There have been many stories about people revealing too much online. With sites like Facebook and Flickr, anyone can make pictures available to the world in seconds. Once upon a time, I was a manager responsible for hiring help desk staff. Those staff members were obviously IT people who were early adopters. Back in those days, we didn't go to Myspace. Instead, we went to The Google.
People have a tendency to stick to a digital identity once they create it. One of the best job interview questions I was ever asked was, "So what does zorp75ck mean?" This interview was the first time that someone I didn't know called me by my online name. It was not quite as cool as when Agent Smith interrogates Mr. Anderson for the first time. Still I thought, "Hmmm...good thing I don't have any crud on that username." Informal background checks get easier every day that we are online.
For example, you could Google my typical username, zorp75ck, that I have been using since high school. The first thing you will probably find is a post I made to a forum back in 2001 when I was active on an AMD PC enthusiast site. We had a friendly rivalry with another site called Little White Dog, which was an Intel platform site at the time. This is pretty tame compared to what a Penn State student just learned in the last week or so.
Let me summarize. WSLS reports about pictures on Facebook. Internet based media frenzy ensues: here, here, here, and many others. Here is the The Daily Collegian follow-up. We do live in a country where free speech is protected, but I can honestly say, that these kids should be hoping that their 15 minutes of popularity is fleeting. It may not be recent, but back in 1996, Penn State had its own shooting on the Hub Lawn. I was in the high school band with the victim Melanie Spala. We were only passing acquaintances, but at 20 years old, learning that someone I knew was killed was a shock.
This kind of blatant disregard for other people is precisely the kind of character assessment that hiring managers seek. I would like to offer two comments on the whole situation. First, try not to be asshole. For a little help with that, you should read Stanford Professor, Robert Sutton's book, The No Asshole Rule. Second, try to protect yourself from honest mistakes. Have a look at the Take Control campaign from ITS for some pointers on protecting your personal information.
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