How Facebook Got My Friends Fired
December 13, 2009 | Alicia Ostarello
Be careful with what you upload...you never know who might be viewing your profile!
So you know how sometimes what you write on your Facebook status can you get you into a tricky spot with your friends? Or how a comment you make on someone’s MySpace picture is misinterpreted and you wind up doing a lot of groveling for forgiveness? Or maybe your blog got you into trouble with your parents?
Well, there’s more to foible in social networking and blogs than just your personal life–saying the wrong thing online can keep you from being accepted to college or graduate school, and can prevent you from winning job or getting fired from your current employer.
News of firings for Facebook and college admissions officers pouring over MySpace blogs were blowing up a few years ago, but even though the media has quieted down their reporting, that does not mean employers and colleges are relenting in their extreme repercussions for your online antics. According to the Chicago Tribune, “10 percent of admissions officers from prestigious schools said they had peeked at sites like Facebook and MySpace to evaluate college-bound seniors. Of those using the profiles, 38 percent said it had a “negative impact” on the applicant.” And if the big leagues are doing it, you can bet your baseball bats that it has already started to trickle down to the smaller colleges and universities.
I wish I could be more cavalier about this subject, but over the years, the stories of these sorts of things happening to strangers evolved into stories of them happening to friends of friends; and finally, to actual living, breathing friends whom I know and adore. Friends who were suspended or expelled from sports team, who were failed in classes because of their Facebook status updates, and who have been terminated from their place of employment. Even if what you write is provided under a pseudonym or done anonymously, a simple search of IP addresses by an IT department can pinpoint you as a culprit.
The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACNET) suggests that you consider cleaning up your social networking sites and any blog you have as part of your college application process, and it’s not a bad idea. With the new Facebook privacy policies in place, you can easily deny access to your profile or any photos for anyone but your friends. Or you can look at this as an opportunity to clean house and purge yourself of your past. Whichever path you choose, be sure to censor pictures of you imbibing alcoholic beverages (even if you are of legal age), doing anything illegal or immoral, of engaging in questionable behavior.
And on MoneyFeatures, Ismat Mangala makes an excellent point about privacy settings: “I don’t even think employing the most stringent privacy settings–like having your profile or thoughts available to “friends only”–is much of a safeguard. It just takes one person to create a screenshot of something you write that could haunt you for life. So next time you post something online, err on the side of caution. Assume the everyone in the world can read it–and would you really want them to?” A screenshot is a surefire way to make sure the world gets a glimpse at your real profile. Yikes!
So the verdict is in, and you’ve been warned: Be safe out there in cyberspace, and don’t let your cyber-judgement let you down! Does anyone disagree? Should what we post on social networking sites that are meant to be social and not academic or business related matter?
Using our Facebook and Myspace accounts to profile us does not surprise me. In fact, I would do the same thing if I was in an employer’s shoes. People can easily lie to your face in an interview, so the best way to see what people are like is to view their true colors with their friends. It may seem a bit constricting for some people, but I think it may be a good wake-up call for others to finally grow up and stop acting imamture.
[...] how do you clean up your profile? StudentStuff.com, a Web site I blog for, has some great tips. My fellow blogger Alicia, details a situation in which her friend LOST HER JOB because of Facebook. I also wrote an article [...]