Argument Essay

Lulu Tenney 807

            The article, “Guess Who’s Looking at Your Facebook Page?” is about how college admissions officers and employers are looking at students’ and employees social media pages before accepting them into a college or job. The real question is: should employers be allowed to look at employees’ social media pages as a background check before accepting them into a job? I don’t think that they should have the right to look at employees’ social media pages before accepting them into a college or job because I believe it is a complete invasion of privacy.

            I don’t think that it’s ethical not to accept someone for a job just because of what’s on their Facebook page. Someone could be a great worker: focused, engaged, and hardworking, but may be a person outside of work who is spontaneous, crazy, and fun; or someone who states their opinion on their social media account. I think that people should be able to post what they want in the privacy of their social media account, without it poorly affecting their profession. In the article, it gives the example of Emma Sullivan, who tweeted a comment about the governor of Kansas when she was a senior in high school, and now that it’s all over the internet, she potentially has lower chances of getting a good job. It was her private account, and because her principal saw the silly tweet she tweeted in high school, it could ruin her chances of success as an adult. Should these people really have the right to ruin your life based on one immature thing you put on your social media page?

            In conclusion, I don’t think that college admissions officers and employers should be allowed to look at students’ and employees’ social media accounts and accept or deny them based on what’s on their account. Some people may disagree, but I think that private life and work life should be kept as two different things, and that private life shouldn’t affect work life, and work life shouldn’t affect private life.