Archive for the ‘Privacy’ Category
Worth Reading, Mar 26, 2012
- Employers, Facebook and Privacy: There’s been a swirl of activity after an AP article last week discussed the growing trend of employers asking potential employees for their Facebook passwords or to log in during job interviews. An individual quoted in the article, who discontinued a job application process with one firm after being asked for his password, said, “I think asking for account login credentials is regressive,” he said. “If you need to put food on the table for your three kids, you can’t afford to stand up for your belief.” Other entities with clout agree. Facebook came out with a statement at the end of last week siding with job applicants and warning employers that they are in violation of Facebook’s Statement on Rights and Responsibilities (and potentially open themselves up to “unanticipated legal liability”) if asking applicants for this private information. “As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job,” Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Officer, Policy at Facebook said in the statement. Over the weekend, two U.S. senators asked Attorney General Eric Holder to look into the matter as well. On his blog, Jeremiah Owyang offers an alternate solution for companies: educate and train employees on social media use and issues instead.
- Altimeter Digital Influence Report: The Altimeter Group published its latest research report last week, this one on “The Rise of Digital Influence: A ‘how-to’ guide for businesses to spark desirable effects and outcomes through social media influence,” by lead author Brian Solis. An interesting report on defining, measuring and applying influence in social media.
- Twitter, Hashtags and Elections: Speaking of influence, a piece on Talking Points Memo discusses why hashtags on Twitter are a poor predictor of election results. As the Nieman Journalism Lab put it in republishing the piece, “prominence on Twitter doesn’t necessarily turn into prominence at the ballot box.”
- Red Cross Social Media Center for Disaster Response: This news is now a couple weeks old, but the American Red Cross opened a “digital operations center and digital volunteer program” earlier in March, with help and support from Dell. The program aims to “to coordinate response efforts during disasters.” It’s an evolving approach to using technology and volunteers together to improve disaster response capabilities.
Facebook vs. Control: Smackdown of the Week
smackdown stage by linxbas
There’s a big brouhaha going on about Facebook’s new(ish) Terms of Service, updated earlier this month but called into the spotlight this past weekend on Consumerist and a number of other sites, including the MSM.
The biggest part of the debate hinges on who controls a user’s content, and what happens to that content even when users have removed themselves from the site.
Protest groups have formed on Facebook. Bloggers like Perez Hilton are calling for a boycott. People are deleting their accounts (but, with about 175 million members, I wonder if that has even a symbolic effect?).
The outcry prompted a response from response from Mark Zuckerburg on the Facebook blog yesterday, and says, among other things: (more…)
Where Will Our Digital Footprints Lead?
The current run of presidential primaries, and the surprising (to some) results so far, has me thinking further ahead – not about the elections of ’08, but about the elections of say, 2024, when today’s college students will first become eligible to run for presidential office.
Specifically, how will the digital footprints left by today’s younger generation affect the leaders of all types – political, business, social – of tomorrow? How will elections and interviews for top jobs be different when everyone will have the opportunity to parse the candidate’s Facebook (or other) profiles and blog entries from their early years? Real life reputational effects of online behavior are absolutely already being felt, but the effects of the accumulation of years of online history have yet to be seen at the highest levels of leadership.