A really good reason for using a handle on the Cellar

So this new company is providing a service that will deliberately search the Internet and gather together and judge social media content.

And by judge I mean make conclusions based on those pictures. I wonder what they would make of Halloween pictures? If they saw a picture of someone cross-dressing for a costume party, would they assume that this indicates a lifestyle preference (I believe I recall a politician who got in trouble for this)? If someones wife or girlfriend were wearing a Sailor Moon costume, would they worry about pedophilia tendencies?

As far as the guys who have posted nude pictures of their wifes/girlfriends here, does that constitute a 'negative' post?

I realize that what we post in public is public. I also realize that people still do not understand that aggregating and archiving give an amazing amount of power and control over data.

I never posted 'crazy' pictures to my Facebook pages. I do wonder if my next employer will be handed a reprint of all of my Cellar posts. They are welcome to it. I consider using my real name on the Cellar a social experiment that pre-dates Facebook.

I do wonder about class distinctions when I read about articles like this. When companies talk about random drug tests and using services like this on employees and prospective employees, I think to myself "Really, all employees?" Because in any publicly held company, everyone is an employee, including senior management and the CEO.

I do wonder if they will deliberately break aliases/handles. Will they go out of their way to find out who Merc, Brianna, Wolf are?

I know in the past that some people here have given enough information about themselves to reveal themselves. I recently asked someone here who posted a picture relating to themselves if they intended to leave their name on it.

I guess the only protection everyone will have is if enough people do one or two stupid things that companies will have to ignore them or risk reducing their acceptable applicants to zero.


http://consumerist.com/2011/06/new-services-adds-your-drunken-facebook-photos-to-employer-background-checks-for-up-to-seven-years.html

The FTC has given thumbs up to a company, Social Intelligence Corp., selling a new kind of employee background check to employers. This one scours the internet for your posts and pictures to social media sites and creates a file of all the dumb stuff you ever uploaded online. For instance, this sample they provided was flagged for "Demonstrating potentially violent behavior" because of "flagrant display of weapons or bombs."
The FTC said that the file, which will last for up to seven years, does not violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The company also says that info in your file will be updated when you remove pictures from the social media sites. Forbes reports, "new employers who run searches through Social Intelligence won't have access to the materials if they are completely removed from the Internet."

There is no profit for any background check company to sift through thousands of "anonymous" posts to try to piece together enough clues to identify a dwellar's real identity on the off chance that that dwellar will apply for a job someday and the background check company might be brought in to provide services. It's just too costly and time consuming for a very small payback.

Do potential employers check Facebook? Yes. Nothing too new there.

I tend to leave the exciting stuff off my FB account. I do admit to belonging to a cat lover group, a disability rights coalition, and that I play Scrabble. I live dangerously, I know.

Prospective employers just zap me because of my age. They don't need to check on the Internet for that. They need only glance at my resume. Alas. :(

Great post rich. This is interesting. As glatt stated searches of you on FB by an employer or prospective employer is not new. Which is why I always recommended to people not to ever use your real name on FB. The reality is unless your friends also cop into your attempt to remain anonymous on FB you can be linked by pictures that others ID you in, or just casual conversations. It also brings up how effective some of the counter services are like Reputation Defender, http://www.reputation.com/ .

On a related note it is important that if you want to avoid easy data mining to never use the same alias on various social forums you participate in. I have seen people on this site do this to others here, search their Cellar name and find other sites they have posted on. Unless they get ahold of your IP, that is if you have a static IP address, it would be hard to find a trail if you change your name on each site. I never use the same name on any place I participate in.

TheMercenary;741753 wrote:

The reality is unless your friends also cop into your attempt to remain anonymous on FB you can be linked by pictures that others ID you in

If you are tagged in someone else's picture in Facebook, you can remove the tag. Don't like a picture of you on FB? Just delete the tag. It won't show up in any searches of you.

glatt;741754 wrote:

If you are tagged in someone else's picture in Facebook, you can remove the tag. Don't like a picture of you on FB? Just delete the tag. It won't show up in any searches of you.

I have only found myself in one and I removed that. How do you search for yourself in other pictures on FB that someone may have posted?

Exactly. If you can't search for yourself, then other people can't either.

The only way you show up in a picture is if you are tagged. Only your friends can tag you. If you are tagged, it shows up automatically in your pictures. No searching is necessary.

(You click on your name, which takes you to your wall. Over on the left is "Photos." You click on that and look through those pictures. That collection of photos is every picture on FaceBook where you have been tagged, even if someone else posted it.)

Forbes reports, "new employers who run searches through Social Intelligence won't have access to the materials if they are completely removed from the Internet."

...


...


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!

Seriously? Completely removed from the internet? Is this intended to be a fig leaf to those folks who worry about negative stuff in their "credit report"? And! They'll update the profile as material is removed? Color me skeptical. Why would the agency do this? Diminish their source/product that is their main source of revenue? Inconceivable!

This kind of shit cracks me up.

glatt;741759 wrote:

Exactly. If you can't search for yourself, then other people can't either.

The only way you show up in a picture is if you are tagged. Only your friends can tag you. If you are tagged, it shows up automatically in your pictures. No searching is necessary.

(You click on your name, which takes you to your wall. Over on the left is "Photos." You click on that and look through those pictures. That collection of photos is every picture on FaceBook where you have been tagged, even if someone else posted it.)

Thanks.

glatt is right on. One other thing - Not that I think its searchable, but some people write in the description below the image.

For example: "John Doe and Jane Smith at the beach."
To delete that, you'd have to ask whoever wrote it to delete it.

BigV;741793 wrote:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!

HAHAHAHAHAHA <cough> BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA gag gag


Right there with you.

Out of curiosity I did an Internet search of myself and some Cellarites whose names I know. I found a 2009 police report.

Now in the old days there might be a check box on a job application about whether you have been convicted. You would not have to mention any time you were taken into custody if no charges were brought or if the cops took you to meet someone like Wolf.

Now that more and more information is 'on the grid', what used to be 'public information' but difficult to collect and store is becoming simpler and simpler.

The fact that someone is involved in something like a domestic disturbance or some other crime that ends up on the police blotter, even as a witness, can now be accessible with a simple search by anyone.

I know of a few cases where people here have changed handles because their true names became linked with their Cellar identity. This may not actually work well unless they start their new ID from scratch.

richlevy wrote:

Now in the old days there might be a check box on a job application about whether you have been convicted.

I always wondered about that--it's not actually a crime to lie on your resume, is it? So, if you're pretty sure that admitting the conviction will mean you don't get hired, and the worst they can do is fire you if they ever find out, why not just lie about it? (Moral fiber aside, and all.)

Is there only one Richlevy? I doubt it. You have gone none-handle, but your name is far from unique and you give very little personal info. I don't use my real name because I know I piss people off and I at least want them to work if they feel the need to track me down and harass me. I don't care to work for anyone who can't deal with anything I have posted on the internet. I'm happy with who I am, I need to be me, and I need to be accepted for that. Yes, you're right, i am not currently employed. :lol:

Even if you use a handle and are careful about remaining anonymous they can find out who you are through click-tracking, stylistic analysis, purchasing patterns, etc and link your data with you with %N certainty.

monster;742022 wrote:

i am not currently employed. :lol:

but you are from what I read, very gainfully employed.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and stop using my real name.;)

monster;742022 wrote:

Is there only one Richlevy? I doubt it. You have gone none-handle, but your name is far from unique and you give very little personal info. I don't use my real name because I know I piss people off and I at least want them to work if they feel the need to track me down and harass me. I don't care to work for anyone who can't deal with anything I have posted on the internet. I'm happy with who I am, I need to be me, and I need to be accepted for that. Yes, you're right, i am not currently employed. :lol:

:thumb: