Facebook is a social network that has had a positive impact on our society, but has also negatively affected our private lives. Many people that try to apply for jobs or for college are denied due to the research employers and universities do on the person’s Facebook page. On your profile you have your personal information, which covers a wide range of intricate information about your daily life, your likes, your friends, and even simple things as your relationship status. All of these pieces can somehow alter the professional impression you made on your future employer for good or for bad. From the prompt given to us we can observe that this could be broken down into three important parts. First of all arguing the degree of ethics in the decision of the friend to post the picture on Facebook, and secondly if the law firm had reason to disqualify this individual from the job.
Social networking is a way to connect to people within your society in a virtual level, meaning that all parties are aware of the happenings within this web page. Once you decided to have a Facebook profile you comply with various legal agreements and with your ethical decision of letting many people look at your information and know about your daily life. This is why there are privacy settings and you choose who you want to befriend. Therefore, the friend had all the right to put up that picture. For me, it was the fault of the applicant since he was foolish to allow private information that could harm his reputation be exposed online. Un-tagging, deleting, and making pictures private are only one of the few options offered to make these pictures private. Blaming his friend for putting up this picture has no legal value since it was reasonably foreseeable because it was posted on a social network where the claimant knew what the consequences where.
The process of hiring for companies is quite delicate since they must take into consideration many aspects of the applicants. For this case, I believe that the company was wise to make a Facebook background research since you can discover interesting aspects of a person just by looking at their information and profile. This could be a great technique if used for the right purposes, if they just research to find all the negative things in a person’s life then they are misusing social networks. No one should ever judge a person by his or her profile or pictures revealed in the Internet. Yes, this picture was quite revealing of the possible incrimination of the usage of an illegal substance, but that should not be the reason why a person is denied a job. Unless, of course if this picture contains illicit drugs that could be harmful to society or have an important legal impact. But then again, I think that Facebook should be a tool not a decision-making advisor. I researched in the United States laws and I found out through the 5th amendment that: “No person shall be held to answer for….private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” (FindLaw, 1). This is an important part of the Constitution since infringement of private property could hold the company liable. In further research I found out that to avoid lawsuits such as these ones Facebook have agreements a person must approve before being part of the social network. The Terms of Use for Facebook are clear therefore both the company and the applicant should look at them to make sure they are using them correctly for business and professional reasons.
My suggestion to everyone out there is to be wise with the information you post online. It not only could become a very dangerous tool against your well-being, or as seen in the previous case to your professional life. Use privacy settings, make sure you accept the friends you want and know, and always try to portray yourself wisely in the pictures posted of you by you and your friends. Be careful always and don’t misuse social networking because every day tools like these are appearing and growing making your private information more public.
