Like most tenured academics, I rather doubt I will ever leave the job I have. Why would I? I love teaching at Middlebury. But now I have another reason to not leave. I don’t think I could pass the increasingly invasive background checks that some companies are conducting via the Internet. These background checks will find everything you ever said or did not just on Facebook or Twitter, but even cranky comments on blog sites or sexting with your lover.
It’s bad enough that prospective employers can (mostly illegally) Google you, check out your Facebook page, or generally stalk you, but now they can pay for a service that goes far deeper into your public persona. According to an article in The New York Times:
A year-old start-up, Social Intelligence, scrapes the Internet for everything prospective employees may have said or done online in the past seven years.
According to the Web site for Social Intelligence, the company offers a variety of services from pre-employment screening to monitoring current employees’ online presence. That’s right. It’s not enough that you pass an initial screening, but you have to continue to monitor yourself against ever saying anything negative about your employer, but also online sexual activity, references to illegal substances, any racist remarks as determined by the monitors, or any display of weapons.
Yikes. If you’ve ever hooked up on line, beware. Apparently one woman didn’t get a job when Social Intelligence found nude images of her online. Have you ever said something slightly offensive online or even joined a group on Facebook that is offensive, like the “This Is America. I Shouldn’t Have to Press 1 for English” group? Well, that’s cost some people their job. And hey, have you ever said something really offensive on someone’s blog site? I know some of you have and guess what? Those nasty comments will come up in the report as well. In fact about 2/3 of the negative data comes not from social networking sites like Facebook, but from comments people leave on blogs or postings on sites like Craigslist.
They see you when you’re sleeping. They know when you’re awake. They know when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. Welcome to our current job market, where employees have zero rights and zero representation. When employers can demand that you behave according to their standards at work and at home. In fact, there is no longer a time of day when you are not at work since all of your behavior will be taken into account, not just now but for the past seven years.
Clearly this is a bad idea. Clearly it seems like an invasion of privacy to dig up every aspect of your personal life. But alas, the Federal Trade Commission has ruled that this sort of “background check” is perfectly legal. So we can expect more of it. And what are we to do? Unionize? Demand that our time off actually be off? Go ahead, but they’ll know all about it when you go in for your next job interview (cue creepy music here)…
