BEST OF THE WEB: Why employers are now asking candidates to reveal Facebook passwords

There’s been a lot of talk about how social media is playing a role in the recruitment industry, and it’s clear that businesses are looking up LinkedIn profiles left and right. But there’s apparently a new, more disturbing trend emerging – businesses are now asking applicants for their Facebook login details.

Over at The Atlantic, there’s new information that businesses are actually asking applicants for login details, including Robert Collins from Maryland, who was apparently asked to reveal his password during an interview with a government department.

That incident has now sparked some involvement from the American Civil Liberties Union, while another, Justin Bassett from New York, ended a job interview after he was asked for a Facebook login, and a separate story from AP notes these aren’t just random incidents either.

“But the whole thing is also, more importantly, worrying. It’s striking how deep the divide can be between our conceptions of online privacy: To me, an interviewer asking for my password – Facebook or any other – would be a fairly shocking imposition. To Justin Bassett’s interviewer, though, it was a question like any other.”

This is a fascinating trend, especially as social media plays more of a role in recruitment. But there are significant legal questions around asking for a password, and businesses would do well to determine the legalities of asking such a question before they go ahead and do it.

Should you be rude like Steve Jobs to achieve results?

Apple founder Steve Jobs was a notoriously rude man, often demeaning employees in public. His approach – and success – has sparked questions as to whether other managers need to emulate his style in order to get results.

Over at the Harvard Business Review, there’s a piece by Steve Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson, about the principles that made Steve Jobs such a great leader – and you don’t have to be rude to copy them.

“It’s important to appreciate that Jobs’s rudeness and roughness were accompanied by an ability to be inspirational,” Isaacson says. “He infused Apple employees with an abiding passion to create groundbreaking products and a belief that they could accomplish what seemed impossible.”

“And we have to judge him by the outcome. Jobs had a close-knit family, and so it was at Apple: His top players tended to stick around longer and be more loyal than those at other companies, including ones led by bosses who were kinder and gentler.”

These leadership lessons are simple – engage face to face with your employees, know the big picture of your company and then combine it with details, and also “don’t be a slave to focus groups”. These are some great lessons from one of the men who ended up knowing Jobs the best.

The sites that are bypassing Google Maps

Web developers cried out in protest last year when Google said it would start charging sites that integrate Google Maps into their websites if they reach a certain amount of traffic.

Now, it seems they’re fighting back. Foursquare has announced it will start using OpenStreetMap instead of Google, a user-contributed alternative. And it’s picking up steam.

But Google is pushing back, with the company announcing new ways developers can use Google Maps.

One thing’s clear – the company’s dominance in maps is now being challenged.

“We’re getting to a point of location information everywhere,” said Stefan Weitz, a senior director at Microsoft’s Bing, told the New York Times. 

“Maps stay relatively static, and you have this ability to augment every place.”

The digital comedians – making money through direct downloads

The rise of sites like Hulu has majorly influenced the debate around piracy, and what type of content users want online. Specifically, whether digital copyright protection has any place in selling online video and whether that type of model can be sustained.

A number of professional comedians have entered this debate, selling recordings of their events online, with no copyright protection and at a cheap price. And they’re making a remarkable amount of money while doing so.

American comedian Louis CK started the trend last year, selling a special for $US5 on his website. He said he’d made more than if he had sold the event through a traditional network – $1.1 million.

“I don’t have to go, ‘Here’s this product,’ to whatever company,” Louis C. K. told the New York Times, “and then cringe and shrug and apologize to my fans for whatever words are being removed, whatever ads they’re having to watch, whatever marketing is being lobbed on.”

It’s an interesting development, and one that traditional television networks such as Comedy Central and HBO are carefully watching. It’ll only be a matter of time before the trend hits Australian shores.