Social Media Privacy

By: Katherine Davis, BGS Communications Associate


Job applicants, guard your Facebook page.

While the reality of "profile checking" has been around for some time now, usually in the form of employers scanning photos, reading bios or even requesting certain information be removed from someone's page, the debate over social media privacy has recently moved to its next stage.

Companies are now asking for passwords.

John Borkowski, Public Relations Manager at social media-marketing company, WebiMax, explained why companies began checking social media sites in the first place.

"The trend has really evolved over the past three years, starting out in the past with employers warning employees to make sure they screen their content," mentioned Borkowski. "In many cases, it started with teachers and public service employees. Some were asked to eliminate the last name on their profiles, so students and others couldn't see their pages. It was about representing the organization well."

He sees companies asking for login information to private social media accounts as the next step in the Facebook- and Twitter-checking trends.

"This is just the next progression," said Borkowski. "Now, even in the interview process, and before someone's a part of an organization, they're actually asking, 'Can we take a look?'"

Borkowski added that, while WebiMax is not taking an official side on the matter, the company does not ask for personal login info and doesn't believe it should.

"I think this is what will probably get some privacy laws going," said Borkowski. "It may be something that continues, but we think it's going to be the thing that will push the lawmaking forward."

In fact, it seems that both Facebook and various state senators have already been pushing for such litigation.
Reuters reporter Gerry Shih noted that Facebook Inc.'s chief privacy officer Erin Egan had already "posted a note warning that the social networking company could 'initiate legal action' against employers that demand Facebook passwords."

Lawmakers in California, Illinois and Maryland have already proposed legislation that would keep companies from asking for Facebook login information.

"Employers can't ask in the course of an interview your sexual orientation, your age, and yet social media accounts may have that information," Yee told Reuters.

Borkowski thinks many of these privacy questions and concerns have arisen in just the last six months.

"Consumers are worried about all of this," he explained. "Not only are there concerns over Facebook and Twitter accounts, but many people are also worried about things like data-gathering from iPad or iPhone accounts. It's at the point where, eventually, something's going to have to happen."

He also notes the difficult spot companies like Facebook have now found themselves.

"Facebook is in a position where it could ban those companies' pages or fan pages," said Borkowski. "But then they might lose revenue and customers that way. It's almost a catch-22 for them—do you sacrifice your integrity to protect the rights of your users? Or, do you not act at all and let other people generate their responses?"

As far as job applicants are concerned, however, he still emphasizes the importance of keeping a relatively clean social media reputation.

"For the job seeker, I'd say monitor what you're involved in with social media, remove tags you don't feel are necessary," Borkowski said. With over 800 million Facebook users globally, he said to remember your profile is public.