This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
We've all been warned. Posting embarrassing photos, snarky comments, racist or sexist jokes, on your Facebook page or other social media outlet can get you in deep trouble. With your family, with your friends, with your current or future spouse and with your current or potential employer.
But the standard advice, to watch what you post and take full advantage of such websites' control settings to limit the visibility of those posts, will no longer be enough if a bubbling trend of employers demanding access to a person's private- or friend-level postings takes hold with more employers.
It shouldn't, and there should be laws to make sure of that.
It might seem that human resource managers have enough on their plates, what with every job opening either producing a flood of applicants or, in the case of some of the more highly-skilled positions, far too few. But a recent Associated Press article outlined how more and more private and public workplaces are demanding that applicants either grant the job interviewer "friend" status, allowing them to thumb through each applicant's social media postings, or even turn over user names and passwords, which will allow potential employers to delve deeply into not only the job seeker's public and semi-public postings, but also his or her most personal data.
This is wrong. It violates Facebook's own privacy rules, and is a practice that should not be allowed to take root. It makes no more sense than demanding that a job applicant give the interviewer the keys to his apartment so that the person who holds the applicant's professional and financial future in his hands can amuse himself by mucking about in another person's most private effects.
Another reason to make such snooping illegal is that it would also protect an employer who chooses not to probe around in personal social media sites from charges that they somehow had a duty to root out and stop any nasty cyber conduct by their employees.
Employers do have the right to insist that their employees not undermine workplace standards and practices by, say, spreading nasty rumors about co-workers or managers, releasing proprietary information or doing anything that would drag the employer's name through the online mud.
And there is a case to be made that workers in particularly sensitive positions the military, law enforcement, people with high security clearances can and should be treated differently. But even then, there should be standards of notice and probable cause, not unlimited fishing licenses.