Eric Hanberg

As I listened to Eric Hanberg's presentation, it made me aware of how everything I've ever posted online is a publication. The story he shared about privacy and Facebook is both alarming and quite unethical. He mentioned that he had posted a comment online which stated his opinion about a topic and interestingly enough, he ended up not getting hired for a job because of it.

In my communication classes, we discuss a lot of topics regarding social media and privacy. One topic that stood out to me that was very similar to Eric's experience, and it contained a woman who did not get hired for a job with an organization because of this Facebook status she posted online:

Every person conveys meaning in various ways. The Facebook status above may suggest that this woman went to a party, had one too many drinks, is hungover and possibly had allowed her children to also consume alcohol. The following week, the woman had a job interview for an organization who frequently used Facebook to "judge" their candidates. If you hadn't guessed already, because of this Facebook status, she didn't get the job. Want to know the real meaning behind her post? She was at her niece's sweet 16 party, ate the "special" entree and endured food poisoning because of it.

With many other cases that are similar to this, we can only hope that not all organizations practice the same hiring procedures. I mean, that IS what LinkedIn is for right??? More importantly, we should be well aware of the fact that whatever it is we put on the internet is published. Like Eric had mentioned, "if it's not on the internet, it never happened."