WTF Stories of the Week

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

There's been a fire at the Magic Castle. Kitchen and dining room "extensively damaged."

Originally Posted by Alex

Don't worry. In magic, fire never actually burns anything. It was just there to distract you from what was really happening.

I missed this post.

VAM !!

[Morrigoon]

From the department of OH HELL NO!... article suggests that employers might start requesting your FB login and password.

My take on this: it's illegal to ask me during an application process about my family or marital status. Since that information would be accessible from the private profile of my FB account, it is inappropriate if not completely illegal to request this.

[Alex]

My view is that I would put this on the application and then never hire anybody who answered it because obviously they can't be trusted with network security.

[katiesue]

I've heard of, although I haven't interviewed for 12 years now so I've never experienced it, potential employers asking interviewees to show them their facebook page.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Depending on how badly I want the job, I'd either say no, or I might say, "You can see what's visible to the public on my Facebook page." Beyond that, none of their damned business.

[Strangler Lewis]

The old lawyer's saying is never say anything to anyone you would not want to see repeated in court. Your Facebook page is just what you choose to expose to the world about yourself. If your prospective employer would be free to interview everyone you ever spoke to in order to ask them what stupid or potentially unprofessional thing you did, why shouldn't it get to go beyond your handpicked references to a reliable source like a Facebook page. Whether it's legal or appropriate for companies to make decisions based on how employees conduct their private lives is, of course, a separate question from wanting a reasonably accurate source of information.

[Alex]

There is another case recently of a court requiring a plaintiff to hand over their Facebook credentials to the defendent as part of discovery.

From the employer perspective I don't know that I see a big issue with it legally other than I would simply refuse to work for a company that required it, just as I'd refuse to work for a company that insisted on taking a tour of my house.

The discovery one I find interesting in that it presumably grants access to much more than just the information that is on point in the case, as well as functional abilities completely unrelated to discovery. I'm not sure why "defense counsel is required to hand over transcripts, with timestamps of all posts and comments made during period X" isn't sufficient.

[JWBear]

In which case, I would immediately have myself reported to Facebook for violating their TOS so that they could shut down my account.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Alex

There is another case recently of a court requiring a plaintiff to hand over their Facebook credentials to the defendent as part of discovery.

Was this the domestic case where husband and wife both and to hand over their FB passwords to each other or did I miss something else?

[Alex]

Car accident case. Defendant looking for evidence that plaintiff was exaggerating injuries.