your folder of stupid shit you shared back and forth with your college buddies?

The thing of it is: if you protect your entries to only the people on your list, no matter how big that group is, it is implied that your posts are intended for just them.

There's a saying in the legal world: "You can indict a ham sandwich." What that means is that you can take the shit people say and write and twist it to make it seem like they've brazenly admitted to committing the most heinous acts. A three-second video of a girl in a rainbow shirt, taking an aspirin can be made to seem like she's dropping acid in front of small children in the right context.

Bearing that in mind, this sort of thing isn't going to be effective at screening for assholes. You aren't going to catch rapists, molesters, sociopaths or heroin junkies on facebook because people with real fucked-up character flaws are going to be painstakingly obsessive about covering their tracks and hiding their narcissism and BiPolar rage. Like that show, Dexter, they're they ones who will appear pin-neat and cherubic. The rest of us are just going to be indicted on some silly shit we said or did when we were young, immature, sick, relaxed, angry, upset, overly ecstatic or intoxicated and in our own homes or non-business spaces.

[Triple Zero]

Easiest way in the world around this:

Set your primary account email to a personal email, that you use only for Facebook.  Set privacy settings so that only people you friend can see any profile information, including pictures of you.

Tell employers "what Facebook account?"

Except that, as far as I've understood, FB has the tendency to, just as you think you locked everything out privacy wise, introduce a new feature that defaults to being public until you opt out.

Easier: no facebook.

Band promotion. :/

I've considered axing mine in the past, but it's a useful thing for me.

So, use it for band promotion. And only that. No leaving comments, posting photos or status updates unless it's strictly band-related.

Implying facebook doesn't hand over info to the police already.

They don't have to. The police have a master password. At least the ones in Maine do, I can't speak for other places. But I've personally witnessed it in use there.

Got any more info about this? I believe you, but this is REALLY interesting.

Is it really just a password? Or some special software attached to it?

Cause if there'd exist a FB password that would open up all FB accts all over the world ... wow.

If it requires special software, it's still fucked up, but at least that way they could use proper cryptographic techqniques to limit access instead of just a password (even if it's long and complex--a random 512 bit private key is longer and complexer).

[navkat]

I assumed ECH meant that they have a master account that isn't restricted by blocks, friending or privacy controls.

[Oysters Rockefeller]

Two things to consider:

1. If you put something on facebook that you aren't comfortable with everybody being able to see, you are an idiot. It's not like a diary, it's like a billboard.

2. This is still retarded. It's essentially bullying people into giving up their right to a non-work life. People shouldn't have to worry about saying something controversial because in 3 years an employer who disagrees might not hire them.