Unfriendly social media trend

Opinion: April 2, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times: Be careful about the personal information and opinions you broadcast online, we are wisely and repeatedly told. Anyone from a prospective employer to an insurance company might be interested in details that you’ll regret divulging someday.

But employers cross a bright, hard line when they demand, as some do, that job applicants divulge their passwords to Facebook and other social media sites, or have them log on so the interviewer can scrutinize their likes and dislikes, their relationships, their photos, their friends’ personal information.

Of course, employers for years have scanned social media and other online sites for information about applicants, including the sometimes impolitic statements or opinions that Facebook users post in public forums or without creating privacy settings that keep their personal profiles privy only to their “friends.” Those postings are fair game. .

But employers are not allowed to ask a wide range of personal questions about job applicants — their age, marital or family status, sexual orientation, religion and so forth — aspects of life that are commonly included in Facebook users’ personal profiles or posts. Not to mention that access to the applicant’s list of friends.