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Should Companies Monitor Their Employees Social Media

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Should Companies Monitor Their Employees' Social Media? In recent years people have had their lives turned upside down over social media comments, videos, or pictures. Imagine this: A group of friends on vacation and have a good time. They laugh, drink, and take pictures with their cell phones. One of these pictures shows a woman holding a cocktail in each hand and smiling. One of her friends posts this picture on Facebook; her friends share the image. Unfortunately, the woman holding the cocktails in the photo is a schoolteacher. Though her Facebook page is private, she had befriended some of the teachers at her school. When the teacher’s principal finds out about the photos, she is told to resign or face suspension.
According to Jeffrey Mello, “Employers face an ethical question relative to whether, as part of due diligence in the hiring process, they should scour online networks and sources to discover information about prospective hires” (168). Reviewing a job applicants’ social media presence may soon become a standard hiring procedure. In the article “Employer Access to Employee Social Media: Applicant Screening, ‘Friend’ Requests and Workplace Investigations”, it mentions a survey of managers and human resource professionals in which over 43 percent of employers used social media sites to research job applicants (Crespo and Lyon 8). It also states that employers’ interest in employees’ social media accounts extended beyond hiring. Many companies seek to leverage their employees’ social media networks in their marketing campaigns and inspect personal social media accounts in workplace investigations (8). Regardless of an employers' intentions, social media information can help or hurt potential employees’ chances of being hired. Are employers really just looking for positives? Some employers would say they are looking for certain information that

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