Robert Ricci
Article Name: Facebook password isn't your boss' business
Written By: Doug Gross
Updated On: Thu March 22, 2012
Link to Article: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/304850
The article I chose to read on is regarding Facebook and how
it should affect your work life. The article was written by Doug Goss, a writer
for CNN. The article explains of how many companies are now asking employees if
they have a Facebook, and if yes for the password to their homepage. The company’s
main objective is to checkup on workers, to make sure they are ideally
representing the company well, even if they aren’t working, mainly to see if you
are a quality employee. Although some
people think that they have fooled the system, not all have. Certain companies
go as far as having coworkers add a selected person on Facebook as a friend to
be able to see all of their information. As you read on in the article, you can see
that the writer (Gross) is strongly against the idea of this happing in modern business.
The writer almost in a way frowns upon certain companies that are doing this.
In my own personal opinion I think that the argument could go either way. My argument
for the Facebook password pass is that if I were an owner of a high end
company, I would want to know what my employees look like outside of work. I
truly believe that some people act differently around people of authority. I
can even admit that I can at times be one of those people. If I were to argue
for why any company should not be demanding to ask for a password, my initial argument
would be that what people do behind closed doors strictly has to do with them.
Truthfully, not many people are doing anything all that terrifying, to
potentially hurt a company’s name. Most people just take pictures with friends
and family. I understand not everybody does this, but the people that do sum up
the masses in my opinion. Another issue I would bring up is pictures of people
drinking. If you are of the legal age, it is not a big deal. Period. The
drinking age is 21 for the reason that you make the decision on what you want
to do. Overall, I believe that if people want these types of things to stop
happening, do not post stupid things to Facebook.
I feel that people who are grown up, and have jobs should be smart enough and mature enough to not post anything inappropriate on facebook. It’s unprofessional to post inappropriate comments and pictures on facebook, and it definitely can give the company you work for a bad image. As an employee, you are also a representative of the people, and company that you work for. So I do agree that the company you work for should be able to look at your facebook, but I do not agree with the fact that they are asking for passwords to the people’s homepages. That seems like an invasion of privacy to me. There are certain things that are very private and personal on the homepage, such as a person’s messages. I think it’s an invasion of privacy because the boss who goes to people’s facebook homepages cold read personal messages in someone’s inbox.
ReplyDeleteHey Bobby.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you any more on your response to the facebook article. I think that a company can ask to look at your facebook page before hiring you, because hiring and training a new employee costs a great deal of money. You dont want someone working for you who has a reputation to the world (on their facebook page) of a slacker, or someone who takes advantage of their company. So in this case, I can understand a company wanting to just do a quick look and see that the possible employee keeps at least a decent appearance. But asking for a password is most certainly crossing the line. With a password to your account, a company can change things, write things, post things, advertise, and basically sabotage your account. This would be highly unlikely, but, I would certainly feel vulnerable if this were the case with a possible employer. While this is not a big problem yet, social media is always getting bigger, and becoming a larger part of our lives. So while not too many companies take your password and invade your account, this will become a bigger issue as time goes on.