Social media, like almost all things that exist, is neither good nor bad. It just is. It can be used for enormous good and also, enormous bad. It simply depends on who is using it and how it is being used.
Social media has become a constant in our everyday lives as a society, infiltrating virtually every sector of the economy and every aspect of daily living.
Before going further to address the question of whether social media handles should be submitted to employers or not, or the question about whether that constitutes a breach of privacy, I would like to us all to ponder over another question that I personally believe should be considered even before the former two questions?
Can anything posted on social media ever TRULY be private?
Just think for a minute about the following related words. SOCIAL. MEDIA. POST. Everything about these words screams “NOT PRIVATE.”
For all intents and purposes, anything you put up on social media yourself can no longer be considered private, and I think anyone with the slightest modicum of self-awareness and self-honesty recognizes that, or at least should be able to recognize that upon it being pointed out to them.
“I'll just set my account to private then.”
That would be a clueless thought, in my opinion. Let's assume you share you post with your followers and friends alone with the goal of maintaining and preserving your privacy, what happens when one of your followers finds it funny and you share or repost it to the followers on his own page, a completely different set of audience from the original audience the post was made for.
I am pretty sure everyone's answer to this question is going to be NO. I'll ask away.
How many of us have actually taken the time to read through the complete terms and service of any of the social media apps that we use?
Everyone just scrolls right down to the very bottom and clicks that shiny button that says “I agree.” Personally, I haven't read them either, so I'm not calling anyone out and we all should probably do better. I am simply pointing out the fact none of know the exact privacy terms that we have agreed to. Our information could be getting sold to a third party at this very moment.
Due to all these multiple reasons, it is obviously quite impossible to truly maintain any kind of privacy. When it comes to social media, very little is actually truly private. Even people who lived over two thousand years ago who never worried about having the level of exposure that exists today now have all available information about them up for public consumption.
In this extremely exposed world, the only way to truly maintain what little privacy is possible is to not post anything sensitive that you do not wish to fall onto public eyes.
Everything I have outlined and discussed above really makes moot the question of whether employee's should submit their social media info to their employers and whether it constitutes a breach of privacy. I mean, even if your employer doesn't request your social media handles, these social media apps have a way of recognizing that you recently started working for that person and they'll just randomly show your profile to the employer in due time. I know I probably didn't answer the question directly, but in some weird way, I think I indirectly answered it.