Mod note: "Blast from the Past - Best of Eddie" - This one is originally from 07/11
Remember that pic you posted to Facebook of you saddling that whale you roofied at a frat party sophomore year? You took it down a couple hours later when you sobered up, but that shit is still out there. Along with the fact that you never miss an episode of Jersey Shore. And that you're the "mayor" of Peeping Tom's Adult Books on Foursquare. It's all out there, and it just cost you any shot you had at being CEO.
What am I talking about?
I'm talking about HR's new best friend and your worst enemy. I'm talking about Social Intelligence, a company whose only purpose in life is to catalog every single socially retarded thing you've ever done and present their findings in a neat dossier to your potential employer.
Gone are the days of HR pogues Googling potential hires and being satisfied as long as no tri-state killing sprees showed up in the first 10 results. More and more, companies are turning to Social Intelligence to scrape the entire Internet with their algorithm to get the goods on you. And it's probably already too late for most of you "over-sharers".
A “John Doe,” in New York City, wrote that he thought schools should teach “basic internet hygiene,” including to “assume that everything you post under your true name will forever be in the public domain, because, well, it will be” and to “never post a photo of yourself online unless it is bland and you can absolutely control access to it.”“Doe” has little use for social networking. “In general, the less of yourself that appears online, the better off you will be,” he wrote. “Facebook? No thanks.” He also wrote that he expected legislators to do little to protect us from the more heinous aspects -- mistaken identity, for instance -- of Social Intelligence’s dossiers. “If they get it wrong,” he wrote of Social Intelligence, it could destroy “a person’s life with no possibility of appeal. Naturally, our leaders in Congress can be expected to do nothing about this. After all, we are not wealthy bankers.”
I actually look on the bright side of this, at least as it relates to my life. Thanks to social media, I'm now completely unemployable. Thanks to drunken tweets, much of what I've written on this site, and other well-documented socially unacceptable behavior, I couldn't get a real job now even if I wanted one.
And Social Intelligence is not without its fans:
Then there is the slightly perverse but well-taken logic that “Gramercy” displayed in a comment. “I actually applaud this,” it read. “It may be because I consider myself as an adult who uses social media just to keep in touch or because I am getting older, but I am actually glad to see that indiscretions and bad judgment exhibited online can and will be held against those pinheads who use the Internet as their private diary. And while I am at it, we should set standards: anyone who has seen a full episode of Jersey Shore or the Housewives of whatever, or can identify the names of the Kardashians should not be allowed to hold a real job or to drive for that matter.”
Thank you, Captain Buzzkill.
So what about it, guys? We've seen a lot of instances of prospective bankers blowing themselves up on the Internet (Vayner, Chiang, that Asian chick with the dyslexic PowerPoint). Have you done something that's gonna come back to haunt you? Don't run from it - own that shit.
Can you imagine if Facebook were around when Bill Clinton was in college?
Woo-hoo! The Draft Board can suck it! I'm outta here, bitches! Off to merry old England. Is it 4:20 yet? Yee-haw!
I guess the long and short of it is, watch what you post online. But if you don't, be sure to copy me on it.
Reason 5601 that I am glad I deleted that shit ages ago.
I never got it and I am constantly reminded that no facebook = no friends. Although I am completely fine without it, I would like to see at least some of those losers spending hours everyday pretending they are socialising miss out on a promotion or job.
LOL.
Harsh.
Seems like Google+ is dominated by people over 30 :/
Its a pretty good idea. More power to them for exposing those idiots who should know better in the first place.
Anyone who doesn't know that once something's in cyberspace, it's there pretty much forever...really now.
.
I deleted fb in 2nd year of university, and was contemplating getting it back.
But, now I know that would be a mistake.
Thanks, Eddie.
Like I have said many a times on this site, I cant wait until our generation starts to run for President. That being said, I would have to think that the person who does not have anything out there is in the small minority. Hell, for all we know one day most people will look at the guy with nothing out there and ask themselves 'wtf is wrong with them. Are they that weird and anti social that they dont have anything out there'
If I was looking to hire a excel monkey who will sit there 18 hours a day, then sure I wouldn't care if the guy had no social life. But, if I am looking for a closer from this generation, I don't imagine that the guy with nothing out there is the closer I would be looking for. That could just be me though.... and yes, if you have nothing out there you are more then likely a weirdo with no friends. Sorry, but how the hell do you go out and not have friends take pictures of you and post them up on their FBs? Everything has a camera on it. Doesnt happen.
The question will become "Why don't they have anything out there? What were they actually doing that they didn't want anyone to document it?" And 10-15 years from now no one will care about what's on FB, since just about everyone will have the skeletons in their closet that they don't want dug up.
My thoughts exactly. I think we're all just have to end up calling a truce and ignoring any pics or social media hiccups that aren't particularly heinous. I'm much more suspicious of the person who does not have an FB or any pictures of them at least enjoying a brew with friends than I am of the FB fratstar.
This is terrible news
Do this company, and others like it, work around privacy setting? or is it just for those people that have no privacy settings?
How do they look stuff up that has been deleted?
Aside from them doing this and having the ability to do so, I find it super creepy that it is even possible to do.
Unfortunately, you only think it's deleted. There are cache websites out there that keep a cache of every single byte posted to the Internet.
The most famous (infamous) recent instance was when Anthony Weiner tried deleting his cock tweet. The cache websites already had it, and now it's forever.
There's no such thing as delete.
It is from NYTimes, but its more information on the subject.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/technology/social-media-history-becom…
i got facebook back in 2004-2005 when it was exclusively a college thing. i'll be the first to admit that i put some stupid shit out there back in the day, and some of it is still probably out there.
my philosophy is this: when i'm in the position to hire someone i won't use this service. i frankly don't give a shit if someone took a bunch of shots at age 20, and i don't want to work for a company that does.
i'm not deleting my facebook account or making any effort to block any old questionable content. i'm not a nazi or a terrorist or a pedophile... if a company has a hard time dealing with the fact that i had fun back in college then frankly not getting that job is for the best.
If I'm not mistaken, the stuff that only your friends can see is not scraped by this company.
Plausible deniability. My name isn't ridiculously common, but there are about 2 dozen people with the same name on Facebook. If you google image search me, not a single picture comes up of me. I got Facebook in the spring of 2005 and I'm 110% sure I've said things that people wouldn't get out of context. For example, my best friend is Hispanic and he and I jokingly say racist things to each other. I used to be pro-life on abortion, then pro-abortion, and now pro-choice (not the Democrat kind of pro-choice but the actual pro-choice), so there would definitely be contradictory stuff posted over the last 6+ years.
Point is, deny. "I didn't write that. There are 24 other John Doe's on Facebook. That's not me." I have had zero controversial pictures posted, so my controversial stuff would be in written form. "It's not me. And unless you can prove it I'll sue you." Deny is only in the context of politics. If a company doesn't hire you it won't ask questions, it'll just not hire you.
But this begs the question--what happens when someone's name is John Smith or Michelle Thompson? How does this service go about finding the right person's specific information?
Problem is, 99% of the time you won't get a chance to explain yourself. Most background checks are preliminary and will remove you from the running as soon as they see you "liked" Paris Hilton's porn vid.
I hate companies like this and the idiots who use them. If you want to hire a drone, buy a damn robot. Isn't stalking illegal? It should be, damn creeps.
This is the new norm. The President is tweeting now. Unless you have heinous pics online you should be fine. Most companies are fine with a cheap and free google search of your name.
Between background checks, drug tests, credit checks and now this almost no one is employable. Also, if someone comes up completely clean doesn't that raise eyebrows by itself.
Monkies, here is a business opportunity. Social intelligence counter strike. Get a law degree and start issued C&D orders to sites with negative info on you. Most will simply delete rather than even deal with a legal hassle.
Keep in mind that not every person with a Facebook account posts pictures of strangling Tai hookers or status updates about a heroin fueled crime spree. Allot of people have extremely boring profiles with nothing risque' at all. It's not as if you'll be fired, lashed and dragged behind a car just for having a profile page with boring pic and a couple dozen uni class mates.
I've been wondering about this sort of thing for a while, and I think it's bad for the human race. Think about it: every parking ticket, late bill payment, detention slip, or cussword you've ever posted online is now in a digital record. While in theory this will weed out anyone with any flaws....because our society thinks it wants perfection or that perfection is possible....what it's really going to do is force any risk taking into underground and uncharted territory.
Instead of using the formal system, people will move away from it. This empowers the type of people who thrive on "off the record" avenues, namely: criminals. The other potential pitfall is that it will stifle any risk taking, and weed out any and all risk takers, causing our society to stagnate.
This digital record keeping leaves no room for redemption. It also sets an unrealistic standard of perfection that the older generation does not even attempt to hold itself to.
ALSO: what's to stop someone from posting false information about someone....even someone who never uses the internet? A cell phone camera and basic knowledge of photoshop can derail someone's life? I'm not a fan.
No sir, I don't like it.
I have Sirius Satellite Radio and I listen to Andrew Wilkow on Patriot Radio. The guy is an AMAZING talk show host. As I was listening today he mentions that his cousin is on TV right now talking about the company he is CEO of--Social Intelligence.
It's a small world.
There are hundreds of dudes on Fbook with the same names and most people have a separate email address that they use for social media sites.
How do background checking companies make the connection between who they are checking and their social media profile? Without them asking you explicitly, how do they single in on you?
Eddie, you really hit a nerve on this one: does anyone know of a way to ERASE a web footprint? The stuff from this site alone is a liability, forget crap I did back in high school. I'm curious if the people devoloping this technology are subject to it?
I really don't like this stuff AT ALL!!!!!
Need a company who can go out, find whats on the net about you, and erase it or atleast make it hard to find the info about you.
Anyone? :)
Firms don't typically make hiring/firing decisions based on a picture on facebook, unless they have serious reason to believe it will cause the company's reputation to be harmed. If you can do the job, they typically don't care too much about what you do on your free time (unless it's something materially consequential, like record of stealing or drugs).
Just be smart about what you do, where its going, and don't get too pumped up about that picture of you puking that was posted by some dbag a couple months ago.
Should I do a post about erasing your digital footprint? There are ways to do it (though probably not foolproof against these algorithms, unfortunately).
If you end up doing this, I had heard of this site a while ago (it used to be called FaceWash) http://simplewa.sh/login
The irony of it is that you have to grant the app access to your posts and likes, but you are even recommended by the service to take away the permissions after using it.
But basically what it does, is that it goes through all your posts, searching for a list of undesireable content (that they already have preset which is pretty comprehensive, or you can set up your own list and search up any post of yours with any keywords you type in), and you can then decide what to do with that content.
ha. I'm finding some of my best status updates ever via this thing.
Reputation.com specializes in protecting your reputation online. They might do something along those lines.
I've personally had web hosts shut down sites slandering someone with my name (though a different person.) It's just too much liability for me to have those out there.
I just emailed the web hosts with my issue and the sites went down within a week. Slander is a liability for the web hosts as well.
Anyway, I'd have to agree with UFO here, it would be way too easy for vindictive, jealous, or otherwise just sadistic people to leave false footprints.
Social Intelligence is a credit reporting agency. As such, if you are denied a job because of them they will have to send you a copy of your report.
I think this company is going to run into a lot of trouble. Also, the founders are listed on the website. Might be worthwhile to write their names down in case you get into any trouble. Only a plane ride away to sue them for defamation if they misrepresent who you are.
Na it's Buzz Killington
Isn't the simple solution to just turn all your privacy settings to max? No one who is not my friend can see anything about my profile. It's that simple. You can have hundreds of pictures of Questionable Things(TM) and it won't make a lick of difference if the only people who can access them are people who you've explicitly granted access.
There's like 10 check boxes in your account settings on your facebook, check them all and if you're really paranoid change your last name to a nickname or something ridiculous. If someone is denied a job because of what they posted on FB, then they're idiots for letting privacy settings be so loose to begin with.
Social Intelligence seems like it's just playing off out-touch HR reps whose last experience in social networking was getting finger banged after a church dance.
You cant control what other people are putting up of you. I do not take my own pictures, but there are 1000s of me out there from other people. Funny story, I was dealing with disciplinary crap in college and I denied everything related to it. I walk into the office for my meeting with the head disciplinary woman. She asks me again if I did XYZ, I said basically no way in hell, no idea what she was talking about. She tells me to come to her desk and turns over photos of me doing XYZ which I was denying. She did not get this from my profile thats for sure.... just fyi.
But you can control what other people put up, at least to the extant that it can be traced back to you: it's called un-tagging. There's even options available to completely remove the ability of people to tag you in photos or for people to even find in you search.
These articles and stories are overblown. The assumption that whatever you put out on the internet is there to stay forever is mostly correct, but the notion that it can always and easily be traced back to you is most certainly not the case.
Unless an employer demands access to your facebook profile as part of the interview (at which point we've crossed over into 1984 territory), this is all hogwash.
No, you cant control anything people put up there. I dont care if you arent tagged. If they want to find you, they will. How hard is it to go through your friends profiles and look at their pictures? Believe me, these pictures were not tagged of me or on my Facebook. They still got them. If you are of someone of importance or running for a position of power, how hard / how much cash do you think it would cost to get every photo of you out there - tagged or not?
I mean the master himself (Zuckerberg) got burned more then a few times from shit he said.
Remember this one? 7+ year old IM conversation dug up: http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-…
There is a way around this.....dump so much random shit with your name on it into cyberspace that no one will have the time to sift through it all: hide in plain view. Lawyers do this all the time, but the difference here is that decisions have to be made in real time. Dump so much data that it's impossible to go through within any meaningful timeframe.
I still want to know how to delete my history though, just in case I ever run for office.
You just wrote my post for me. That's the only way I know how to do it: put out so much misinformation or totally innocuous information that it takes up the first 10 pages of Google results, thus burying your truly heinous shit. There are even companies that will do this for you these days.
And there's cameras every-fucking-where these days. It's only a matter of time before someone catches you doing something stupid. Just ask that NYU chick on the Metro North.
im so happy that even though my first and last name combination is kinda rare that there's some biology professor with all sorts of published work that takes up at least the first 5 pages of google results.
am i the only one who never poses for photos while out?
Personally, unless you're doing cocaine/pot or naked etc. in photos I don't think its a big deal. I doubt anyone who is looking at an elected official will think "This guy drinks? OMG he can't be the Presidents!" Considering how many of our elected officials are alcoholics I doubt it would be a problem. Maybe if you're groping or disgustingly making out with a girl (or guy) maybe. But I think the real stuff people don't wanna be known to do will not be put online by anyone with a future. Some fo my friends have pics of them doing lines or smoking pot. But they are music majors and have no real plan fo the future. If you don't have the common sense to not post pictures of you doing illegal drugs..well I think that there are more problems than you think
Remember the shit that went on when the one photo of Bush with a keg in college came out?
Call me ignorant but no, I don't! And in the end, HE BECAME PRESIDENT.
You can be caught for racist shit though. I joke with my friends who are black and asian all the time. Yeah, tht doesn't look good. But as has been said before- in the quest for the Presidency or the like a few grand is a small price to pay to have the internet slate cleaned.
Then you missed out on 6 months of the news cycle...
I'm curios too see when my Generation starts to run for political office, and get nomiated for CEO positions how much shit is going leak out about them.
Is this just social media or are we talking about email chains between friends (like in frats) as well?
Yes, they are definitely stored and accessible.
That's kinda misleading. Sure, email and texts are stored somewhere but whether services like this have access to them is completely different. Your cell phone provider is not going to get into the business of selling your texts anytime soon and that's the only way I can see it happening. Same thing with your email regardless of who the provider is or whether it's free or not. Email chains I would be completely worried about because those tend to get forwarded and posted all over outside of your control.
Holy crap. My facebook is pretty good. My email is pretty good. My text messages, when taken completely out of context, are totally racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic and even, umm, fascist, but that's out of the context of understanding who I'm talking to, the context of the comments (like could be joking about the guy we met at a bar who was a legit Nazi), etc. If anyone ever found my text messages I'd be unemployable, let alone un-electable. There's even some demented stuff in there that again, out of context (for example, a text message alluding to a south park episode just watched with friends), would get me raped in prison.
The immutable law of the universe: context matters and context is ignored in 1) religion, 2) employment and 3) politics.
Ha! Wow, I remember that video from like 2003. I think I probably "liked" it. Paris Hilton was hot as balls in it.
www.pipl.com a nice place to dig up something from your past
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