Facebook

Do any of you remember the commercials for the drug campaigns where you would see an egg being fried and the caption would be something like “this is your brain on drugs?” Well that is kind of how I feel when I hear or read all of the sob stories about people losing their jobs over comments made on Facebook! Duh! How many times does the public need to be told – Facebook is on the Internet and there is NO expectation of privacy? Sure, you can set your privacy setting so that only friends can view your pages but, do your friends have their privacy settings set? And what about their friends and friends of friends – this could go on forever!

One of the segments on the CBS Early Show last week was about a teacher who lost her job over Facebook. Dr. June Talvitie-Siple who was a $92,000 a year supervisor of the math and science programs at a high school in MA, wrote things on her Facebook page demeaning the students at the school calling them germ bags as well as arrogant and snobby. So, just like the commercial – “this is your brain on drugs” – how many times do people need to be told that there is NO expectation of privacy on the Internet?

If you are a job seeker, please be careful what you post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other social networks. It may sound silly but employers have really wised up to this. They will look for you on these social networking sites and see what you are posting. They feel that it gives them a good indication as to your character. As the article indicates, “if your opinions are on the Internet anywhere in any form they are never safe”.

Dr. Siple never expected her comments to be seen by the district or any of her superiors. The comment about students being “germ bags” was a joke and taken completely out of context. According to Dr. Siple, she had set her privacy settings but, when Facebook made changes to its privacy settings earlier this year, it reset her settings to the default. She never even thought about checking them because she had already set them. As she said – “you have to really be paying attention on Facebook”!

Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends but the rule of thumb – never post anything negative about a company, a colleague or anyone else associated with your current job or even a future job. Facebook is definitely here to stay – at least for the immediate future. So, be careful what you write so that you don’t end up like Dr. Siple!

By: Nancy Anderson, Staff Writer