Is your future doomed because you’re on Facebook?

8 April 2008

This is going to be a slightly different post from what I usually write but I think you will like it as it’s part silly, part serious. I was actually thinking about discrimination this morning on my way to work. We have laws against discrimination here in Canada and, I believe, most “civilized” countries. So if you apply for a job for example, your skin color, sex, sexual orientation, religion and so on shouldn’t matter. You should be hired for your qualifications.

But what about your digital life? I usually “Google” people up as I like to make an opinion for myself. I like to know who they are on the web. They might have a business, a hobby, be an author, etc.

But what if an employer Googles you and finds data that would influence their hiring decision or what if they terminate your employment based on this data? Would this be discrimination? For example, could your drunk pictures album on Facebook cost you your future job? Could your pimp-style profile on MySpace destroy your chances of getting a promotion if your manager is a female? Did you really wrote on Twitter that you once got so drunk that you forgot who you went home with? How balanced is your digital life..?

An employer might not want to hire you because customers could Google you and find out about your “hidden life” as well. This could break the relation between the customer and the company. The solution is easy: let’s hire someone who’s got a clean online life!

Journalists try very hard to find pictures of politicians in order to discriminate their reputation. We see this all the time. It will only get easier than ever to find those pictures in the future. This is why I hesitate to truly open myself of Facebook and Twitter. Not that I have a secret life or anything, but anything could be used against me. Maybe I’m too paranoid? On the other side, it seems like there is a new generation that doesn’t care at all. Are they fools? Or perhaps are they simply early adopters of this future lifestyle where “what happens on the web stays on the web”? I don’t know about you but I can smell a lawsuit coming up in USA: “Discrimination against a Facebook profile”.

How about you, do you censor yourself online? Are you afraid of any future issues?

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