Is it true that some companies and schools look at employees/students facebooks?

Question

I heard that some really good companies and schools look at their peoples' facebooks to see whether they are appropriate...does it hurt the privacy rights?

Answer 1

It's public.

Companies use it because some people lie in CVs and it's a cheap way of checking.

I tried my friends names....found out some VERY interesting things...

Great fun.

Try it on your boss....or future boss.

Answer 2

of course they do.

You have it posted in a PUBLIC place.  Privacy rights don't come in to play is you POST it in PUBLIC

Answer 3

you put it up there, without the opportunity to control who sees it, then you can't complain if someone sees it you wish didn't.

not only "good"  schools and companies are looking btw, pretty much all of them are...

edit --

I saw that dr phil show too - pretty much the only time I was able to wathc his show for more then 12 seconds.

Answer 4

Yes of course they do a little checking on people they are going to employ. And how far does privacy go when people are posting stuff about themselves. The information is freely posted, so why wouldn't they be allowed to do some checking before they commit.

I saw this Dr. Phil show in which 17 years olds were posting pics of themselves when they were lying in their own vomit . The naivety of these girls was unbelievable. They were even kind of proud of the pics they posted and were oblivious to the consequences.