More employers are researching applicants on social media sites like Facebook. Over half of employers have rejected candidates based on content found online, such as inappropriate photos or lies on resumes. While this allows employers to filter candidates, it may also violate privacy and discriminate. There is debate whether this practice is legal regarding freedom of speech and discrimination, and lawsuits have been filed but no clear precedent set yet. Attorneys disagree on the legality, but most say employers should avoid using social media to reject candidates without clear documentation of legitimate reasons.

1. Employers Checking Social Networking Sites By: Brad Chenowith, Josh Michael, Daniel Sapunar & Lindsay Stuchinsky

2. The Trend More than half (53 percent) of employers research potential job candidates on social networks such as Facebook, says CareerBuilder.co.uk. In fact, 7.5 million college students use Facebook. Many employers admit they've even learned how to access profiles students think are "private" Research by the job search Website revealed that a further 12 percent said they were planning to start using social network sites to check out potential employees. CareerBuilder said that two in five employers said they had found content on a social network that dissuaded them from hiring a candidate. Over a third said a social networking profile proved they had lied about their qualifications on their CV, while 13 percent claimed a potential employee had made discriminatory comments on their Facebook page and nine percent said provocative or inappropriate photographs had been posted on the account. A survey in 2007 found that half of UK employees would be outraged if their employers looked up information about them on social networking sites, and 56% thought it would be unethical

3. Positive to Businesses Companies can sort through applicants to find the few that they believe will create the fewest problems. Facebook users may decide to “clean-up” their pages so they are more employer-friendly due to more and more companies viewing their page.

8. Liability to the Company If a company asks you to refrain from posting anything with company or employee names in it, but you post something anyway, then you are violating company policy and are at fault. In some cases, businesses can be held liable for things employees post about the company, which partly explains company’s cautiousness toward Facebook.

9. 1st Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Hiring based on the way a company perceives you or your friends on Facebook is a complete violation of the first amendment. The owner of Facebook is going to have to battle this issue in court, or he will eventually loose his followers.

10. Discrimination Are Employers Using Facebook for Discriminatory Reasons? Years ago, most employers stopped requiring applicants to submit certain information such as: photographs marital status age This avoided possible accusations that they rejected a candidate for discriminatory reasons. Today, social networking profiles make this once off-limits information readily available, thus reopening the potential for liability. And demographic data isn't the only concern for employers

11. Are Facebook Background Checks Legal? Many employers are taking advantage of the amount of information that social networking sites provide Facebook profiles include information about employees' political and religious activities employers are prohibited from considering under most states' laws There is no notice in applications that social networking profiles will be viewed.

12. What The Attorneys Say: “I think it’s unlikely employers are going to learn a good deal of job-related information from a Facebook page they won’t learn in the context of a well-run interview, so the potential benefit of doing this sort of search is outweighed by the potential risk.” Jennifer M. Bombard recommends that companies document a "legitimate business rationale for rejecting applicants" and make sure that hiring decisions are not motivated by information found on an applicant's social networking site. -Neal D. Mollen

14. Freedom of Speech

15. Invasion on Privacy

16. Guilty by AssociationIf employers want to review social networking profiles to get a sense of what a potential employee is like, I say let them (so long as they don't use the information to unlawfully discriminate against protected groups) -Gerald L. Maatman Jr., an attorney with Seyfarth Shaw

17. Businesses have no right to discriminate against our friends. Just as they cannot refuse to hire someone based on their relationships. Francin v. Mosby, Inc. (2008): states that supervisors should only focus on employees performances and not their home life. Lucke v. Multnomah County (2008): Supervisors should focus only on how their employees perform and not on their home life or friends. In Court… 1. Discrimination

18. 2.Freedom of Speech According to the New York Times, Lafe Solomon, the general counsel said, “Whether it takes place on Facebook or at the water cooler, it was employees talking jointly about working conditions, in this case about their supervisor, and they have a right to do that.” Basically, we are allowed to say what we want and post what we want on Facebook, including pictures.

19. 3. Invasion of Privacy The definition of “invasion of privacy” is “the intrusion into the personal life of another, without just cause, which can give the person whose privacy has been invaded a right to bring a lawsuit for damages against the person or entity that intruded. It encompasses workplace monitoring, Internet Privacy, data collection, and other means of disseminating private information.

20. 4. Guilty by Association According to USlegal definitions: guilty by association is someone being guilty without any proof only because those whom they know are guilty. With this in mind, it does not make sense for supervisor to deny someone a job simply because of the actions of their friends. Based on the definitions of theses crimes, we believe that is it worth it to challenge employers that are determining employment through Facebook in court.

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