Blog Post 2: VR Mapping and Employer Background Checks

Based on Prompts

Any time we interact on any social media platform, we are adding to our digital identity. I think people need to be very aware when using social media sites. Often people tend to react to situations online quicker than in person, because the illusion of anonymity provided by our screen gives us a semblance of protection. But as we are learning in this class, the internet’s memory is a lot better than ours, and once we put something out into the void it can be there forever.

A good example of this is the question about potential employers. If I am applying for a job, my future employer can look me up online, and with enough digging can probably find all of my accounts on the platforms I use, as well as every post, comment, picture, video, etc. that I’ve ever created and posted. This comes right back to my point about people being aware of what they are putting out there on social sites.

I was prompted to think about this further by a question Jesse posted in our Mattermost discussion: “if the employer finds things that are negative (in their opinion), what flexibility do you think they should extend to clarify or should they have moral judgement about their perception of negative?”. I had not given this much thought before reading this, but I do think it is an important point. While it is important to be conscious with one’s presence online, I don’t think this automatically means people can be judged uniquely based on any singular post or comment they have created online. I think employers are allowed to dig into someone’s social media presence (as is anyone), but I think if they want to use this information in their hiring decisions it needs to be accompanied by a discussion. I personally think that asking a potential employee to explain certain interactions on social media is completely acceptable, but refusing to hire someone without said explanation can be unreasonable.