by Zach Bigalke

Created on: December 21, 2007

There are two ways of looking at this argument. The first would be to view the rights of employers to CREATE accounts at these social-networking sites and then use them to hire and fire employees. Essentially the employer would be using their MySpace/etc. account as the Human Resources department. "Friends" would be those people gainfully employed... and terminating employment would be as simple as dropping a friend. This violates the spirit upon which these sites were created, and essentially prevents a separation of personal and professional life...

Which brings this topic around to the second part of the debate, which is what most people have been debating: whether the information gleaned by employers from MySpace/etc. can be utilized to make personnel decisions. This is where the real loss of personal liberty comes into play. The burden of proof comes down to a simple question: can an employer fire a person if a boss sees his or her employee drinking heavily at the bar after work? The employee has never shown up to work under the influence or hung over before. There is no evidence that this after-hours alcoholic consumption is affecting the employee's work performance. Would it be ethical for an employer to fire this employee based simply on an eyewitness account of use?

Most certainly not... professional decisions should be based on work performance and work performance alone. Discriminatory practices such as hiring and firing based on religion, gender or ethnicity have long been held in direct conflict with federal labor laws. By such a standard, an employer cannot hire and fire employees based on their after-work hobbies. MySpace/etc. have not been created as "Big Brother" screening tools for employers to spy on employee activity after they leave the office...

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