Lately on Facebook (a sentence which sounds like a recap at the beginning of the dullest soap opera ever filmed) I’ve noticed my friend list has gotten decidedly cooler. Brian A. Hipsworth. Tito Puento-Poptuez. Geoffrey Panther. However, whilst I quite enjoy being transported to the Buena Vista Social Club every time I visit my Facebook feed, the reality is far more mundane.
People are changing their names for jobs. Not in a Prince ‘let’s get out of this darned contract’ way, but in a ‘let’s get into a contract by not allowing my future animal rights employers see pictures of me eating veal twizzlers’ way.
I have no problems with jobs. Apart from contract killer or freelance, backstreet abortionist. But on the whole jobs are pretty important and generally a ‘good’ thing. Yet I find this phenomenon of stopping bosses from finding you on a social network a wholly depressing state of affairs.
Here, it’s important for me to stress that I don’t blame the potential employees for this epidemic. If anything, I think they’re pretty sensible. After all, no one likes to be stalked, and Facebook’s a nifty little website for that, employer or not. This may even be beneficial to me, as on more than one occasion I’ve walked across campus grinning at people, thinking I know them. But of course I don’t. I’ve just stumbled (cough) onto their profile the previous evening.
I’m just staring at someone. Someone I’ve found to be fluent in ‘Pirate Bantz (lol lol lol and a bottle of rum)’ and a fan of ‘The awkward moment Gemma from TOWIE saw Chipping on a map and didn’t try to eat it’. Inevitably, they walk past, grimacing. And the only thing of comfort to me is that I know they’ve probably been on my Facebook profile before, doing the same as me.
Instead the problem lies with employers. Why should it be acceptable for them to look through someone’s profile in order to form an opinion about them? If an employee is bad-mouthing the organization, or revealing their secrets in a non-‘mischievous six-year-old girl’ way, fair enough. But when it exclusively concerns the person’s private domain this seems difficult to condone.
I understand most organizations don’t want to hire a lunatic. Really, I do. However, from my experience, most of my friends jumping on the anonymity bandwagon have very little to hide, apart from a few pictures of them being a little bit raucous and drinking some alcohol. I’m sure this wouldn’t put employers off them, after all, it would be ridiculous to be turned down by a big city firm who spend most their free time drunk, and most of their time at work wishing they were drinking. ‘Alcohol? Oh no, we don’t want drunks working here. Sorry sonny. Right lads, half five – let’s go get shitfaced.’
The problem is more the culture this has created. Imagine sitting in an interview and being told, ‘Right, that’s everything, thanks for coming. If you don’t mind, Richard here’s going to follow you home and make sure you don’t glance at any sex-shop windows on the walk back’. Or, ‘Geoff from HR’s going to be round sometime between six and eight to look through your binbags’. That’s not acceptable. This really isn’t that different.
Apparently some firms, particularly in the US, have taken snooping to the next level by demanding your Facebook password. You might as well hand over the keys to your drinks cabinet, or tell them where you keep your black and white minstrel body paint (bathroom cabinet, fourth shelf down, next to the little medicine bottle with a drowsy pony on the label).
Changing your Facebook name makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. If you’re a nutcase it will eventually show through when they let you use a photocopier. When they want to find you, they will find you. I could probably find you on there in a few minutes and I’m not exactly Dog the Bounty Hunter.
If we keep playing their games, we’re only sacrificing our own liberties. They’ll only get cleverer. The hunted remain the hunted. Friends, unite! Don’t change your Facebook names. We have nothing to lose but our Robot Unicorn Attack highscores.