Mythrill

I'm not actually asking about your credibility. I just wanted to know if you ever had to lie to a corporation in order to be hired.

I was searching a little more on this problem. One point of concern is that employers *could* hack into your profile to see personal stuff. While they're not hackers themselves, they could hire someone to do it (less likely) or use specific tools that exploit security holes (more likely; Orkut had this security problem with private photos once). Another point of concern is that there were cases of people being fired simply by saying that their work was boring. If someone hates me enough, they can easily impersonate me and create a profile with a bunch of photos (not necessarily embarassing, just to legitimate the profile) and say that I hate where I work. Your boss could do it him or herself for whatever reason.

Sorry, you're right indeed.

1. Nope, we were originally talking about how social networking can make you an unemployed person if you're not careful. 2. So you're arab and muslim? Tell me... do you live in the US? If you do, did you ever need to lie to get a job?

Strong arguments indeed. However, I'd like to point out a few things. 1) You're confusing "arab" with "muslim". Perhaps how I worded the last argument referencing this doesn't help you here. "Muslim" is the religion. Anyone can be a muslim the same way one can be arab, and the two of them are usually, but not always linked (an arab can be an orthodox catholic and a redneck could be muslim). Therefore, to reject a muslim person, the only way is doing some "research". 2) Telling the employer you're married is one thing; the employer actively eavesdropping my cyber conversations is another. In the first situation, the employer is passive; you told him because somehow you wanted to. In the second situation, even though you didn't tell him, he decided to "research" by himself and found out about you.

The problem is, he didn't defend what this kind of question would be any helpful to the discussion to begin with. He knowing wether I do have a job or not does not help any iota into clarifying whether work harassment is ethical or not.

Wow Bleck, instead of being so overly-creative and doing some impersonation where I say I'm 14 years old, I tought you'd defend yourself and say you're not half brained. Sorry, I forgot you don't understand proper speech. Let me try again. lulz bl4ck your not originalz defnd yerself bitch

Yes, I tought you would say that. However, I'm not attacking you to discredit your arguments. I'm attacking you because you pissed me off. And that's not ad hominem. Happy, my dear half-brained friend?

1. Why are you so deserving of any "proof" of my "credentials"? 2. You're not supposed to trust me because what I said is coming from me. You're supposed to believe me or not based on my own arguments. As I said, it doesn't matter what I do or I am; if something I say holds true, me not working or not is irrelevant; it won't be more truthful if I work, it won't be a lie if I don't. 3. I went into "jerk mode" because of the personal insults directed to me, not because I'm winning or losing anything. Fine. Do so. As I said, will what I say be any more or less truthful because of that? What's next, are you judging if what I say is credible based on the job I have? Will my arguments be more truthful if I'm a doctor than if I'm a musician?

See, my half-brained friend... ethinicy isn't really related to "skin color", but with culture and religion as well. My boss could hate muslims and only find out this information looking at myspace. What am I supposed to do, omit that I'm muslim from my profile? Oh, but I forgot... you having half a brain does not allow you to link ethinicy to religion, does it?

(jerk mode) No it isn't, you dumbfuck idiot. Questioning the boundaries of these things are not related to me having or not a job, or to the job I have for that matter. Now drop your l33t sp34k and fuck off. (end jerk mode) Happy?

If you're trying to acuse my credibility, you should at least try to write well-formed sentences.

He asked me how old I was and if I had a job. Does it mean that my points are more valid if I have a job? Will it make me any more "credible"? Honestly, you're almost making me into a defendant when this is clearly not the point of the whole topic.

You're saying this pretty much because you don't like my opinion, not because of the merits of itself. So far I've brought to attention possible employer abuse, and questioned if these actions are truly ethic.

You pretty much summed up what I and Meteo were saying. One more thing to be asked here is: is this employer really deciding on character? How can we say for sure? We can't, really. This employer could decide on ethinicity, but say he/she dismissed you based on your character.

Of course he's not "saying" that directly. But if you're smart enough, you'll notice that what he said can lead to this conclusion. It's called "induction".

I'll forget the personal attack for now. Why do I have to convince you I'm not an idiot? Will what I say be any more of a truth if I'm not an idiot?

No, Argumentum Ad Hominem is not fine. The problem is that this is a cheap fallacy. You try to discredit someone's arguments by attacking him / her personally, instead of focusing simply on what's being said. For the sake of the argument, if I'm a murderer but I say that "the sky is blue", does the fact of me being a murderer make the sky less blue? Does the argument: "you're a murder, so the sky can't be blue"! Hold to you?

So you're basically telling me that it's also legal for an employer to "research" a little more about my friends and ask them questions about me.

Just as me and Meteo said, under normal circunstances, it's totally legal to go to someone's myspace, and even spending a day pushing your "refresh" button. But so is asking whatever questions you want to. But if asking these on an interview isn't legal, that certainly has a purpose - preventing an employer to decide wether to hire or not would be one of them. If this employer is allowed to do his / her "research" on myspace, that defeats the purposes of these specific laws.

You're missing the point. It basically means that, should I decide sue an employer that did this research, if it this happened in the US I actually have chances of winning the case. After all, if asking these questions on an interview is illegal, why would going to myspace to find out about it would be legal? Granted, under any other case going to myspace to find out about it would certainly be legal. But then, under any other case, so would be legal asking someone their religion or age and so forth.

Meteo has a point. I didn't know that in the US, there were laws about these personal questions in an interview. If this is true, then an employer trying to collect personal information on personal sites to find out what he didn't in an interview might yes, be interpreted as illegal. Otherwise, the laws regarding questions about religion, age and so on are simply pointless.

Argumentum ad hominem.

Sorry about your name, Meteo. Anyway, teaching bears a great resposability, but what's wrong with pornography? You talk as if it was so much of a big deal, but it isn't. She's not even endorsing it in school anyway.

Excellent post, Meteor Xavier. However, I discussed further about the issue of the teacher because I think that's not only prejudice, it's hypocrisy. I mean, many straight males have seen a playboy magazine in their lives (thus financing the magazine anyway), but then they criticize a good coach just because she was a playboy bunny? She's not even selling her body. She's obviously not a prostitute. She's selling her nude image. What's the problem with that? The same way gays don't make straight men turn gay, a playboy bunny won't make these students become bunnies either, or have wild sex with her male students. Damn it, she doesn't have to justify herself.