Facebook's "Opt-out" Precedent - Future Jobs/Careers

Last week, we focused on several blog posts pertaining to privacy on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. One post I found particularly interesting was a post about the "opt-out" precedent of Facebook. Throughout the last two years, Facebook.com has been limiting member privacy. First, they introduced the newsfeeds. Second, they allowed profiles to be listed on search engines. Now, when members participate in 3rd party websites (such as Blockbuster), a engine known as Beacon will automatically send a notification to your news feed. Of course, Facebook users have the ability to "opt-out" of the three "features" above. However, most users don't know about it because Facebook automatically enabled the features as they were implemented into the website. Therefore, all users were prone to anyone accessing their information until they changed their privacy settings. This was very sneaky on Facebook's party because, as the blog title states: viewers must Opt-out of these features rather than opt-in to being with.

This is very dangerous, not only for general Facebook users, but also college students looking for jobs, internships or career paths. As Facebook created these new features, companies have the ability to find out everything they need to know about you before they offer you a job. They may find out useless knowledge such as a unique hobby you have or see pictures of you in a bad state of mind. After viewing this content, companies may choose not to hire you because it shows that you have weird/bad qualities about yourself. For example, I don't need people that I know from my professional internships to learn everything possible about me. There are some things that deserve to be kept private. This is not because they are shameful or embarrassing, but rather it is because they are irrelevant to job performance. Years ago, people weren't hired based on their likings or hobbies. Why should it be any different today?

Luckily, I immediately became aware of Facebook's new features and decided to disable them. Since then, I have set up a limited profile that prevents business colleagues from seeing pictures tagged of me and groups I am a member of. I also removed my profile from being searchable through Google and when people search for me on Facebook, they will not see my picture until they a friends with me. Although I chose not to block postings on my wall, I will continue to monitor what people write on it. You can never be too safe when it comes to social networking sites like Facebook. Believe it or not, what appears on your profile may be the difference between getting that next job or not.