They probably want to see whether you could post harmful things for the company, have friends or hobbies that could make the company look bad, or something shady like that. But, like you said, if you have a public profile, they can check it out anyway.

I think personal account names and passwords (facebook, e-mail etc.) are none of an employers' business. At all. I mean, what's next? Future mployers wanting to see how your home looks? Come along when you meet with your friends? After all, a cluttered home might mean my desk won't be tidy. And I could say all these ugly things about the company to my friends - in public places even, where strangers could hear them too!

[edit]That being said, I do understand that companies face new difficulties with facbook and other online fora. Unlike any time in the past, angry employees have the ability to post negative things and reach a big audience (especially if it goes viral; the open letter that was posted in a newspaper (?) by a former bank employee was in all newspapers and fora over here in less than a day - and I live hafway across the globe from the US). But snooping in (potential) employees' facebook is not the answer.

[edit 2]But if you give your account and password to anyone - doesn't matter who - they can also post things pretending they are you?!

They want to see everything about you, like who you associate with and what you are like in private etc. The way facebook privacy is currently setup even adding them as a friend won't necessarily tell them what they want to know, because they want to prevent you being any form of supprise.

Yeah. Seems pretty fishy to me. It will be interesting to see if anyone is sued as a result of this practice.

I use to use my real name on my facebook- but I changed that rather quickly. I now go by the same name there that I do here on gnet with one minor difference (O'Fantasy instead of Fantasy).

If an employer asked for my username, I probably wouldn't care to much (though really my job is about my work ethic, not my personal life, but the two can often intertwine), but asking for the password as well is going too far. I'd never give it to them. No one should ever know my password except for myself and maybe one or two others whom I trust in case I died or something, they could get on my accounts and let people know. and close them out after a time had passed for everyone to be informed.

I have worked very hard to keep my private and working lives seperate. While I still worked for Peacocks, I deleted my colleagues from my friend list (and told them why, they agreed with my reasoning) and didn't even list Peacocks as my employer. Heck, I still don't. I will never put my employer or anything work-related on my Facebook.

I was criticised recently for publically criticising a company that messed me around with interviews- long story short, they had offered me an interview after my trip back from the states and promised me a convenient slot, only for it to be changed to a very INCONVENIENT spot due to jet lag, despite fully understanding my circumstances. They even tried moving it to the day of my arrival in the UK (was never going to happen, 4 hours after arrival I was practically in a coma and stinking of BO having not washed for 2 days). I ended up not bothering going, deciding that if they were going to be so troublesome at the interview stage, than lord knows how troublesome they would be if I needed time off to accompany my mother to hospital (as I had just found out my mother was/is ill).

My Facebook account is completely private, but still apparently its wrong for me to say those things on it.

You know what, if a job could access my Facebook page, they possibly would learn things about me they don't want to know- the fact I'm a goth and the gothy pictures might put them off. Its none of their business.

And so even though I may rant about what a crap day I had a work, because I will never publically label my employer, I don't believe it has a detrimental affect on the company's image (except among friends who would hear it in person anyway...and then what? We're not allowed to ever talk about bad days ever again? Where do you draw the line?).

So in that situation, I would refuse, strongly, and if they made a big deal about it, I would walk out. I don't need to work for a company that is affectively trying to control my personal life. They can go fuck themselves.

A local Next PLC once sacked one of their managers, a gay lad, because he had listed Next as his employer and had been tagged in photos of himself getting drunk in a gay bar. Next said this was not something they wanted to be associated with. Personally, I think thats discrimination and unfair dismissal.

Quick update:

SNOPA would ban employers, schools from demanding Facebook passwords



Hopefully this legislation will pass, but in a time where congress is all but neutered completely, I doubt that will happen.

~spidey

I don't understand. Did someone in the US Government just... NOT totally misunderstand the internet? I am confused.

It could be that they want a monopoly on who can look at your data against your will.

Demanding an employee's facebook password would surely be illegal under EU law.

But this discussion has brought up another issue - one very relevant to the makers of this board:

Once we've accepted that only a person with no regard for matters of personal privacy or freedom of communication would use so-called social networking sites such as Facebook, this places special responsibility upon the administrators of forums like this one.

Because: people wish to use forums like this one as a means of networking as well as communicating on assorted topics, without such insulting infringements of privacy as compulsory photographs, compulsory use of real names etc -

Therefore: policies such as automatically closing topics after a three month time period, regardless of their potential as "eternal debates", and regardless of the ever-fluctuating membership of the forum, are not just absurd but insulting to the membership.

And if the administrators say "if you don't like it, f-off to another forum", they are glossing over the fact that they have cornered the market, stamping out all real competition - which only adds to their responsibility to include, not exclude.