Should We Outlaw Employers From Asking For Social Networking Logins?

from the this-is-not-a-good-trend dept

In 2009, we wrote about the city of Bozeman, Montana asking job applicants for all of their passwords to social networking sites, so that the city could look more closely to see if they had "high moral character." Public outrage over that plan resulted in the city dropping the requirement. Last year, we noted that some places in Maryland were doing the same, leading to a lawsuit. However, the Boston Globe is now reporting that more and more jobseekers are being asked for their social network logins, as a simplified "background check" by employers. It's a newspaper trend piece, so in typically maddening fashion it makes no effort to indicate how widespread this really is -- but the fact that it's not a big story any time an employer does this certainly suggests that it's becoming at least somewhat more standard.

Still, does that mean we should pass a law? Senator Richard Blumenthal -- who has long been in favor of laws against all kinds of internet companies -- is apparently working on exactly that kind of legislation. Somehow, I doubt it's an accident that the Boston Globe trend piece came out at about the same time as Blumenthal's plans were discussed. Frankly, I still think that it's pretty sketchy and questionable for companies to ask for logins, but is it so bad that we need a law? Is there at least some sort of data on how widespread this practice is?

In the meantime, for those interviewing for jobs who do get asked for such things, it seems only proper to respond as the first individual profiled in the original article does—by walking away:

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information.

I would still guess this isn't quite as common as the article tries to suggest, but either way I'm curious if people feel this practice is so egregious that it needs a new federal law?

Filed Under: interviews, jobs, logins, privacy, richard blumenthal, social media
Companies: facebook

One Cent Friends: Another Attempt To Quantify Social Media's Value

from the disconnect-with-fans-plus-reason-to-not-buy dept

We've talked before about services that attempt to measure someone's social media "influence" and the inherent silliness of the concept. Although the numerical values assigned by services like Klout are, at best, weak indicators of a person's actual influence, it's not surprising that people are trying to make it work. The advertising industry has run on flimsy numbers for a long time: newspaper readerships and television ratings are all extrapolated, not directly measured, and advertisers pay rates based on numbers that may or may not be indicative of how much exposure they are really getting. This was an advantageous situation for the media industry, but the digital world has largely nullified that advantage. Today's advertisers are clamouring for social campaigns and viral ads, but ad agencies and publications aren't quite sure how to actually measure those things—or how to charge for them.

So it's interesting, but pretty bizarre, to see some short film creators attempt a promotion that places an arbitrary dollar- penny-value on their fans' Facebook friends:

A 40-minute film called Andy X (about the life of Andy Warhol), which was available for streaming starting Feb. 22, is offering interested viewers an opportunity to get a discount on the $6.99 price tag. As the promotion explains, "We're trying something a little different here. We're letting you pay to watch the movie by using your friends as currency."

In other words, one Facebook friend equals one cent. If you have 300 friends, you'll pay $3.99 for the rental. Don't get too excited if you have more than 400 friends since there is a cap ($2.99 is the least you'll be able to pay to stream the film).

It's a novel idea, but one that I doubt will work for a variety of reasons. For one thing, number of friends is an even worse influence metric than something like Klout, which at least looks at multiple factors. People use Facebook in all kinds of different ways: someone with 100 friends might be a quiet user who uses the site for little more than private messages and birthday wishes, or they might be a powerful voice who keeps a small social circle of others like them. Similarly, someone with 1000 friends might be a trendsetting socialite, or they might be an indiscriminate social media butterfly whose posts are lost in the noisy news feeds of other people who also have 1000 friends each, and who don't really remember who they are.

Moreover, the promotion doesn't actually encourage fans to do anything. Nobody is going to go out and add an extra hundred friends to save a dollar, and those getting the full discount have no added incentive to actually use their supposed influence on behalf of the movie. I bet this promotion will alienate a lot of people, since it's basically a direct insult to anyone with fewer than 400 friends. Telling your fans that they have to pay more because they don't use Facebook the way you want them to (or don't use it at all) is not going to endear you to them. "You have been weighed in the balance of customers, and found wanting."

I'm all for creators trying to leverage the evangelistic powers of their fans, but the creators of Andy X have really missed the mark. Their promotion comes across less as a reward for fans who have big social circles and more as a punishment for those who don't—and it doesn't encourage either group to do anything useful.

Filed Under: andy x, influence, movies, social media
Companies: facebook

Sky News Tells Reporters Not To Use Twitter To Break News Without Permission

from the how-not-to-do-it dept

It's kind of amazing to see how little Rupert Murdoch-owned media entities seem to get the internet. The latest is that Sky News -- which had been building up a reputation for having reporters who used Twitter to break various stories -- has issued a clampdown against journalists using Twitter to break stories, or even to tweet anything outside of their official beat. It's like instructions on exactly how to kill off any Twitter presence. So, Sky journalists are not allowed to break a story without permission. It first has to get approval from the news desk. Reporters must "stick to" their own beat, and can't talk about anything else. They're not allowed to retweet reporters from other news entities or, really, any other person on Twitter. The only thing journalists can do (and are, in fact, encouraged to do) is to retweet stories that were posted by other Sky journalists (after those stories got approval from the news desk, presumably). It really is a perfect list of exactly the opposite of what a good modern journalist on Twitter should be doing these days. They should be breaking news on Twitter. They should be retweeting others. They should be willing to stray from their beat at times. All of these things build up connections and relationships with readers/fans/viewers. Not surprisingly, Sky staffers are apparently not at all happy about this:

Journalists at the broadcaster expressed shock and dismay at the new guidelines, which they claim are a retrograde step.

Well, it's a Murdoch property, so... retrograde steps seem to be par for the course.

Filed Under: communicating, journalism, social media, uk
Companies: sky news, twitter

Online News Association Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

from the wow dept

As Lamar Smith continues to live in his fantasy world that there's no real opposition to SOPA, more and more groups keep coming out against it. The latest is a big one -- and a big surprise. The Online News Association has officially come out against both SOPA and PIPA. The letter is thorough, detailed and comprehensive about why the bills are problematic, focusing mainly on SOPA. And it's unequivocal in its condemnation of the bill:

[W]e believe SOPA would do little to stem those problems and would actually cause harm to the Internet and to the American public.

Indeed, the act -- and its counterpart in the Senate, the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) -- would inappropriately shut down websites, disrupt the free flow of legitimate information and limit Americans from fully exercising their First Amendment rights.

The letter then highlights multiple problems specifically in the bill (contrary to Smith's claim that no one has identified the specific problems of the bill). ONA notes that under SOPA, overblocking will be quite common:

Forcing payment services and ad networks to mete out punishment raises a host of concerns. For starters, SOPA stipulates that any payment service or ad network that fails to comply with a notice served by the copyright owner and based on the court order can be sued for damages and held liable. On the other hand, any service that cuts ties with a suspected site after receiving notice of a court order, may not be sued for damages by that site “for any acts reasonably designed to comply” with the order.

It’s not hard to imagine, then, that a service provider, acting with abundance of caution and out of its own self-interest, will simply cut off services to entire sites that have been accused of infringement, even if the court order only applies to portion of the site. Such actions could even extend to other sites owned by the same entity.

The group also raises concerns about the anti-circumvention provisions (which aren't limited to foreign players) and how that could cause all sorts of problems for those who provide legitimate tools. Following that, they raise key concerns about the impact on social media sites -- which the letter notes is "one of the most profound cultural developments on the web."

This is pretty big. Journalists, as a group, rarely stake out political positions or take official positions on anything political at all. To have them, as a group, come out against SOPA/PIPA shows just what a disaster these bills are. How much longer will the bills' supporters pretend that there isn't widespread opposition? How much longer can Lamar Smith, Bob Goodlatte, Howard Berman and John Conyers ignore the detailed concerns of the American public?

Filed Under: copyright, free speech, journalists, pipa, protect ip, social media, sopa
Companies: online news association

Can A Company Keep An Employee's LinkedIn Account After They're No Longer Employed?

from the how-does-that-make-sense dept

Venkat Balasubramani has the story of a bizarre fight between a company, Sawabeh Information Services, and the founders of Edcomm, a company that Sawabeh bought in 2010. A few months later, the founders of Edcomm were fired, and the lawsuits commenced. There are a variety of issues here, and Venkat's post goes through most of them in detail, but I wanted to focus on just one: the fight over who gets to control Dr. Linda Eagle's LinkedIn account. Eagle was one of the founders of Edcomm and the key figure in this fight. Sawabeh claims that Eagle "misappropriated" her own LinkedIn account and the contacts associated with it, by continuing to use it after being fired.

While I can kind of understand some of the legal fights over who gets to control Twitter accounts, the entire point of a LinkedIn account is to represent an individual and their job history. How would it possibly make sense for a company to control an ex-employee's LinkedIn account?

The company seems to think that the LinkedIn account was more like a rolodex. Because (for reasons that are beyond me), Eagle had let others in the company access and manage her account, as soon as she was fired, people at the company accessed her account and then changed her "name" and profile picture to someone else at the company. That would be pretty shocking for her connections, who might not know who the guy was at all. They also tried to do this with the account of one of the other fired founders, but they didn't have his password. Apparently the company asked LinkedIn to hand over the password, and LinkedIn, properly, told the company to get lost.

Either way, the court digs into the "misappropriation" question with the LinkedIn account and refuses to dismiss it out of hand (at this stage of the case), which seems too bad. However, there's an unclear issue of who "developed" the contacts in the account:

The Counterclaim Complaint expressly alleges that, with respect to the LinkedIn account connections and content, "Edcomm personnel, not Dr. Eagle, developed and maintained all connections and much of the content on the LinkedIn Account, actions that were taken solely at Edcomm’s expense and exclusively for its own benefit." ... While Plaintiff argues that Edcomm fails to allege facts that would show that it made a substantial investment of time, effort, and money into creating the cell phone number or LinkedIn account, Edcomm counters that its employees developed the accounts and maintained the connections, which are the route through which Edcomm contacts instructors and specific personnel within its clients. As these conflicting allegations create an issue of fact requiring further discovery, the Court must deny the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings as to the misappropriation counterclaim.

Of course, I wonder if they're arguing about the wrong thing here. If the company developed the contacts, perhaps it has a right to ask for a copy of the contacts, but the account itself seems like it should belong to Eagle. Part of the problem here is the idea that contacts are some scarce resource. Both parties can have them, and the simplest thing would be, if there is a legitimate claim that the company developed those relationships, to require that their contact info be provided to the company -- but leave the account in the hands of Eagle.

Either way, the case should be a warning for any company that wants to control the LinkedIn accounts of its employees.

Filed Under: contacts, linda eagle, ownership, social media
Companies: edcomm, linkedin, sawabeh information services, siscom

KLM To Allow People To Pick Seatmates Based On Social Media Profiles

from the need-an-e-harmony-plugin dept

I spend way too much time in airplanes these days, and I'm one of those people who tends to be fairly anti-social during the flight. I generally don't talk at all to my seatmates. Most of the time, this is because I tend to view flight time as productivity time, and focus on getting work done. That said, I've found that on the rare occasions that someone else initiates conversations, I've had some pretty fascinating conversations (including a very long discussion once with the VP of a big tech company on innovation tactics that took up much of a 10 hour flight). So I'm... intrigued but skeptical of the news that KLM is trying out a system that will let passengers pick seatmates based on social media profiles. The details are still a bit slim, but it sounds like when you purchase, you can link up your social media profiles (if you choose -- opt-in only), and then as other passengers are picking seats, they can see who they might be sitting next to. My guess is that having a good seat will still significantly outweigh who you might sit next to. On top of that, you'd imagine that a lot of the really interesting people you'd want to meet might keep their info private. But, either way, even if I probably wouldn't participate, it will be an interesting program to watch.

Filed Under: flying, seatmates, social media
Companies: klm

India Says Google & Facebook Should Prescreen All User Generated Content To Stop Jerks

from the don't-disparage-me,-bro dept

If you thought pushing companies to monitor for infringement or terrorism were bad enough, apparently officials in the Indian government have asked Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo to pre-screen all user-generated content to try to remove "disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory" content from being posted.

At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. “This is unacceptable,” he told attendees, the executive said, and he asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites.

In the second meeting with the same executives in late November, Mr. Sibal told them that he expected them to use human beings to screen content, not technology, the executive said.

The three executives said Mr. Sibal has told these companies that he expects them to set up a proactive prescreening system, with staffers looking for objectionable content and deleting it before it is posted.

Apparently, Kapil Sibal, India's Minister for Telecommunications, doesn't comprehend the scale of what he's asking, or the fact that it's impossible. How does one become a bureaucrat in charge of a technology field when one can't comprehend such basic concepts? Oh crap, do I have to pre-screen for such "disparaging" remarks now?

Seriously, we're seeing this kind of insanity more and more these days, where politicians, who clearly have absolutely no freaking clue about the technology they're regulating, are coming up with positively insane suggestions, with no comprehension about the ramifications. The end effect in this case, would almost certainly be the end of any kind of user-generated content system in India. Is that really what Sibal wants?

Filed Under: defamation, india, kapil sibal, monitoring, social media, user generated content
Companies: facebook, google, microsoft, yahoo

Kansas Governor Apologizes After Staff Gets High School Student In Trouble For Tweet About The Governor

from the #heblowsalot-or-maybe-not dept

You may have recently heard the story of high school senior Emma Sullivan, who was told she had to write an apology letter to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback for a "disparaging" tweet she sent out while on a field trip to the state capitol. Apparently, while Brownback was talking to the group of students, she sent out from her mobile phone:

"Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot."

She didn't actually make any comments to the Governor, and says it was just a part of a running joke she had with some friends. However, someone on Brownback's staff found the tweet and alerted school officials, who called her into the principal's office and told her that she should write an apology letter to the Governor -- due today. Sullivan thought about it and decided that she wouldn't do it, because she didn't think she should:

"I don't think I should write the letter, and I don't think it would be the best move for me," Emma Sullivan, 18, said late Sunday night. "At this time, I do not think an apology would be a sincere thing for me to do."

In response, it appears the whole story shifted in the other direction, and the one apologizing is Governor Brownback, who has said, "My staff overreacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize." Everyone involved now seems to be playing off the whole misadventure as "a lesson in social media and free speech." The school district also said that it would not send an apology of its own, and that "The issue has resulted in many teachable moments concerning the use of social media. The district does not intend to take any further action on this matter."

In the end, it seems like everyone's right that this is something of a "teachable moment," but it's still pretty crazy that it reached that level in the first place.

Filed Under: emma sullivan, free speech, kansas, sam brownback, social media

Connecting With Fans Means More Than Talking About Your Latest Work

from the open-up dept

Aaron deOliveira alerts us to this great quote from artist Michele Banks from an interview in Scientific American:

I think some artists don’t get the best out of Twitter or other social media because they mostly write about their own work. I talk about everything – art and science, sure, but also football, music, politics, kids, cats, whatever. If you think of it as a great free-flowing conversation that you can jump into any time, and you both listen and respond, then it’s amazing. If you just talk about yourself, then you’re that guy at the party that just talks about himself, and you’re not going to be very popular.

For years, we've talked about this concept of Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy (CwF + RtB), and too frequently have assumed that the really difficult part is the RtB side of the equation. But it's really amazing just how many artists have trouble with CwF as well. And this is a great explanation of why. We often hear from artists who say, "well, I have a Twitter and a Facebook feed, but it doesn't work." And then you go and look at the feed, and all it is is them announcing, "I just released this work," or "I'm performing at such-and-such on December 10th," or whatever. It's not just that there's little interaction, but that there's little that's interesting.

But then you go look at the Twitter feeds of folks who really connect with their fans and you see something totally different. You look at Kevin Smith or Amanda Palmer or Zoe Keating and you see that they talk about all sorts of interesting stuff that goes way beyond what they're famous for -- and they talk back to lots of other folks as well. They talk about their lives. And it's amazing how just doing that helps connect them even more to their fans. It makes their fans that much more loyal and committed. It really is about building a connection. Too many artists like to mock these forms of communication ("who wants to hear what someone had for lunch"), but they don't realize that sharing, listening, communicating... and just being human and authentic is an amazing way to connect with fans in a powerful, lasting and meaningful way.

Filed Under: connecting with fans, michele banks, social media

AP Scolds Reporters For Breaking News On Twitter

from the the-scarcity-mentality dept

Every time the Associated Press does something concerning the internet, it seems to just reinforce how out of touch it is. The latest is the bizarre and ridiculous decision to scold AP reporters for daring to tweet out the "news" that they had been arrested. You see, in the minds of AP bosses, they haven't quite figured out that artificial scarcity isn't a the same thing as real scarcity. So they think that if a reporter is arrested, the reporter should keep that news hoarded up until the AP itself can release it. But, as anyone who is a frequent Twitter user knows, that's crazy in a situation like this. Reporter gets arrested, reporter tweets about it. That's a perfectly reasonable response. But the AP wanted the story for "itself."

The problem is that the AP is apparently dreadful at chess. It doesn't think beyond the single move ahead. So, yes, perhaps they don't get the "break" on the news that an AP reporter was arrested -- that goes on Twitter. But is it really that bad? Let's just play out the scenario. Assume the story goes viral on Twitter. Remember, this is 140 characters, not a full blown article. If the message goes viral, then tons more people are seeing that short message and are curious about the details -- the details that aren't going to show up on Twitter anyway. But having that tweet out there, so it can go viral, means building interest in the story, and from that, it seems like any story would end up receiving more traffic, because the Twitter messages "primed the pump." I honestly can't fathom a scenario in which people see the tweets and decide that it acts as a full replacement for the eventual news article.

Mathew Ingram makes a key point on all of this. If a single 140-character tweet is acting as a suitable replacement for your reporting... you've got bigger problems:

The other thing the Associated Press needs to think about is that if a 140-character post or two by one of your reporters on Twitter is a threat to your news service, then you have a problem that can’t be fixed by simply enforcing your social-media policies more stringently. This argument feels very similar to the debates that newspapers used to have when they first put up websites — about whether to post breaking news to their site, or “save” it for the paper. This was fundamentally a lose-lose situation, as most newspapers discovered, since saving it often involved others breaking the news first on their websites.

Filed Under: journalism, news, social media
Companies: associated press