Are Social Media Background Checks Fair?

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How much control should employers have over the personal lives of their employees?

If you read a newspaper or even surf the web, I'm sure that you've seen the stories of people who have been fired because of information that they posted on social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Most of the time, the employees have posted comments about clients or have made disparaging remarks about the company they work for, but sometimes, they have made other comments, ones that aren't work related, that their employer found objectionable. My question is, how much control should employers have over the personal lives of their employees.

When you are looking for a job, it's always a good idea to review your social media accounts to make sure that your online presence presents a professional image. You can be relatively certain that any potential employer will do a background check and a Google search on you. However, with new companies like Social Intelligence, who comb the deepest parts of the internet to compile data on your internet life, it is easier than ever for employers to dig up any dirt they can on job candidates.

Although they are careful not to use information that reveals data that is protected, like age, marital status, gender, race and religion, these internet history checks can reveal information that you thought was private. Not only do employers get to see this information, they also use it to make judgements about candidates.

For example, if someone had posted a movie review criticizing a particular actor, made racist comments on a blog post, uploaded weird or offensive videos, made comments about their drug use or referenced violent activity, this would make an employer decide not to hire an otherwise qualified applicant.

My opinion is that employers should only be concerned about a person's ability to do the job in a professional manner. Although this information is available, it doesn't have any impact on job performance. If I worked with someone who was a competent employee and when they went home, they enjoyed sexually explicit content online or posted frequently to conspiracy theorist websites, I wouldn't care. It would be interesting to know, but it wouldn't make them a bad employee.

What concerns me more is that who gets to decide what type of behavior is acceptable or unacceptable? We are all people who have lives and hobbies outside of work. Some of those hobbies might be odd, just plain weird or even a little dangerous. Does that mean that we should censor ourselves and our activities in order to always show ourselves in a professional light?

For now, the answer is yes. According to a New York Times report about social background checks, people have been denied employment because they belonged to a Facebook group called "This is America. I Shouldn't Have to Press 1 for English.". What bothers me about this is that no one knows why this person joined that group. Maybe they thought it was funny, perhaps they were frustrated at the state of customer service today or maybe they don't like people who don't speak English. Either way, I don't think that it has anything to do with their ability to do their job. Further more, if it is reasonable to not hire someone who may or may not hate non-English speakers, would it be ok to not hire someone who made jokes about fat people, blondes or gays?

My point is, where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable and who gets to draw it?

I'm not the only one asking these questions. Last fall, the Federal Trade Commission raised concerns about these types of social media background checks. After an extensive review, they determined that the checks are in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Because applicants have to sign a consent form for these searches, employers have more wiggle room. Of course, these consent forms aren't really voluntary, either you give consent or you don't get the job. Somehow that seems like duress to me.

So, what should you do if you are looking for a new job? Should you go through every site and remove any content that might be objectionable? For now, the answer is yes. Even still, that might not be enough. If the company you want to work with uses an internet background check company, they may still be able to access information that was deleted some time ago. Which, for most of us, is pretty scary.

What do you think about these types of background checks? Do you think they are fair or overly intrusive? Let me know in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for FinancialJobBank. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.