“How a Facebook Update Can Cost You Your Job”: News Coverage of Employment Terminations Following Social Media Disclosures, From Racist Cops to Queer Teachers

Abstract

Social media posts and profiles have become a key part of hiring and firing processes, producing a “hidden curriculum of surveillance.” When hiring, employers routinely engage in “cybervetting” job candidates, making judgments based on their social media presence (or absence), and so too can social media disclosures impact (positively and negatively) employment progression and even result in termination. Where is the line between personal social media use and professional identities? What is the difference between holding people in positions of power to account and invading the privacy of everyday people? What kinds of social media posts get people fired? In this article, we report on a study of 312 news media articles that document stories of people being fired because of a social media post. We divide the corpus into posts made by the individuals who are fired (“self-posts,” n = 264) and posts made by others that resulted in the subject of those posts losing their job (“third party,” n = 48). Racism was the most common reason people were fired in these news stories, followed by other forms of discriminatory behavior (such as queerphobia), offensive content, workplace conflict, political content, acts of violence, and abuse. We examine these narratives through the lens of what van Dijck describes as “professional value,” and ultimately seek to question how these stories normalize the “hidden curriculum of surveillance,” putting additional pressure on employees and young people who are called to act on social media through the prism of future employment.

A Practice Theory Perspective on Dribbble and the Evolving Design Industry

“…That is, over some players’ tenure on the site, the material site of Dribbble has changed, which in turn requires different skills (from providing feedback to developing one’s profile). It is unclear but possible that this shift might be related to prior work on surveillance and hiring on social media platforms (Robards & Graf, 2022). For example, the comments Black individuals post on social media shapes how they are evaluated for jobs (Howard et al, 2020).…”

Comparative assessment of attitudes among medical and dental professionals in Saudi Arabia toward e-professionalism using the SMEPROF-S scale

“…[ 28 ] A different study gathered the cases of 22 healthcare professionals whose careers were affected by SM use, including job terminations in the United States. [ 29 ] Such data are not available in the literature in Saudi Arabia, and more studies are needed to verify whether such worries are legitimate within Saudi Arabian culture.…”

Undergraduate students’ use of social media in school: A need for regulatory policies in Nigerian universities

“…Furthermore, studies have shown that social media is responsible for huge misinformation about the various issues in today's society, (Chen et al, 2022). It can also cost employees their jobs, and even job seekers may lose an opportunity to get jobs (Robards & Graf, 2022). Students have been caught using social media to cheat in examinations, as well as blackmail one another without good reasons.…”