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"As I was looking around Facebook a few weeks ago, I found myself wondering if we’re reaching the point where we not only have to worry about our own profiles, but the profiles of the people we associate ourselves with."
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from SexySEO 1496 Days ago #
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"it didn’t leave me with the best taste in my mouth" nice expression, I looove it ;)

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from incrediblehelp 1496 Days ago #
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Just like in real life if i bum around town with Kfed and Spears most of the day people will probably think different of me no matter how normal I may appear.

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from thejenn 1495 Days ago #
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It goes both ways though. Someone commented on my site pointing out that they’re pretty liberal and if some conservative person didn’t want to hire them because their friends liked to party, they wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.I could see the same thing happening in reverse. Say you are a Christian, observant Jew or a Muslim. You may keep your faith very private, but your friends might be pretty outspoken. I’ve heard more than one derogatory comment about people with strong faith, mostly from those who (rightly) fear being preached to. I could see someone wanting to avoid hiring the person who hangs out with a group of evangelizers to. Not cool when done in either direction, but quite popular.Diane Aull had a good comment as well, pointing out that many HR firms are beginning to wonder if they might not get themselves in legal trouble by surfing these sites. After all, you can easily find out things on Facebook that are illegal to ask during an interview (age, sexual preference, faith, etc). If that influences your hiring decision, you could put yourself in danger of a lawsuit. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out down the road, but it’s something I’ve started to wonder about.

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from mikemurray 1495 Days ago #
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I think it’s worth the occasional exercise...to see "friends" profiles. At a corporate level, I don’t know what you can really do.On a personal note, my wife and I knocked my son off My Space 2 years ago because we got tired of his "friends’ " language and junk like "if you were going to commit suicide what method would you use?" and "if you were a bottle of alcohol what would it be?"I like Jennifer’s comment about religion. Personally, I don’t think it’s appropriate to include religious references in a Facebook profile meant to be used for professional/corporate purposes. That said, having a separate Facebook profile to discuss religion is an entirely different matter. Seems silly to have two profiles, but that’s a way to respect an employer even though both profiles inevitably will be linked by the same friends.Matt Keough here at Fathom SEO also raised some good points while posting about Jennifer’s piece:http://www.fathomseo.com/blog/index.php/2008/01/03/antisocial-media/"While I certainly understand her concern, I don’t share it completely. For starters, I do think that anyone sophisticated enough to be poking around Facebook (pun intended) on a reconnaissance mission might be hip enough to know that folks “friend” each other for many reasons and may be a little more indiscriminate than they are in real life. Although usually called “friends”, there is an understanding that a social media friend is not really a true blue friend, right?Secondly, just by looking at your profile they probably get a fair idea of your interests if you have developed it to any extent. If you have not developed your profile, and they are using your tertiary connections as a surrogate for your values - I question their judgment."

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