Social media, like almost all things that exist, is neither good nor bad. It just is. It can be used for enormous good and also, enormous bad. It simply depends on who is using it and how it is being used.
Social media has become a constant in our everyday lives as a society, infiltrating virtually every sector of the economy and every aspect of daily living.
Before going further to address the question of whether social media handles should be submitted to employers or not, or the question about whether that constitutes a breach of privacy, I would like to us all to ponder over another question that I personally believe should be considered even before the former two questions?
Can anything posted on social media ever TRULY be private?
Just think for a minute about the following related words. SOCIAL. MEDIA. POST. Everything about these words screams “NOT PRIVATE.”
For all intents and purposes, anything you put up on social media yourself can no longer be considered private, and I think anyone with the slightest modicum of self-awareness and self-honesty recognizes that, or at least should be able to recognize that upon it being pointed out to them.
“I'll just set my account to private then.”
That would be a clueless thought, in my opinion. Let's assume you share you post with your followers and friends alone with the goal of maintaining and preserving your privacy, what happens when one of your followers finds it funny and you share or repost it to the followers on his own page, a completely different set of audience from the original audience the post was made for.
I am pretty sure everyone's answer to this question is going to be NO. I'll ask away.
How many of us have actually taken the time to read through the complete terms and service of any of the social media apps that we use?
Everyone just scrolls right down to the very bottom and clicks that shiny button that says “I agree.” Personally, I haven't read them either, so I'm not calling anyone out and we all should probably do better. I am simply pointing out the fact none of know the exact privacy terms that we have agreed to. Our information could be getting sold to a third party at this very moment.
Due to all these multiple reasons, it is obviously quite impossible to truly maintain any kind of privacy. When it comes to social media, very little is actually truly private. Even people who lived over two thousand years ago who never worried about having the level of exposure that exists today now have all available information about them up for public consumption.
In this extremely exposed world, the only way to truly maintain what little privacy is possible is to not post anything sensitive that you do not wish to fall onto public eyes.
Everything I have outlined and discussed above really makes moot the question of whether employee's should submit their social media info to their employers and whether it constitutes a breach of privacy. I mean, even if your employer doesn't request your social media handles, these social media apps have a way of recognizing that you recently started working for that person and they'll just randomly show your profile to the employer in due time. I know I probably didn't answer the question directly, but in some weird way, I think I indirectly answered it.
You are very correct!
Nothing on social media is actually private.
I can relate with your indirect answer 😁
😂 that's nice.
It's a different thing if the employer happens upon their employees social media handle by chance on the internet and it is a different thing entirely when social media profiles are demanded of the employees and even made mandatory before a job is offered.
Depending on the job and company, they may want to run some background checks on their prospective employees to better understand exactly who it is they're hiring. I think it's a delicate balance between the employee's desire for privacy and the employer's desire to protect his company how he sees fit.
You miss the part where you can be anonymous on social media, you can post stuff and no one will know it is you unless you reveal your identity...
That means you won't post any picture of yourself at all. Well, that could work, but it's very restrictive and most people probably wouldn't be able to maintain the anonymity.
People wanna show their faces, celebrate their wins and stuff like that that'll require them to reveal their face and/or name.
I suppose they could have multiple accounts though.
Totally true, no one reads the terms and conditions, and then they complain when some measure is taken. However, they signed the agreement with the platform without hesitation, and then they complain about some unilateral decision that it has made. That is why they should come and produce their content or share their routines on Hive, where they do not run the risk of being censored. However, privacy is much lower on the blockchain, unless you want to encrypt all the content you post.
😂If you were to encrypt all your posts, then whom would be able to read it?
just subscribers, like in leo system, but with the possibility to choose who you allow to subscribe
Hmm, I didn't think I'd heard of this before. But your subscribers can still share your post to others, can't they?
Great point, indeed subscribers can leak the information. I think my idea is flawed at the moment, haha.
😂😂😂it was still a nice talk, and we both learned something.