The Privacy Paradox: Your Life as an Open Facebook

From Throwingsheep

The Privacy Paradox is this: never before have so many people exhibited their deeply personal and intimate selves so publicly on social networking sites like Facebook; and yet never before has the danger of privacy invasion, identity theft, and reputational damage been so preoccupying.

The Privacy Paradox can have particularly serious consequences for professional careers. It is now common practice for HR managers to conduct background checks on Google and inspect a candidate’s profile on sites like MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, and others. And the results frequently produce alarming, and sometimes anguishing, outcomes.

People today post so many intimate confessions, questionable photos, and eye-popping details about their personal lives on social networking sites that, later when they are looking for a job, many are haunted by a sinking feeling of dread as they realize that embarrassing traces of many past foibles -- silly comments, dumb pranks, sick jokes, harum-scarum antics -- have been left indelibly on a site like Facebook.

Consider what happened to Inspector Chris Dreyfus, a senior British police officer in charge of special units protecting the Royal Family and top UK government figures. Seeking a promotion up the ranks, 30-year-old Dreyfus underwent interviews for a position as Bedfordshire Police chief inspector. On paper, he was eminently qualified. Prior to his current job, he’d been head of Britain’s special Counter-Terrorism Proactive Unit where he was in charge of 30 officers.

With those credentials, it was no surprise when he was offered the Chief Inspector’s position. But then, suddenly, the offer was withdrawn. After a series of background checks on the Web, it was discovered that Dreyfus was homosexual. That wasn’t the problem. The issue was his online behavior. Dreyfus had been flamboyantly advertising his gay lifestyle on his Facebook profile, including provocative photo postings and suggestive reference to using “Vaseline”.

Inspector Dreyfus argued that there was nothing wrong with posting details of his private life online. “As long as I do not do anything to disgrace the force then what I do privately is acceptable,” he claimed. But Dreyfus’ hierarchy in the Royal Family protection unit had already warned him in writing about his flamboyant Facebook existence.

This kind of professional setback can be seriously traumatizing. Every week there’s yet another media report about an employee who has been fired due to some posting on a social networking site. Sometimes these collisions lead to painful and costly legal battles. For everyone involved, they end badly. Reputations are destroyed. Careers are ruined. Financial situations collapse. Rebounding often seems impossible. Families can be torn apart. People sink into dark depressions. Employers, for their part, attract unwanted negative publicity. Employee morale is undermined. Everybody is on edge. Big Brother is watching. Nobody wins.

At the end of 2007, Britain’s Information Commissioner estimated that nearly 5 million young people in the UK had online profiles featuring content that could, if consulted by universities or potential employers, damage their higher education and careers prospects. By ratio-based extrapolation, that would mean that some 25 million American youths are in the same boat and countless millions more worldwide. In Britain, 60% of youths polled had no idea that their profile postings were permanent and could come back to haunt them. Even more intriguing, 70% of youngsters polled said they were unconcerned that their online profiles could be viewed by strangers. They didn’t give a damn.

Given this high level of apathy, the UK Information Commissioner issued a number of tips to encourage young Britons to “wise up” about the potential consequences of posting intimate details about their lives. One key warning was: a blog is for life. Another message was: reputation is everything.

Some believe that the Privacy Paradox is an outdated issue. As Sheldon Teitelbaum put it in Wired magazine: “Privacy is history – get over it.”

Is Teitelbaum right? Should we care? So what if a potential employer digs up a goofy Facebook posting from a decade earlier. If they don’t like what they see, maybe you wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.

Perhaps employers should understand what is plainly obvious: life is a long and complex movie, with many plot twists, not a single snapshot. As media critic Jeff Jarvis put it on his BuzzMachine blog: “Young people have a different view of privacy and publicness because they realize you can’t make connections with people unless you reveal something of yourself: you won’t find fellow skiers unless you tell the world that you, too, ski. Privacy advocates would be appalled that I have revealed my most private information on my blog: my health data. But by writing about the heart condition I share with Tony Blair, fibrillation, I have found advice and support from others. Publicness has its benefits.”

Perhaps Web 2.0 social networking is redefining the values that underpin established notions of privacy. At present, however, we are witnessing e-ruptive collisions between emerging and established values about personal privacy – and as we have seen the consequences can be serious in the professional world.

Are there other examples of HR managers mining Google and social networking sites to exclude job candidates – or perhaps even fire current employees? Are there examples of job candidates prevailing over employers on the grounds of privacy invasion? On the positive side, can MySpace and Facebook and other social sites be used to create a positive impression for prospective employers – in other words, can social networking sites be used as part of a successful “impression management” strategies?

We need to learn more from concrete examples and case studies.