When I first heard that employers were doing this; this demanding of social media passwords... I remember... I-- I-- I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet. Right through my forehead. And I thought... my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they... were stronger than we.
Seriously. This whole idea was the brink of draconian tyranny. When things like this started transpiring five and ten years ago, I immediately withdrew from ALL social media websites, and vowed never to abide by real identity demands on any social website that intended to publish it publicly.
I swore to myself that I would debate any rotten hiring goon into the ground, if I was ever asked such a question during an interview. Not that I would even want to stay on at such a work place, but just to see if they were smart enough to tolerate my brand of dissent. If inflexible, I would instantly walk out, and threaten (an empty threat) to sue.
It's not just about the invasion of privacy an and employers pervasive, stifling surveillance of subordinates. What integrity is there to a Facebook account? Nothing more than an e-mail address is required to create one. E-mail addresses are free and plentiful. More e-mail addresses could potentially be created than addresses in the entire IPv6 number space, and by corollary, so too with social media accounts.
What recourse is there for me to prevent malicious individuals from continually creating fake accounts in my name? Do I have endlessly deep pockets and the spare time it takes to chase down trolls, sue for libel and slander? But how many people have the time to spam and flood the internet with anything they want? What's to stop even me for creating 10,000 fake accounts in my own name? And in doing so, would I forfeit my chances at certain jobs? What absolute twaddle.
A general had a problem: mud. Marines have slogged their way through it for generations. Is it possible to get rid of mud? Without having to carry anything heavy? Marines already have enough to carry.
Dr. Felix Hoenikker, an original thinker, found the "outside-the-box" answer; a single crystal of Ice-Nine would crystallize every bit of water it touched.
"...suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle...?"
"The puddle would freeze?" I guessed.
"And all the muck around the puddle?"
"It would freeze?"
"And all the puddles in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"You bet they would !" He cried. "And the United States
Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!"
17 is OLD. This is a high school kid, and maybe he's immature, but he crossed a very serious line. The line between prank phone calls, and the types of coercive intimidation tactics he employed shouldn't be glossed over.
One other comment about this anecdote: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Revealing your true identity online, on the internet can be very, VERY risky. Downright dangerous. The fact that Google+ and Facebook encourage this as a normal, casual practice is irresponsible.
The internet is high-powered super-charged tachnology, which needs to be respected as such. It's not like putting your name in the phone book. VIPs who retain attourneys, hire personal assistants, and hire other staff (possibly even professional security) have adequate countermeasure to cope with online stalkers. Average individuals do not.
Consider that in ye olden days, predating even dial-up, there were notorious problems with local TV stations who would hire pretty women as their meteorologists. These were professional broadcasters that had problems with public exposure.
Craigslist has a firm understanding of some of the cold realities of the internet, in particular, prostitution, and they advise their users with very little whitewash. Twitter, Facebook and Google+ should do the same.
True, but the tons and TONS of people are harangued into using Google+ by irritating tool tips and notification messages when using other Google products (like mail, chat, docs/drive and even Chrome, which in and of itself has it's own browser campaign whenever you visit the search product with a non-Chrome browser).
If not provoked into Google+ by pushy interface cues (and don't play naive, you KNOW they've got top UX and marketing people trying to find that sweet spot of deniable annoyance, when crafting those notifications), then people are click-sniped into Google+, by stumbling into it, when they click on whatever caught their attention, simply out of curiosity and yes-ing to death EULA notices, not realizing that their publishing information publicly in the product and outward to the service, visible to other users (potentially in search results no less).
This is what happened to me, when I carefully clicked on things when it first came out, and relized I'd have to go back, delete things out and void my account and activity in Plus where I didn't want it. Add to this the recent privacy policy changes. But sure, gloss over these details.
Google learned their lessons from the Buzz debacle, and its accompanying lawsuits, so they aren't railroading people into inadvertent public disclosures anymore (like who they've been e-mailing, and their auto-contact list), but they ARE cattle prodding people into it.
I disagree. There does seem to be something evil going on here, and it's the implicit hypocrisy of do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do. Inject any amount of imperative conditions and circumstances, you like. You're only emphasizing the double standards Google would like to impose. Sometimes be evil, othertimes don't.
The fact is that product managers at Google+ want cash cow personalities like Ashton Kutcher tweeting their tweets at Larry King from Google+ instead of Twitter, and these VIPs are the bait for the rest of the faceless rabble who serve merely as an online entourage, and a justification for ad prices. Google+ is a business based on personalities. They don't come right out and tell you this, but it doesn't mean it isn't true.
Popularity and rejection cut to the heart of an individual's emotions when participating online, especially when playing for keeps with their actual identity. Google+ is forcing you to play for keeps, but what about the dangers? They want the money that comes with veracity, but they offer little in return (just like facebook). Who picks up the pieces after someone gets smeared, or execises porr judgement. There's no padding. No undo file. Just you. Left out in the cold.
Google+ is courting special people, but not everybody is special. Exclusive treatment for some, unprotected, unmitigated public exposure for others. Pay to play, but the VIP handlers probably won't pay attention to you, unless you have special representation. Need I harp on the cognitive dissonance this has with a "democratic internet"?