SammiJ said:

uhh...they don't work?

xplnyrslf said:

Where's the link???

luv4u said:

Wall Street Journal. I read newspapers. The link has to be paid for. Tuesday, January 2nd Marketplace B8. Title "Young Adults Learn Downside Of an Online Life"

xplnyrslf said:

then they get welfare, and then the complaining from everyone that works starts up again

i'll stop before i'm blue in the face, because it seems that you're not only restating what the article says, you agree with it.

SammiJ said:

Read the article, then get back to me.

xplnyrslf said:

Newspapers can be read online. Should be a link there

xplnyrslf said:

i live in canada
i dont get the wallstreet journal around here, maybe in other parts of canada, but not here.
i don't need to get back to you on this, i've said my piece and that's it.

xplnyrslf said:

no, discrimination against someone who could be very much qualified and fit for the position..
its like saying these people aren't allowed to work, and then what?

Skeeping in mind what public records there are of you out there is a good idea.

evenstar3 said:

I googled "explnmyslf" which is my myspace logo...I was shocked at how much info could be traced to me.

SammiJ said:

It's not saying anyone isn't allowed to work, only that a place of business has every right to choose who they see fit. If they feel someone who smokes pot doesn't fit the bill and someone has put, say, numerous references to being a pot smoker out available for all the world to see, the next qualified candidate may get the job instead that person. It doesn't mean they may never find a job. It's just saying that everything online is available to anyone with enough digging. And employers are starting to dig. Some job fields are extremely competitive, so keeping in mind what public records there are of you out there is a good idea.

The key is use AKA's.

Never use real names.

My name is Hazel, really.

CarrieMpls said:

So what if they "dig" and find out you're a JW or homosexual and decide not to hire you based on that?

This is simply the online equivalent of a prospective employer gossiping with your friends to learn about all your proclivities, which have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you can do the damn job.

VoicesCarry said:

exactly, people aren't quite seeing that this is a bad thing.

SammiJ said:

I agree that it's invasive... but, I see an upside to the matter. Would you want to work with someone who hated what you were?

CarrieMpls said:

So what if they "dig" and find out you're a JW or homosexual and decide not to hire you based on that?

What you say online could haunt you

By Janet Kornblum and Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

College student Michael Guinn thought the photos he posted of himself dressed in drag would be seen only by friends. But he made a mistake. And when someone showed the photos on Facebook to administrators at John Brown University, a Christian college in Siloam Springs, Ark., it was "the last straw for them," says Guinn, 22, who is gay.

In January, he was kicked out of school, his virtual paper trail of musings about boyfriends and visits to clubs a clear sign to administrators that, despite repeated warnings, Guinn's activities were in violation of campus conduct codes stating that behavior must "affirm and honor Scripture."

As more and more students turn to websites such as Facebook and MySpace to chronicle their lives and socialize with friends, they also are learning that their words and pictures are reaching way beyond the peers for whom they were intended. And some, like Guinn, are paying a price. In the past few months, college, high school and even middle school students across the USA have been suspended or expelled, thrown off athletic teams, passed over for jobs and even arrested based on their online postings.

Students post pictures of themselves holding cans of beer and bottles of liquor — even when they're underage. They pose suggestively wearing little — sometimes no — clothing. Some appear to be smoking marijuana in bongs or joints, even holding firearms. They openly write nasty comments about each other or their teachers and coaches online.

To teens and young adults, social websites are private spaces where they can interact in the open, multimedia style of the online world in which they grew up. But to adults, these sites are places where kids are naïvely putting their reputations and futures — not to mention personal safety — at risk.

Disparaging the college

A few examples:

• Admissions dean Paul Marthers at Reed College in Portland, Ore., says the school denied admission this year to one applicant in part because his entries on blogging site LiveJournal included disparaging comments about Reed.

• In Costa Mesa, Calif., 20 students were suspended last month from TeWinkle Middle School for two days for participating in a MySpace group where one student allegedly threatened to kill another and made anti-Semitic slurs. The student accused of making the threat could face criminal charges and expulsion, says Bob Metz, assistant superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

• A 16-year-old boy in Jefferson, Colo., was arrested after police say he showed pictures of himself on his MySpace page holding handguns. Police subsequently found the same weapons in his home, says Jim Shires of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The boy has been charged with three misdemeanors for being a juvenile in possession of handguns, says Pam Russell of the district attorney's office.

• Two Louisiana State swimmers were kicked off the team last spring for criticizing their coaches on Facebook. A University of Colorado offensive tackle was suspended from a bowl game in December for sending a racially threatening message through Facebook to a Colorado cross-country runner.

• An employer who was ready to hire a student from Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center changed his mind after seeing the student's Facebook page, says Lauri Sybel, director of the college career center. Since then, Sybel says she has checked other students' pages to make sure they weren't hurting their job prospects.

Law enforcement officials and school administrators say they don't go looking for trouble.

"It's not really our goal to be Big Brother looking over the shoulder of every student who is on MySpace," says principal Dickie Sompayrac of Knoxville (Tenn.) Catholic High School, which suspended five students for two days for posting derogatory comments about classmates. Sompayrac says the school does not monitor MySpace or any other site, but when a parent brought the comments to his attention, he notified parents of potential safety concerns and how to find their children's profiles.

At Reed College, Marthers says he has twice been alerted to questionable Web postings by applicants. In one case, Reed admitted the student. In the other, Marthers says, the applicant's posts seemed hostile toward certain Reed officials and spoke of plans to beat Reed's financial aid system. Noting that Reed's honor principle is to do no harm to others, Marthers says, "How could we not factor in the life he was having on LiveJournal?"

'Facebook is for the students'

To young adults, Facebook, MySpace and blogging sites such as Xanga and LiveJournal were never meant to be scrutinized or even observed by those in authority.

"Facebook is for the students," says Purdue freshman Anthony Cometa, who recalls being outraged when he read in his school paper that police were getting training about Facebook so they could investigate complaints about students using the service to harass each other. Police on other campuses have shut down parties with underage drinking after learning about them on Facebook.

"I brought this up in English class, and everybody was like, 'Are you kidding me? Why are these people in our profiles?' Initially, everybody had a sense of this is their own little private thing."

In the past two years, young people have jumped onto the free, ad-supported social sites, especially MySpace (generally popular with high school students) and Facebook (which the company says is used by 65% of undergrads at four-year colleges and is now open to high-schoolers as well).

Traffic on Facebook has grown 272% in the past year, making it the 66th most popular website in February, according to ComScore Media Metrix, which tracks Internet use.

Traffic on MySpace has grown 318% in the last year to 37.3 million visitors in February, making it the top social networking site on the Web and the eighth most popular website overall, according to ComScore Media Metrix. In July, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million.

With recent news coverage of the sites and their explosive growth, authorities have taken notice, concerned not only about inappropriate behavior but that kids are making themselves vulnerable to predators.

Police recently have investigated several cases involving teens who were sexually assaulted by men they met on these sites. Earlier this week, two men were indicted on federal charges that they used the Internet to have sexual contact with girls from Connecticut.

"Our students as well as many other students across the country are setting themselves up to become victims," says Pat Johnson, principal of Canby (Ore.) High School, where two students were suspended for going around the school's technical blocks and being on MySpace at school.

Many adults wonder how a generation that is otherwise so savvy about the Internet can also be so naïve about its own privacy.

Schools' authority boundaries

"I've seen a lot being an administrator in my 20 years on a college campus, but just some of the pictures I ran across (on Facebook) — I couldn't believe it," says Cheryl Barnard, associate dean of student affairs at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.

"There was a picture of three women who appeared to be naked from the top up, in the shower together," she says. She also found pictures of students who appeared to be snorting lines of cocaine and smoking marijuana. "You can only think: What if one of the big accounting firms comes across this, or a law firm or law school or graduate school?"

Even if students are only pretending to drink or do drugs, the damage to their reputations may be the same. Many high schools have a zero-tolerance rule when it comes to alcohol. That means even being seen holding a can of beer can be grounds for punishment.

Educators say the explosion of Web activity at Facebook and other sites has forced them to respond.

And that is raising a new set of free-speech concerns. In general, students at private schools or universities are bound by the rules of their institution and not protected by the First Amendment right of free speech. Students enrolled at public universities have more latitude to express themselves.

At public universities, "The state can't impose what one might consider unconstitutional restrictions," says Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel for the American Council on Education, a Washington-based non-profit umbrella group for colleges and universities nationwide.

But at private colleges, "You are voluntarily agreeing to abide by the rules and regulations in the student handbook."

Minors in general — and in public schools in particular — have fewer constitutional rights, in part because schools serve a sort of in loco parentis function, says David Hudson Jr., an attorney at the First Amendment Center in Nashville.

Hudson says students generally have broad freedom to express themselves on the Internet on their own time, using their own off-campus computers. But cyberspace is complicating the matter.

In a lawsuit making its way through the courts, a school district in Pennsylvania says a student disrupted the normal school process, harassed a school administrator, "displayed gross misbehavior" and used school pictures without authorization when he posted a parody of his principal on MySpace — even though it was during non-school hours and he used his grandmother's computer.

"As more students are suspended and disciplined, we're going to need some clear guidance from the courts," Hudson says. "Right now, it is not clear just how far the authority of school officials extends."

Instead of punishing students, school administrators should be talking to parents, says Danah Boyd, a Ph.D. student at the University of California-Berkeley and a social media researcher at Yahoo Research.

Adolescents, she adds, have always tested boundaries. "It's just that they are now doing it online, in full public view."

Adds Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg: "Some people may get busted by administrators if they're doing things that are stupid, but on a day-to-day basis, the ability to communicate ... is so valuable that everyone keeps using the site, and they probably will keep using the site."

For now, college administrators are struggling with how to respond to what they see as inappropriate Web behavior, and how to prevent future incidents.

Drexel University in Philadelphia, for example, is considering programs to remind students that their posts are, for the most part, on public view, says Jose-Luis Riera, director of residential living.

"Our job is to point out some of the dangers and also the incivility," says Mary Beth Mackin, associate dean of student affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and president of the Association for Student Judicial Affairs. "This generation (will) say things without thinking about the consequences."

At Syracuse University, officials say they were enforcing their student conduct code when at least three freshmen were disciplined for making vulgar comments onFacebook about a writing instructor. The code forbids behavior that "threatens the mental health, physical health or safety of any person."

"The purpose was to ensure that our instructors can teach and our students can learn in a conducive educational environment in which classroom learning opportunities are not undermined by disruptive behavior," university spokesman Kevin Morrow says.

Common sense applies

But what if safety or incivility aren't at issue?

That's what bothers Michael Guinn, the gay student whose postings so troubled officials at John Brown University.

"I would understand if a student was saying, 'I want to rob this gas station,' but when they're not breaking laws or hurting themselves or someone else, I don't (think) colleges should use the Internet against their students."

Communications director Andrea Phillips says Guinn violated the school's community covenant, a biblical standard of principles and values. All students are asked to sign an agreement that they will uphold the covenant — and administrators say Guinn broke his pledge. "Physical intimacy between two people of the same sex is not condoned in the Scripture," she says.

Today, Guinn, who is working two jobs and "trying to find my path," says he still feels wronged. But he also acknowledges his own role in his dismissal.

"In the beginning, I kind of posted whatever without really thinking about it," he says.

"I could have saved myself a lot of misery had I just sat down and used my common sense."

Contributing: Erik Brady

http://www.usatoday.com/t...pace_x.htm

hehe, first thing i thought of was Supa.

interview man: "so you're demure and quiet and fit to be a librarian?"

supa: "yes sir!"

interview man: pulls out the infamous 'vamp on the stairs' pic

IstenSzek said:

Or...."so you think you can play the lead in Rocky Horror Picture Show????" And SUPA pulls out the vamp on the stairs pic!
I suppose the internet could be used as an advantage to acquiring a job.

hehe, first thing i thought of was Supa.

interview man: "so you're demure and quiet and fit to be a librarian?"

supa: "yes sir!"

interview man: pulls out the infamous 'vamp on the stairs' pic

IstenSzek said:

And that is where my interview really takes off

I'm just a sweet transvestite, from transexual...Puuhuuhrince.org

IstenSzek said:

And that is where my interview really takes off

I'm just a sweet transvestite, from transexual...Puuhuuhrince.org