[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Livia

Well actually, you not being an employer or someone who has been for many interviews recently is extremely relevant to the issue. Of course you can still have an opinion, but it'd be like you coming on here getting all outraged about changes to the MOT when you don't own a car.

You do not have a right to a job. If youth unemployment is a huge issue for you, you should be thinking about the ways to impress an employer, not expect him make exceptions for you because you can't control yourself (I obviously don't mean you personally here...). If you want the job, put your settings on private. If you don't mind the world seeing what you're up to... leave your privacy settings as they are, but don't moan when people look at your page to see what kind of person you are, what kind of character you have and whether they want to pay you to represent their company. If they want to go out at the weekend and "get totally batfaced" then that's their choice. If they're smart they won't write about it on Facebook or it'll come back to bite them on the arse. As I said before, if you want free speech, you have to take the downside too.

Ninastar mentions she works with children and she is fully aware she would have to be careful about what she puts on Facebook. That's because she's smart. She didn't say that she's going to live her whole life being an angel. (although obviously... you are Ninastar).

Once someone's employed there's a whole raft of laws protecting them. It's much easier to weed out the potential problems before you start paying them money every month and save yourself the trouble of disciplinary panels, warnings and ultimately a tribunal. Employ the best person for the job at the start and use every tool available to make your choice.

I guess then that begs the question, if having little experience of something invalidates your opinion, why is it that MP's are so often commenting on and making policies for people that they have absolutely no contact and experiences with? If the people running this country are going to pass judgement on things they have next to no experience of, I may as well myself. That's also like saying a straight person's opinion on gay marriage isn't as valid as they aren't gay themselves and so couldn't fully understand.

I never said anyone has a right to a job, but hey, surely it's better for everyone to be in one, no? If we're just going to go about sacking people willy nilly and putting more power in the hands of employers, organisations and the market, especially when there's unemployment problems in this country, then as long as tax payers are happy footing the bill for their welfare support, I'm all for it. Sack people or refuse people jobs for posting questionable material on their personal online profiles all you want, but you're only going to give yourself more problems in the end.

On the point of employers looking at your Facebook page to see who 'you really are', I refer you to a post I made a bit earlier in the thread about how I question whether social networking sites actually are an accurate representation of one's true self, character and personality, for better or worse. I'm not entirely convinced a few static images and lines of text on a web page can truly reflect what somebody is like as a person in real life, or, more importantly - an employee.