Every day, peoples lives are drastically changing because of their online brand. Some of these changes are heart warming success stories – others, not so much. Tatsuya Nakagawa, CEO of Atomica Creative Group, was right on when he said, “Donald Trump may have gone out and trademarked the term ‘You’re Fired’, but he is going to have a hard time competing with Facebook.”
Here’s the story of one women who lost her job after 8 years because of some “inappropriate photos” (see below) she posted on her personal blog. The photos really aren’t all that scandalous, in fact, I would say around 70% of Facebook profile photos would easily beat her out on the scandalous scale. The photos were, however, enough to get her fired (maybe because she was wearing a company uniform, perhaps?!), and stories like this are becoming more and more plentiful. The moral of the story here is, watch your online presence closely, because if you don’t, your employer (or potential employer) sure will.
Here is Ellen Simonetti’s story:
“My name is Ellen Simonetti, but I am better known to Web surfers as the Queen of Sky.
I had been a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines for almost eight years when I started my blog, or online diary, in January of this year. I entitled it “Diary of a Flight Attendant.”
On Saturday, Sept. 25, I came home to flashing messages on my answering machine.
‘Ellen, I need you to call me back. It’s about your trip tomorrow,’ repeated the urgent-sounding voice on the tape.
The voice was that of a Delta Air Lines in-flight supervisor. I immediately dialed the number on the messages, thinking perhaps my Rome flight the next day had been canceled. What the supervisor told me, however, left me shocked and sick to my stomach. The reason I started my blog in the first place was as a form of therapy.
‘You won’t be able to fly your trip tomorrow…it’s about some pictures on the Web.’”
Is Booting an Employee Based on Their Personal Life Illegal?
Many people throw their hands up in he air in desperation, crying, “isn’t snooping social profiles a restriction of free speech, isn’t it discrimination to not hire someone based on what you find about their personal life?” The bad news is that in many cases, there is no legal means of redress if you’ve been fired because of online content. Whether it be blogging, Facebook, or Twitter: it’s essentially fair game for employers because it’s so hard to bring a case against them.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation states on its post How to Blog Safely that, “while your right to free speech is protected by the First Amendment, this protection does not shield you from the consequences of what you say. The First Amendment protects speech from being censored by the government; it does not regulate what private parties (such as most employers) do. In states with ‘at will’ employment laws like California, employers can fire you at any time, for any reason. And no state has laws that specifically protect bloggers from discrimination, on the job or otherwise.”
In fact, some employers are even FORCING employees to hand over their digital dirt. For instance, if you want to work for the city of Bozeman in Montana, you better be ready to provide log-in information and passwords for social networks you’re on.
The application form states, “Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.”
That’s some pretty controversial, scary stuff. The city has faced universal criticism for this policy and they actually recently posted an apology and removed this invasive section of the application. I look at this story and think, hey, at least they were blatant about it before, now they will just do the usual social media background checks on their own. Even without the login info they will likely still find a staggering amount of digital dirt, after all, a third of employers who look online for more info on job candidates find content that results in dismissal of the applicant. Welcome to the new age of the web. The good news is, if you recognize this shift, you can make logical choices about what you put on the internet and utilize the web to get hired and establish a compelling personal brand.
Stay tuned for our next post later this week highlighting some people on the other side of spectrum who have actually been sought out by employers because of their personal brand online.
