A few weeks ago, practically everyone in my major flipped out when the news story broke that employers were asking applicants for their Facebook login information. I expected no less from people who love attention being told their Facebooks will keep them from potentially getting more of it.
At first, this news annoyed me, and not because it will keep me away from a camera. (I stay as far the heck away from those evil voyeuristic probes as I can already.) I wanted to know why employers would believe information on Facebook is credible. NPR doesn’t, so why should they?
The limited dispersal of your information may have context-dependent irony, or it may be sarcastic — neither of which may be immediately apparent to an employer. For instance, I have a photo album of me at my sister’s college graduation entitled, “Pics of me looking sick and sexy-fied.”
If an employer has not heard “We R Who We R,” he or she will not understand the humor and will probably judge me as one of those people who loves attention, when instead said employer should be judging me as a very funny — yet impeccably modest — weirdo who might need a Taco Bell intervention.
Another snag: I sometimes use Facebook as a substitute for email. I’m certain most everyone — employers and employees alike — would agree that employers should not have access to your mail, particularly of the electronic variety. The chilling effect this would have on free speech would be enormous.
Unfortunately, the current death trap that is Internet jurisprudence makes it difficult to say with any certainty whether or not businesses have a right to do this, and I’m not willing to pay for the expensive lawsuit required to find out. Filing that lawsuit would put me at the mercy of old, decorated judges who still haven’t switched from their AOL accounts. Likelihood of the odds being ever in my favor: zilch.
So with the legal route as dangerous as an armed Dick Cheney, I decided to beat these employers at their own game, exposing them to flaws in their use of Facebook data as a factor in employment.
I made decoy Facebook profiles — five of them, in fact.
Each of the decoys has the same profile picture, education and resume. Only the political and religious beliefs, as well as the favorite books and movies, have been changed.
One Chip Skambis is listed as a conservative Baptist, with “God’s will” listed under political views and a psalm in the “about me.” (His favorite book: The Bible.)
Another Chip Skambis has “Anarchist with socialist tendencies” and “Satanist” listed, with “House of the Seven Gables” as his favorite book and “Deep Throat” as his favorite movie.
When and if an employer asks for my Facebook name and information, I will simply reply, “Which one?”
If said employer asks me to clarify, I will tell them that Facebook, to me, is like a puzzle for my friends to solve, thus why I have multiple profiles, each containing one true piece of information about me. I will then say they are more than welcome to compare my portfolio with the profiles and determine which pieces of information are the accurate ones.
The objective here: Remind employers that they do not own you. The economic downturn has led a lot of people — including my absolute favorite Alligator columnist — to glorify our bosses as “job creators” by whose hands our economy will be saved.
In turn, these employers have begun to act like they can get as much info on their employees as they want in the interest of reducing risk. It’s our job to show them why they shouldn’t.
Chip Skambis is an English and telecommunication junior at UF. His column appears on Mondays.
