Blog #4 Tech for Business

Blog #4: Tech for Business

I read the article on CNN.com entitled “American Civil Liberties Union: Your Facebook Password Isn’t Your Boss’s Business” by Doug Gross. This article discusses the controversial issue of employee Facebook pages being viewed and used by their employers. This issue has been around for a while and many people argue that they are allowed to have their own lives outside of work and that they should be allowed to keep it private. However the use of Facebook as a reference and means of evaluating job applicants and employee’s behavior and activities is a common practice and it is on the rise as well. Nowadays when one gets a job many businesses require their employees to become a “friend” with them or to give the company their Facebook password.  

Recently the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated that this is not fair that more and more business are demanding access to one’s Facebook account as a condition of employment or for consideration as an applicant. In one instance a man working in Baltimore was confronted and demanded to give his Facebook password to employer who then logged in on the spot and check his Facebook account looking through pictures and messages. I find this kind of policy regarding Facebook and other forms of social media a terrible abuse of power and invasion of privacy. In my own opinion I feel that anything I do outside of work, as long as it does not have an effect on my ability to do my job, is my own business. I feel that if a company wants to look at my Facebook that is fine but they should not be able to require me to be their “friend” so they can have full view of my profile and I think there is no way a company can justify demanding someone’s password any more than they can justify going through my mail or listening in on my personal phone calls. This is an absolute violation of privacy and actually a violation of Facebook’s policy as well, in the terms and conditions. With this new policy that some businesses are enforcing people now not only have to be careful what pictures they post on Facebook and write in their statuses but they would now have to even make sure that things they said in private messages to other Facebook users and things that they wrote on other peoples walls, or things that are written on their wall by other people are all work appropriate. This practice of demand access to someone Facebook as a term of employment or consideration for employment is ridiculous and should be ended.