I Failed a Social-Media Background Check

Matt Welch | 7.7.2011 2:45 PM

Not me, but online journalism vet Mat Honan. Read the interesting results of a third-party social media data scrub over at Gizmodo.

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Achtung Coma Baby 14 years ago

Okay, Matt, we'll promise to read that if you promise not to let Nick read what John Cole wrote about the latest Reason.tv video on the D.C. Taxi drivers. Nick has kids, and I don't want them to lose their father to a suicidal plunge into the Cuyahoga River.
1. Warty 14 years ago
  
  I'll take a guess at what it said: Something something Koch something something glibertarian. Am I right?
  1. SugarFree 14 years ago
    
    Throw in a little "they're all rich white guyz!!!1!" and you are there.
    1. Warty 14 years ago
      
      Being rich is the worst form of racism.
    2. Achtung Coma Baby 14 years ago
      
      John "Malcolm X" Cole
      1. SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        The guy who wrote the article in the comments:
        
        Freddie deBoer - July 6, 2011 | 4:37 pm ? Link
        
        Taylor (or whatever your name is), I am a socialist, as much as I am willing to pin myself down to anything, up to and including the part about nationalizing the means of production.
        
        -
        Kulaks! Kulaks everywhere!
        
        Pro Libertate 14 years ago
        
        Taylor is, of course, Chuck Heston.
        
        Achtung Coma Baby 14 years ago
        
        Search "Nick Gillespie", "Matt Welch", or, hell, even "Radley Balko" and prepare to feel somewhat sad.
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        Oh, I know about those twats. Their hysteric anti-libertarianism would just be pathetic/funny if they didn't send so many trolls this way.
        
        So Many Trolls 14 years ago
        
        You seem rather old to be a groupie.
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        Case in point.
2. Matt Welch 14 years ago
  
  Check the top of the blog (ours).
  1. Achtung Coma Baby 14 years ago
    
    Oh, and thanks for correcting me. It's actually Freddie deBoer who wrote the post.
Sudden 14 years ago

In other words, your drunken kegstand photos are probably fine as long as you're not wearing a T-shirt with a swastika or naked from the waist down.

Which is good, because when I do a kegstand, I wear a shirt and therefore am only naked from the waist up.
Joe M 14 years ago

I don't use the same e-mail for employment as I do for general intarwebz. This confirmed that that was a good idea.
1. Whoa 14 years ago
  
  Yeah.
  
  Your personal email address, especially if you've had it for a long time, could have all kinds of things tied to it that you'd rather an employer not see. Spend the nothing it costs to set up a dedicated job search email account, and list that one on your c.v.
Aqua Buddha 14 years ago

I periodically kill of my internet personas in annoyingly public fashion, so I'm safe.
1. Hodor 14 years ago
  
  Hodor!
  1. Eric Holder 14 years ago
    
    Holder!
2. Tulpa 14 years ago
  
  Web 2.0 Suicide FTW.
Pro Libertate 14 years ago

My comments here are good, because they prevent me from ever being tempted to run for political office.
1. Sudden 14 years ago
  
  I actually just googled my email for feat that I had at some point in the past associated my job hunting email with my H&R email. I hadn't. Which is a relief to me and potential clusterfuck for my next employer.... reason, i'm looking in yer direction.
2. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
  
  I thought you were more of a "seize power" type anyway. I got that impression from your comments here.
  1. Pro Libertate 14 years ago
    
    The best way to ensure my freedom is to subjugate you all to my will.
  2. Pro Libertate 14 years ago
    
    And it's making jokes like that here that prevent me from running for office.
    
    Not that I really want to, but whenever I get the urge, I think of Hit & Run.
    1. James Ard 14 years ago
      
      Getting elected turns men into monsters. Your kids don't deserve a dick for a dad.
      1. Jake Boone 14 years ago
        
        Luckily, some of us were already monsters beforehand. Me, for instance... I was a 1950's vintage Wolfman before I got elected.
R 14 years ago

My 'official' web presence is basically nil. Just a boring facebook page I don't use, and that's pretty much it. I've used pseudonyms for pretty much everything online, and never use my full name (if I do use my name, it's only my given name, which is boringly common enough that there is no way in hell anyone could tell it's me without an IP trace).

So no drunken keg stand pictures of me, bitches.
Libertylover 14 years ago

What's all this whining about? In the libertarian view, if the government wants to invade your privacy it's a terrible thing; if an employer does it, it's fine. Let freedom ring!
Tulpa 14 years ago

I wonder to what extend the opposite end of the social media spectrum can hurt you though. ie, if you have absolutely no social media presence and your name and supplied email turn up no google hits involving you, are they going to be suspicious that you're hiding something, or that you're a hermit with no friends who sits around commenting on blogs under a pseudonym.
1. PermaLurker 14 years ago
  
  Dammit I've been outed!
Aqua Buddha 14 years ago

or that you're a hermit with no friends who sits around commenting on blogs under a pseudonym.

Hey! I'm right here.
edsa 14 years ago

,, I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshibalaptop for $94.83 being delivered to our house tomorrow by fedex. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores.I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, BuzzSave.com
1. Joe M 14 years ago
  
  Wow, I mean, that's crazy when you think about it.
  
  http://www.spam-privacy.com
PIRS 14 years ago

edsa is blatant spam. Please get rid of it. It is not even as funny as the AnonnBot. It is just low ball spam.
1. Pro Libertate 14 years ago
  
  Yeah, but you can't beat those prices!
Mr. FIFY 14 years ago

Ten bucks says the Obama regime is all for this kind of shit.

Twenty bucks says the eventual Obama regime replacements will be even MORE in favor.
1. Joe M 14 years ago
  
  And so on, and so on, and so on...
  1. Mr. FIFY 14 years ago
    
    Eventually, we'll have so many laws and so much government, we'll come around full circle to barbarism.
    1. Barack Obama 14 years ago
      
      Workin' on it!
Fluffy 14 years ago

Here's what I don't understand:

How can they search inside your Facebook profile? I can only screw around inside the Facebook profiles of my friends.
1. Joe M 14 years ago
  
  Some people don't have their security settings tweaked properly.
  1. Pro Libertate 14 years ago
    
    Or, perhaps, Facebook and security are two words that shouldn't be spoken together.
2. Tulpa 14 years ago
  
  Not that I countenance it, but there are some creative (and legal as no hacking is involved) ways to get access to people's photo galleries, even if you have no friend relationship to them at all and they have their photos ostensibly restricted to friends only.
  
  You basically find one person in your network who has left their image gallery open to people in the network, then follow a chain of people who are in photos with each other. Preventing this sneaky method of access requires some serious, non-obvious tweaking of privacy settings which very few people bother with.
  1. Tulpa 14 years ago
    
    I should be more clear: if person A puts an image including person B in their photo gallery, and you have access to person B's photos, there's a way to sneak in to person A's entire photo gallery (even photos without person B). And you can usually find a way to daisy-chain this access if person C has a photo in person B's gallery, etc.
James Ard 14 years ago

So I should worry that when the host of the Washington Journal reads one of my tweets on the air that someone might see it?
SNBC 14 years ago

I can see this causing major issues if employers cross the discrimination line. I think Mat's article clearly outlines the potential risk in social networking background checks.

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