Choosing between a job and a social networking identity

According to this article, some employers not only are searching the internet for discouraging information on you, but a few companies have asked interviewees for their passwords to their social networking accounts.

What in holy Christ.

For many people, I think the choice would not be whether or not to give up this information. It would be whether or not to reply calmly, "Why do you want that?" or flipping the bird and walking out.

I accept that whatever I put on the internet has to be regarded as public knowledge. If I post it, it's there for anyone to see. I might put a warning on it, or I might hide it behind an obscure or invisible link, but some search bot will find it and display it on search results. I accept that. Indeed, I'm more concerned about someone getting me mixed up with the other Mark Pritchards of the world than I am of someone finding something I did in the past. That's because I've always lived an open life. I'm bisexual, I write porn, I go to church, I've done drugs in the past, I like singing, I used to be a high school teacher. All a matter of public record.

But my life at work is separate from all that. I hope people are adult enough to understand that. I'm not surprised that some fundamentalist Christian academy is not; that a Montana city behaves the same way is only a little less unsurprising. This is another reason I live in San Francisco.

But I mean: asking for your password?? People just have no shame.

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