Using social media post to check out people.

[tynyphil]

I maintain my own website that I built many, many years ago. It's old school using HTML. I had a 'page' dedicated to honoring those killed at the OKC Murrah building. Tho' it sat on my server all the time, I only made it visible on the anniversary date. I called the page 'bombing.html' Got to thinking that's probably drawing attention from the 3-letter gumbit folks. Deleted that page.

 

[dlbleak]

If you have kids or grandkids in college or even high school, caution them to very careful what they post on their SM accounts.

 

[sherrick13]

I was in charge of the hiring process at my police department. I 100% checked all social media on the applicants.

Im not in charge of hiring in my new career, but I would here too if I was.

 

[tynyphil]

I sell goats via my website. I get a LOT of calls and email contacts. Have sold/shipped to most states over 30 years. I ALWAYS check folks out via SM etc to try and determine who/what I’m dealing with.

 

[Noema]

I don't do it, because quite frankly, I just don't care enough about anyone to do such a thing, but i came across a crowd that did this all the time. Dox people. No i wasn't friends with them. They were just in the same chatroom and i'd lerk most of the time. Anyways, there were two sites that would do a deep dive on someone for a small fee. Apparently its accurate, because this is how they send pizzas, swat and other stuff. There is also social engineering. Have you ever met someone who befriended you quickly and asked personal questions, such as, "what is your favorite pet"? Talk about family in a way to make you share information about yours? E.g "i love my dad, he is a great guy. They used to make fun of him for his name. It was {billy}. Do you have a favorite sibling and do they have a funny sounding name? I bet I can make one up for them". If you answered any of those questions, you just gave them access to your account, lol. That is as long as they know what email you used to sign up with, which is easy. I'm sure you know where i'm going with this. Those are security questions to reset an e-mails password. I've had to do that a few times and it only took me two correct answers to gain access to my account after i forgot my password. Its a little hard to do these days if you do the extra effort securing your accounts by using 2 factor. I have my facebook set up to where if i log in from a new device, it sends me a security number that needs to be put in before it will let me log in. I know, i rant a lot, but this is good information to keep in mind when trying to secure yourself online.
Final thought. Is it just me, or do ads seem to know what I was talking about? Like, i would tell my brother that i wanted a boat. I'll get on my instagram and start seeing ads about boats. I didn't even type "boat" at all on my phone, just talked about it. This happens a lot, so i know it isn't just a coincidence lol.

 

[BillM]

If you have kids or grandkids in college or even high school, caution them to very careful what they post on their SM accounts.

When my kids were still pretty young, i.e., still in grade school, we tried to have that discussion with them. Youngest said "Dad, we know that on the internet, all the girls are guys, all the guys are cops, and all the kids are FBI. "

 

[wawazat]

I was in charge of the hiring process at my police department. I 100% checked all social media on the applicants.

Im not in charge of hiring in my new career, but I would here too if I was.

Heck, when I was pursuing my employment law degree in the early 2000s (FB still required a university email address to register when I signed up), we had lectures on using people's online presence as a supplement to the traditional background and credit checks for employment eligibility.

I have also sat through several skip tracing classes back when I was in the repossession industry. A potential employer looking at my online presence would be the least of my concerns. Knowing people out there find ways to track the folks not wanting to be tracked as a profession is eerie. We covered how to track down if they have kids and what age their kids are. Same for parents/grandparents, since kids and older folks are more likely to share vacation updates, leave geotagging turned on in their photos taken on smartphones, etc. That data would be gathered with time stamps to locate where the target vehicle was most likely parked at what time of day to try and get it picked up.

My advice is to turn all geotagging off on your phone. I heavily restrict location services as well. If you enjoy sharing vacation photos on your social media, wait until you get back from vacation to make any posts about it. Keep a close eye on your kids and what they are posting. Same for the parents or grandparents if they tag along on the trip as well. Effective skip tracers make really good money using these skills for legitimate reasons, I would assume there are even more less legitimate uses happening every day.

 

[joegrizzy]

I was in charge of the hiring process at my police department. I 100% checked all social media on the applicants.

Im not in charge of hiring in my new career, but I would here too if I was.

but checked them for what?

are police not allowed to swear or use harsh language?
are police not allowed to drink or party?

you know police are the most likely profession to swing, next to teachers, right? were you checking for if they would into the crowd at choir practice?

 

[joegrizzy]

LOTS of people with the whole "muh privacy" thing leading to "your personal characteristics are your identity" will just lead to people being more and more open about the "bad" things they do.

imo, employers and HR types are going to have to reckon with hiring someone who is openly a furry, openly a weed smoker, openly a kobra kommander antifa type, openly a *gasp* conservative, openly a hot taker, etc etc.
we all used online avatars and aliases, but oddly boomers and Z's are absolutely OBSESSED with using their "real" identities online. the problem is, like i said you aren't going to be able to restrict people based on social media posting when EVERYONE posts on social media and it's merely a matter of choosing the least of the radicals.

not to mention that MANY companies at this point would be MORE likely to hire someone based on "radical" or "fringe" posting if it fits with the "culture" of said companies. this creates a feedback loop of virtue signaling (which is why people do it in the first place) wherein that sort of posting gets encouraged. ie, if you get a following for posting "F TRUMP", odds are that leads to positive social mobility, not negative.

the extremes of this are the people who throw caution to the wind and go all in, creating a make or break political persona. these people can get very wealthy very quickly after amassing a very large following. the problem is: who is following them, for how long, and what happens when they stop? people like Nick Fuentes or even Kyle Rittenhouse are looking good right now, but what about people like Milo Yanananananapolous or stefan molyneux?

the left equivalents are guys like that Brooklyn Dad, or those twins who the first to post on every Donald Trump tweet. like that was their *career* just merely posting "NUH UH U SUCK" on the President's twitter feed. so just saying "YOU'D NEVER GET A JOB POSTING SOCIAL MEDIA OPINIONS BETTER CHECK YERSELF" isn't quite the reality of the world we live in.

kids see this. ask them what they want to be. they ALL want to be e-celebs or "influencers". what do you think that means? how can you be an e-celeb or an influencer without controversial or edgy opinions?

and therein lies the rub. now everyone does it, attached to their real identity, openly, and expects those who agree to help them and those who disagree to deride them. this will extend to the job market. hell this already is; it's what we're talking about.

i guess my point, it's going to go from "be careful to what you post on social media" to "make sure you post things that people who agree with your points of view will easily align with".

the LAST thing you want to do is piss EVERYONE off like some kinda instigator. they NEVER like those types <_<

 

[sherrick13]

but checked them for what?

are police not allowed to swear or use harsh language?
are police not allowed to drink or party?

you know police are the most likely profession to swing, next to teachers, right? were you checking for if they would into the crowd at choir practice?

Making sure they didnt like grizzly bears.

Also looking for evidence of drug use, gang activity and other criminal actions.

Background checks are called background checks for a reason.