Some employers have attempted to get around the restriction by instead demanding that jobseekers sign into their account in the presence of the interview and allow themselves to be 'shoulder-surfed'; that is allow their profile to be examined by the person who they may be working for. This practice has also been condemned by the ACLU, as the practice is possibly in violation of state laws concerning an individual's privacy.
Facebook's privacy settings allow a user to lock down his or her profile quite tightly, so that they can choose who sees their posts by group or on an individual basis. The development that an employer considers it acceptable to demand access to an individual's profile so that it can be scrutinised for any comment or photo that the employer does not approve of, is alarming to say the least. Opponents of this practice argue that it is no different from an employer demanding access to an individual's email or even their diary, yet there seems to be a growing number of employers who are doing this.
Separately, US colleges are now requiring some of their students who participate in college sports to add their coach as a 'friend' so that they can be monitored for compliance. There are even companies such as UDiligence, who offer tools to allow the accounts to be monitored for 'inappropriate' posts; although this tool must be added by the account holder it is easy to see that it will be a mandatory requirement if the student wishes to participate in the college sports programme.
The whole issue raises a number of questions; uppermost in my mind is this one: is it because the job market is currently so competitive that employers feel that they can make such demands? That is to say, if one person refuses to divulge his or her password so the account can be scrutinised by a third party, the employer does not care because there will always be a candidate who will say yes, since jobs are so scarce.
Another question which I certainly would be asking of the interviewer is this: would it be OK if I were to take a photo of them during the interview and tweet it for all to see? I know what the answer would be to that, but why should it be any different for the candidate? I fear the answer is that the employers feel that because they have something people want (i.e. the job) they can make any sort of demand on their candidates and the one that is prepared to divluge their own private profile is the one they hire. With the job market as competitive as it is, do employers feel that they 'own' every aspect of their employees' lives? If you work for an organisation, how comfortable would you feel about your employer feeling entitled to pry into your life. If the practice of prying into a person's social media profile becomes acceptable, can employers then track your phone, bug your car or home in order to ensure that you are not doing, or saying anything about which they do not approve? Not that I'm suggesting companies WOULD go to such lengths to keep an eye on those who work for them, but the idea that they CAN, is chilling enough.
This is a worrying trend and one I hope does not spread to other countries, I would like to think that privacy laws in the United Kingdom would disallow similar practices by HR departments here, but the growing trend among US students to create an account under an assumed name, leaving only a 'fan page' under their real name suggests that laws in the United States certainly need to be tightened to put a stop to this practice.
The answers to the problem of employers demanding access to your online life (and your life itself, by definition) are either to delete all your social media accounts and switch your computer off for good, or if you do want to use the Internet to improve your life as so many have before, then the answer is to work for yourself - and that's a whole different subject!
The news that Posterous has sold out to Twitter has been greeted with mixed reactions at best, but most are agreed that the time to migrate their content is now. They have promised 'ample notice' before making any changes to the service as-is, but with all the former Posterous staff now working for Twitter there is only one way this service is going.
Although Posterous said in their statement that they will shortly be making it possible to export your content soon, you may be considering making your own move sooner rather than later. In my case, this blog also posts to Blogger and Wordpress anyway thanks to the Posterous tool which makes it a simple matter to cross-post, so the content will not be lost.
You can, however, already move your data to whichever alternative platform you will go to once Posterous does close, which most people are predicting will happen before 2012 is over at the latest.
Please visit this post on Lifehacker for detailed instructions on how to move your Posterous data.
I've found Posterous a pleasure to use because of its flexibility and ease of use; the ability to post via email was particularly attractive and it made adding photos or video very simple - no copying and pasting embed code, it does it all for you. However, rather than let Posterous (or Twitter, now) decide when this blog closes, I'm going to do it myself and therefore future blog posts will appear on Wordpress and possibly Blogger, if I can settle on a similarly simple method to put them on both.
If you've found this post on my Wordpress blog - stick around, that's where future posts will go - otherwise, I hope you'll join me over there!
I did have another blog post in mind to write but the news which broke this evening, that Posterous (the platform I am using to write this post) has been acquired by Twitter, has meant a change.
The post on Posterous's own site appears upbeat at first glance, enthusing about the new 'opportunities' and the 'exciting' future ahead, but it is easy to read between the lines. Despite the assurance that Spaces 'will remain up and running without disruption', they are already promising 'ample notice' if the service changes. That means they are certain to make changes, and when you consider that the motive behind the Twitter acquisition was not to buy the product, but to take on the staff, it's clear that those staff will not be focusing on Posterous in the future. The statement goes on to promise 'clear instructions' for users who wish to back up their content or move to another service soon. That does not bode well for the Posterous service as it currently stands.
The last paragraph reads very much like a 'goodbye' to Posterous users, thanking them for their support and talking about the 'amazing journey' of the past four years. Once again, the conclusion must be that Posterous will be left to wither on the vine while the energy is concentrated on Twitter.
The reason this matters is because the Posterous site has become popular due to its ease of use, and its ability to accept content via e-mail or web posting. It also features scheduled, cross-posting so you can submit the content once and it will appear wherever else you choose. For instance, this post will go to both my own site at ronniesoo.com and to my Blogger platform, and it will also appear as a link on my Facebook page, my LinkedIn and yes, my Twitter account. You can have more than one blog too, and run them from one account, and you can also point a custom URL to a Posterous site. In fact, I liked it so much that I recommended it to several of my friends, one of whom was looking for a place to continue writing after the demise of MySpace. In short, it made the Internet much easier for everyone, so it is very sad to think it will shortly be left to die off.
As for Twitter itself, what they propose to do with the staff they've just hired en masse remains to be seen. It's possible they want the team to do something similar within Twitter, perhaps as a way of breaking free of that 140 character limit, but as the product that's already out there does the job perfectly well in my view, that is surely just reinventing the wheel?
Whatever happens, I'm afraid it's more disruption and more work for bloggers who are regular users of this platform. For all the assurances of the platform remaining available without disruption, they do not say how long that will last and so it is recommended that users do migrate their content elsewhere as soon as Posterous provide directions for them to do so.
The only good thing I can see in all of this is that it means more work for webmasters!
I only became aware of Pinterest late last month when I chanced upon a blog from a former Pinterest user, a lawyer who is also a photographer. She had read the terms and conditions of the site and decided she disliked what she saw so much, she deleted her boards from the site. Her blog has gone viral in the weeks since as people realise their legal vulnerability, hidden in the site's terms.
But I'm getting ahead of myself: Pinterest - what is it?
Pinterest is a social photo sharing site which bills itself as an 'online pinboard'. A user who registers then can create 'boards', essentially a themed group of pictures 'pinned' to each board. These boards are then available to be browsed by other Pinterest users, who can also comment on the pictures pinned. However, although you may 'pin' your own photos to a board that you create, the site's own guidelines on etiquette discourage 'self-promotion'. The question then arises, if you are not meant to pin your own photographs, whose can you pin?
Alarm bells started ringing for Kirsten, the lawyer/photographer who investigated Pinterest's terms and conditions, when she found that some photographers who had their pictures 'pinned' were starting to complain about violations of copyright. Upon checking their terms again, she found that Pinterest users are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder for any photos that they pin on their boards, and furthermore they are solely liable for any work they pin. How many people do you think would email the copyright holder first before pinning their pictures up, assuming they know who that might be? Exactly, and right there the whole idea of the 'online pinboard' falls apart.
Kirsten had always made a point of crediting the original photographer when pinning anything to her boards, as the etiquette guide says to do, but realised that this is not the same as actually having consent from the original owner to do that, so investigated further.
She investigated the section on US copyright law dealing with 'fair use'; that is the right to use portions of a copyrighted work without consent under certain circumstances. Although judging what is and what is not 'fair use' can be a grey area, the law states that for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, research, or teaching, a portion of a copyrighted work may be used.
Unfortunately for Pinterest and its members, pinning a photograph on a Pinterest board is none of those things.
According to Kirsten, the outcome of the case of Kelly vs Arriba Soft Corporation is likely to be the one on which Pinterest's whole site relies upon. In that case, a photographer sued a search engine for the unauthorised use of images in its search results. The photographer lost, as the images used in the search engine results were only thumbnails as opposed to the entire work. Again, this is a grey area, warns Kirsten, as thumbnails may or may not constitute 'fair use' and a lot depends on whether only the 'necessary portion' of the image is used or not.
However, Pinterest boards do not use thumbnails. Pinterest takes the image at the same size and resolution as the original source, and pins it to the board. So - Pinterest etiquette says that you are not supposed to pin your own work up (excessively) as it is 'self-promotion', but legally, you can only pin other people's work if you have explicit permission from the copyright owner to do so. If you fall foul of that, where do you stand?
Kirsten once again went back to the terms and conditions and what she found there horrified her.
When you sign up, the terms do state that users must agree not to violate copyright or any other laws, but the section in ALL CAPITALS is the scary part. It says, and I'm quoting directly from their terms:
"YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SITE, APPLICATION, SERVICES AND SITE CONTENT REMAINS WITH YOU."
So, if you do violate copyright, however inadvertently, on your own head be it. It gets better - again from the terms, but not in caps this time at least:
"You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Cold Brew Labs, its officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of or in any way connected with (i) your access to or use of the Site, Application, Services or Site Content, (ii) your Member Content, or (iii) your violation of these Terms."
In other words, if you are sued by a photographer, you must pay both for your own defence lawyer AND for Pinterest's lawyer. If you lose, then not only must you pay damages against yourself, but you must also pay damages against Pinterest. Furthermore, Pinterest themselves reserve the right to prosecute users who violate copyright laws.
Having sifted through all of that, it is no surprise that Kirsten decided (reluctantly, she says) to delete her boards on the site. Most of us are not lawyers, and most of us are not professional photographers either. She is to be thanked for flagging up such draconian terms and conditions, which the majority of users simply will not see and if they do, will not understand their full implications.
As a follow-up to this story, only last week, Kirsten was contacted by Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann who confirmed in a conversation with Kirsten that Pinterest were working on a solution and promised changes "in the very near future". She added that he described himself as "a guy with a computer who had a vision", and not an expert on copyright law. He even asked for suggestions, she said.
Despite the hopeful tone of Kirsten's follow-up blog, the question remains: why is all liability loaded onto the user that way and if Ben Silbermann really doesn't understand copyright law, why launch a site that can potentially put its users in a very sticky situation?
Pinterest is currently getting attention from online entrepreneurs as a way of generating traffic to their sites, it's certainly something I would like to look into. But I won't sign up for a site that loads legal liability so completely onto its users, however seductive its interface is.
I await the outcome of the changes to Pinterest's terms with interest.
I've been dreading subjecting myself to the ritual of sorting through my lists of Twitter accounts which I follow, because although there are several tools out there intended to help the process along, it is still a big job, especially if your list has grown since last you reviewed it.
However this time around the job has become much easier, and it is all thanks to Twitcleaner. It is a tool that's been around for a while but has been completely rejigged, in order to comply with Twitter's own restrictions on auto-unfollowing. The current interface is very easy to use, sign in using your twitter account and let it run a report. When it's done (even with over 6000 in my follow list, it didn't take too long) you will get a Direct Message from TwitCleaner to tell you the report is ready to view. To access it, you have to follow them and the tool is set up so that only you can access the report prepared.
The report is very detailed and groups into several types of 'potential garbage' users, listing how many users are just trying to sell, how many post nothing but links, identical tweets, and those that are using advertising networks. It also gives you a list of dormant users and tells you how long it's been since the user last tweeted, all at a glance. Not only that, but you get to see who is just posting quotes or simply retweeting someone else's posts, and even those who are 'self-obsessed' (the report's words); i.e. referring to themselves in their posts all the time, are listed.
It makes it much easier for you to see what should be unfollowed - for me, I found about 1000 dormant users who had not posted in over 100 days; the users are brought up in a list of thumbnails and to unfollow all you had to do was click each one. There is a limit to how many you can select per day, because of Twitter's rules the app allows 500 accounts to be selected every 24 hours.
I cannot recommend this highly enough for those of you who use Twitter regularly, I was amazed at the sheer number of spam accounts I had collected; some had multiple accounts under similar names and posted for a month, then disappeared never to be seen again - yet they were still in my list. Twitcleaner made it easy to spot these accounts, when you see groups of 'people' who had not posted in exactly 320 days, for example, it soon becomes clear they're spam accounts.
Of course it is necessary to review your Twitter followers periodically, since if you do follow a lot of accounts you need to keep the ratio of followers to followed accounts within 10 percent; i.e. if you are following 5000 users and only 4500 follow you, then you may be disallowed from following any more until you unfollow some accounts. When you collect spam followers as most people do, they're effectively stopping you from following users you DO want. Twitcleaner makes the whole process of clearing out your list far easier than it has ever been before, so I recommend all Twitter users make use of this tool.
Oh, did I mention it was free to use? (That said, you are invited to donate if you have the wherewithal!)
Twitcleaner is available at:
About Me
- ronster500
- Formerly an IT worker, now venturing into the exciting world of Web Marketing. http://www.ronniesoo.com http://www.facebook.com/ronaldpaulsoo
Internet marketing!
