Originally Posted by
sealandair
It isn't illegal yet, though I hear this is being contested in various states such as Oregon. You could also employ the Socratic method of response by inquiring back, "would you grant me access to all of your family photos, a timeline of your activities with your spouse, significant others, family and friends, and your personal emails?" There are so many ways a savvy person could stay ahead of them. Granted, a major airline wants to know they aren't hiring creeps, but this method of hovering is creepy in itself, imo. What happens if one of your "friends" decides to post something like a distasteful political meme, or a picture of herself in a pot leaf T-shirt? "Friends" tend to clutter up people's accounts, even though you might not really be friends. Would I want to go through my entire friend list and either unfollow or unfriend any person who may potentially post something bad?
Oh I totally agree with you. But as long as it's legal, the socratic method isn't going to work out for you, you'll have to co-operate to graduate.
I think there should be legal protections, and suspect there will be. But it will probably be at the state level, and thus inconsistent.
There are absolutely no constitutional protections which could be applied cart-blanche nation-wide to this situation. Just another example of tech getting out-pacing the legal system.
Current advice being given is to clean up social media if you want a legacy job, and that includes unfriending people as needed. You would *think* that employers snooping in social media would be looking mostly at you, and only considering your "friends" in aggregate so that one idiot's post doesn't ruin your career, but I'm hearing otherwise.
I've been told that having a bunch of ganga-oriented hippys as friends will get your job offer revoked. Same for edgy motorcycle enthusiasts.