Blog posts are out there and available on the internet, like a lot of personal information I’d rather not see available. I’m uncomfortable with people being able to go to the county property tax office online and find out my address or how much my house cost, but those are public records and I can’t control that.

However, what I post on my blog, or my Linkdin or MySpace or other social site, is there because I posted it. I control whether it is there or not. I made it available for anyone to see. It’s not an anonymous, unknown location. It is the world wide web. If you don’t want it made public, don’t post it.

When an employer hires someone, they are investing in the individual and spending a lot of money finding them, training them, and making them part of their team. It makes sense for them to try to get as much information to make that decision as they can find. If a company hires someone who has posted on their blog about hurting others or breaking the law, and they do that as an employee, the company should be held liable.

No, it has nothing to do with the “rape line.” It’s more like tossing your diary into a busy crowd, and being shocked when someone reads it.

I think its all a trade off - if you want to participate in the social networks and wear your heart on your sleeve, you have to be prepared for the negative impact that might have on certain situations in your future.

Like Brass says above, it is like tossing your diary into a busy crowd then being shocked when someone reads it.

If you’re going to run for school board and be in a position where you should be a role model to kids, its probably not a good idea to write about smoking weed on your blog.

A friend of mine posed an interesting question a few days ago related to this. A prospective employer of his suddenly popped up requesting to be added to his Facebook and Friendster accounts. The question was this: Would it hurt his chances of being hired if he ignored or denied the request or if he only gave limited access? We never did find out the answer. What ensued was a “purging” of sorts prior to granting the request. To say that it was tedious is an understatement and the sacrifice of removing content was to him a big deal.

Fortunately, I keep my accounts on social networks mostly devoid of anything that could hurt me professionally. The more sensitive stuff I wish to share, I post on my blog over at I.PH because it gives me much better control of my privacy. I can customize the privacy settings on each post so I can specifically choose who can see them. If I don’t grant someone special access, all they can see are my public post. Posts I want to keep private are invisible and can’t be found unless I allow it.

All I’m saying is we already put too much of ourselves out on the web. Prudence and good judgment together with refined privacy features should allow us with sufficient protection and still continue to reap the many benefits of blogging.

This guy in Cheatham County is a REAL loser. The issue you discuss is a good one, but the example is a bad one. The Kurt Scott guy has no business on a school board. In my view he has little sense, and his views were real, and folks should have been worried. He is about to lose an election anyhow, but it was a shame he wound up on the school board in the first place (he did not get elected by constituents–he was appointed to fill a vacant seat until the next election). An out of control County Commission appointed him over an very, very experienced attorney, and that was simply do to animosity towards the school board.

Back to the issue at hand, social web sites: Anyone who posts there must realize that those posts are going to be reviewed if publicly available (I review them as an employer). If someone does not have good sense in what they post, and if that judgment might also hurt the business to which they are applying, an employer has every right to be aware and to not hire them. So, from my point of view, “poster beware and besmart.”

I think you should really monitor what you put out there about yourself these days. Granted it’s the “cool” thing to do with kids these days - having your own my space or face book pages, but the information they put on them can be dangerous. And when they post about getting drunk or high - for whatever there reasons may be, they are putting it out there for the world to see and I don’t think 98% of them realize this.

Granted Mr. Scott had posted these things years before getting involved in politics of a city and school, and the reasoning behind this was the grief over the death of his mother. We can all relate, that during the greiving of a loved one, we can do things that are wrong or make mistakes we’d regret. But we all make mistakes, and it seems Mr. Scott has moved on with his life and is trying to make a difference in our community. I for one thing it’s time for a fresh start with new ideas in this town.

We shouldn’t be so quick to judge and name names over an issue we don’t understand or changes we may not be comfortable with. GROW UP