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Employers might have their reasons for requesting the social media handles of their employees, but none of the reasons known to me are genuine enough for such a policy.
One thing that I love in this life is having my right to freedom of association and my right to free speech protected. I also don't like infringing on other people's rights. An employer may demand one's social media handle so that they would know the employee more. Imagine having someone who supports terrorism or other extreme beliefs as your employee. Your organization isn't safe. Social media is a place to make some findings about someone. From his personal posts, the posts that he or she shares to his general view on political, economic, and religious matters, one can find out some important information on social media.
But the question is, is it a good or convincing platform for such information to be gathered? My answer is no.
Human beings have the habit of going beyond the information they go for if they have unhindered access to more information than they needed. As a result, the employer, in this context, is bound to deviate from the fair reason of accessing the social media handles of his or her employees. A staunch ruling party, as a political party, may sack his employee that is supporting the opposition party openly. I have seen this happen a few years ago. A man got a job in a company owned by the chieftain of the ruling political party. Upon realizing that his employee is critical of his political party and the government, the employer relieved the man of his job.
In my last place of work, a school, there was a case where a teacher was sacked because of his post on social media. The school management team was all female. They always advocate for the rights of women. This colleague of mine made a post that criticized a feminist on his wall on Facebook. The management team were all among his followers. This was the reason that the man was sacked unexpectedly. He was advised by the principal to go and register a movement to be fighting against the right of women. It was this advice that gave us the snippet of the reason for his sack.
The two cases that I cited happened in organizations where it wasn't made compulsory for employees to submit their social media handles. It was just a case of coincidentally having your employers as friends or followers on your handle even before you were employed. Now, let's imagine an organization being led by the kind of people that I mentioned above requesting you to submit your social media handles. You can be sure of losing the job whenever you write against their interests on your wall, even if it has nothing negative to do with your job.
If I were an employer, some prominent people or high-level civil servants would have to stand as guarantors for a potential employee before considering such a candidate. Such a level of precaution is okay. Whether as an employer or an employee, I don't like the idea of requesting social media handles or submitting them, respectively. There is life outside the job.
Employees shouldn't be made to live their lives offline and online to the dictate of their employers.