Digging Up Dirt: Facebook Spies For Hire
Asher Moses, The Age: Large companies and government departments are employing a new Sydney-based company to dig up dirt on staff by spying on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube posts.
SR7 specialises in “online risk and reputation management” and claims to be the only company in Australia that actively monitors social networking sites on behalf of companies. It was formed about eight months ago in response to the growing trend for people to take conversations they would have traditionally had with mates at the pub on to their social network profiles.
Few people realise these seemingly private sites are still public spaces. If controversial posts leak to the media, it can lead to brands suffering immense damage to their reputations. SR7 director James Griffin said business was booming following recent public relations disasters sparked by the stupid social network behaviour of a few rogue employees. The firm’s clients included “a number of blue-chip companies in a variety of industries” and “government departments and agencies”.
This week, two Domino’s employees were sacked and arrested after they published videos of themselves on the web fouling up customers’ food. Late last year, three scantily clad Californian teens were fired from their jobs at KFC for publishing photos of themselves on MySpace bathing in a KFC basin.
But these are extreme cases, and there are scores of other instances where staff have been disciplined for seemingly innocuous posts, such as announcing in their Facebook status that they are tired of work.
David Vaile, executive director of UNSW’s Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, believes SR7 may be acting unethically and said he suspected companies were using dirt gathered from social networking sites as an excuse to fire people due to the challenging economic climate.
He said the practice could backfire when the economy turns around as people would refuse to work for or trust companies that spied on staff.
