It looks like employers have begun asking for potential employee's Facebook login name and password during the hiring process.

I just heard about this today and was immediately like wtf?

Have any of you had this happen, and if you did what did you do?

Also, if you haven't had this happen to you, what would you do?

Personally I think I would create a fake Facebook page with some seriously ridiculous shit on it, like cat porn and propaganda about aliens living among us just to send any potential employers a message about what they should expect when they snoop into people's personal affairs.

I mean, it's not like it's hard to falsify your life if you have a computer and a cursory knowledge of how teh internets work.

~spidey, or am I really?

Its blatantly illegal because it gives them information they're not allowed per-federal law, to require from potential employees as part of the hiring process [like your race, religion, martial status, age if you're over 40].

By asking for this the employer is setting themself up for a discrimination suit, even if they turned down someone who refused to play along for unrelated reasons. It also potentially gives the employee the ability to, upon not being hired, use a lawsuit to demand they be hired.

According to the internet I don't exist. A friend of mine works for a white-hat hacker firm (fine, "security consultancy") and I got him to run their social engineering checks on me. Zip.

Sueing for discrimination in these cases is the same as the old "have you ever taken legal action against an employer?" chestnut. If you have and answer yes, or even just point out that you aren't actually allowed ask that in an interview then you don't get the job and enjoy proving that the dude they hired actually *isn't* more qualified than you.

I like the idea of a fake Facebook account but why not make a phishing style page somehow that looks exactly like facebook and have friends like edgar a Poe, Jesus, and Satan as well as other fun and ridiculous stuff.

If an employer honestly has the gall to ask me for a Facebook password, I have the right to tell them to take their job and shove it.

My personal life is just that - personal.

BTW, love the idea of the fake FB account. I'd make sure I have Goetic sigils scrawled upon the banner, Cthulhu is *definitely* a Top 5 friend, and my religious views would be set to SATAN!



-- Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:58 pm --



I like you.

It's these kinds of things that make me want to pull the plug on ol' Facey-book. I've done so only once, and ended up re-signing up around 3 weeks later due to being cut off from ... nearly everyone.

But now . . . I could almost do without it. Besides, I'd get to join all the other cool non-conformists as we use email, telephone, and even writing each other letters (with our hands).

It could be quite fun. No seriously, despite me just making a joke about it, this sounds spiiiiiiffy.

I don't understand why they want your password, surely all they need is the address to browse through your profile which is there for the whole world to see, unless your profile is set to private, in which case, it's none of their business.

I guess some employers think that one's personal Facebook page is there for the employer's convenience. Kind of the way telephone solicitors think that the personal phone lines we pay for are for their advertising convenience.

There's a lot of weird entitlement mentality in the corporate world.



It hasn't happened to me and, if it did, I would tell the employer that I don't have a Facebook page. Which is actually the truth -- but I suspect the employer might not believe me and choose not to hire me on that basis.

As an employer, I wouldn't ask for such a thing. The only part of an employee's life outside the workplace that I need to know about is whether he/she has a criminal record. (Criminal records not really being private, anyway.)

-- Nephele

That's interesting, Neph. I don't have a Facebook page, either. I had one, but I took it down and had them delete my account because I never used it. If I want to talk to someone, I...call them on the phone. I guess I must be a rebel.

Ha! You and me both. But the main reason I refuse to have a Facebook page is because I don't want people finding me.

-- Nephele
*whips black cape over face and creeps back into the shadows*

Apparently a Bill is being written up to put a stop to this : Link

Somewhat amusingly, that site wanted me to log in to it through my facebook

We'll see. The Republicans lately seem to make everything a partisan issue and, somehow, I was not surprised that it took two Democratic senators to get to work on this bill.

-- Nephele

I heard this story on NPR and was somewhat pissed. It does seem a bit much for a job, but apparently some people give in to the request, instead of everyone sticking together, as a group, and standing behind personal rights and telling employers to politely stick their request.

At work, we're cautioned to watch what we write on public sites because in some cases it can be seen as representing the company, which is reasonable. But access to someone's account...that's the sort of thing that online-companies beg users not to give out!

Its explicitly against facebook's TOS. So if someone were to sue a potential employer over the request and had to explain that lawsuit to a future perspective employer [i.e. the "have you ever sued a previous employer" type question] you can say: "I had to sue a potential employer because they demanded I break a contract I already held with a Fortune 500 company and I wasn't willing to violate my integrity." Also gives you the chance to then talk about how you'd never violate your company's trust like that, and wouldn't even consider handing over your login information for their network to a 3rd party if you worked for them.

^

What she said.

You could also use the "breach of contract" reason as soon as they ask you for your password.

Also, if my Facebook page is not a public profile, how can they claim that what I post there could be harmful to their company? If they can't access my info, neither can anyone else so there argument is invalid.

~spidey