social media privacy: ShortFormBlog

10:13 • 7 months ago

The Golden State is pioneering the social media revolution and these laws will protect all Californians from unwarranted invasions of their personal social media accounts.

Calfornia Gov. Jerry Brown • On the signing of two separate bills that block employers and universities from asking their employees or students, respectively, for social media passwords. Brown says the bill came as a result of reports of employers asking for the passwords. While the federal government didn’t take it up, some states — including California — did.

11:32 • 1 year ago

Tags: aclu american civil liberties union civil liberties privacy facebook facebook passwords social media social media privacy 54 • Permalink

In case you wondering, the ACLU doesn't think potential employers should have the right to access your Facebook password, either. Here's what ACLU attorney Catherine Crump had to say:

It’s an invasion of privacy for private employers to insist on looking at people’s private Facebook pages as a condition of employment or consideration in an application process. People are entitled to their private lives. You’d be appalled if your employer insisted on opening up your postal mail to see if there was anything of interest inside. It’s equally out of bounds for an employer to go on a fishing expedition through a person’s private social media account.

In case you missed it, we wrote a nice long rant about this a couple of days ago. Suffice it to say, we were not bullish on the idea that employers could access your Facebook account so you could get a job.