“A new report found that Facebook has created more than 450,000 jobs. Unfortunately, photos posted on Facebook have ended 550,000 jobs.” –Jimmy Fallon

“A new Facebook app is coming out that will remind users exactly what they were doing a year ago from that day. Nine times out of 10, the answer will be ‘wasting your time on Facebook.'” –Conan O’Brien

Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien are two very popular late night TV hosts on American television and are great sources of comedic one-liners about most things American. I found their quips quite apt when I recently found a post that someone had shared on Facebook last week:
“My friend has just sent me a text: A few hours ago, she attended a third interview with her “dream” employer. She is competing against two other people for a very lucrative senior management job and today she was meeting several members of the Board including the CEO of the company who has flown in from head office. Instead of the predictable ‘define your values’ question, she was asked to log on to her Facebook page and take the panelists through her Facebook page so they could see how she handled the Kenyan election process. I am yet to get the full story but my friend is traumatized…”

The above post raises quite a number of issues with regards to the elements of privacy and human rights. Privacy from the sense that does an employer have the right to walk into your private dwelling and see how you live in order to assess your suitability for the job? Human rights from the sense that does an employer have the right to curtail your rights for freedom of expression? Let’s begin with the privacy question: does an employer have the right to ask you to open your Facebook account and view your posts? Is that not akin to asking you to open the door to your bedroom and sifting through your wardrobe? If you store your clothes in your wardrobe, that remains private. Your social media accounts are private but only to some extent. Remember whatever you post will become publicly available for other people to see, either through a friend on Facebook sharing your post with others or a follower on Twitter re-tweeting to their own followers. Once your post has entered the public domain it is a free for all and you become accountable for its contents. Hence an employer may not (and should not) have unfettered access to your social media account, but clearly has unfettered access to whatever you publicly post if they are your friend or follower on Facebook or Twitter. The difference is really the same. Your bad posts are akin to you airing your dirty linen in public. Your employer can find them whether by asking you to open your account at an interview (unwarranted, gross invasion of privacy and very lazy in my opinion) or by doing a quiet search before the interview (a necessary part of the due diligence process of determining the mental state of a candidate who might present themselves well at an interview but be positively certifiable in real life!) I’m curious as to who the bright but lazy spark at the interview panel was who made the suggestion that they should ask candidates to open their Facebook accounts as part of the interview process. Clearly they chose to ignore or avoid talking to internal legal counsel regarding a very sensitive matter relating to privacy which is entrenched in Section 31 (.c) and (d) of the Kenyan Constitution, stating thus: Every person has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have: c) information relating to their family or private affairs unnecessarily required or revealed and d) the privacy of their communications infringed.
With regards to the second element, freedom of expression is a fundamental human right enshrined in Section 33 of the Kenyan constitution thus: 33 (1) Every person has the right to freedom of expression which includes (a) freedom to seek, receive or impart information or ideas. So whatever I post on social media is well within my rights to freedom of expression. However-and I repeat- however, Section 33 (2) of the same constitution clarifies that the right to express myself does not extend to propaganda for war, incitement to violence, hate speech or advocacy of hatred that constitutes ethnic incitement, vilification of others or incitement to cause harm. The constitution gives you the right to express yourself, but within certain limits which your employer should also reflect.
What is the mischief that the Interview Panelists were trying to cure? The possibility that they were hiring someone who might harbor strong tribal or racial sentiments for or against existing employees, which would likely destabilize employee relations within the organization in the long term. So while the interview panel was motivated by good intentions – the “What” – those intentions were executed in a crass, unprofessional and extremely invasive manner – the “How” – shortly thereafter.

There are many ways to determine an individual’s “fit” into an organization, from psychometric testing to closely monitored interactions via embedding candidates in the work place and creating mock crisis situations. Unfortunately, some organizations are too lazy to go the extra mile to determine individual’s suitability especially at senior level by interrogating the non-technical, softer issues of the candidate outside of the interview room. Regarding the above example of a Facebook invasion, it may have been motivated by the current post-election state of the country and the viciousness with which some people have taken to social media to vent out their frustration. But current situation notwithstanding, it should not lead organizations to take short cuts or destroy their institutional brand by being viewed as subscribers of things illegal. Doing a self-commissioned search on a candidate’s posts is a fairly easy process and will prevent embarrassing episodes of shock and discovery for both the candidate and the panelists while in the interview room.

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka