Filter your Facebook !

Stacey McLeod

Monday, December 01, 2008

It seems everybody and their mother (literally) has a Facebook page these days. The social networking site has paved the way for us to broadcast every minute detail of our lives, from what we ate for breakfast to what we really think about our jobs. But while uploading our dirty laundry for the digital world to see can be liberating, it’s also easy to forget that our co-workers -- and worse, our bosses-- are out there too.

With an endless amount of personal stories swirling around Facebook, it’s amazing what stories you can’t get people to tell. Digging through Facebook groups with titles like my boss is going to fire me because I spend all my time on Facebook and I hate my job at (insert company name here), there are funny wall postings about workplace gossip and antics. However, despite people being comfortable enough to splatter their names and faces across these pages, it’s still shocking that strangers, and their bosses, can find them in there.

John F. Morton is a creative director in New York City. A self-proclaimed tech geek, he keeps a blog called Supergeekery.com where he picks apart the digital world and offers tips to the not-as-web-savvy.

To Morton’s surprise, one of his most popular posts is also the one his readers are afraid to comment on. His highly popular October 26 posting Facebook Privacy 101: Keeping Your Status Updates From Your Boss is garnering lots of attention, but little response.

“It’s probably one of the most instantly popular posts I’ve ever written,” Morton says. “I’ve had so many people express such a concern about their Facebook status. It’s something they realize after the fact.”

Morton says that as people get more comfortable on Facebook, their guard comes down and while many were once firmly against adding co-workers and employers, it’s much more common now.

“It’s a funny creep of contact,” Morton says. “It suddenly explodes into not only friends, but everyone you know.”

He says that while many workplaces, such as government offices, have banned access to the social networking site, more creative industries can actually encourage it. In these worlds, having to accept or reject friend requests from bosses can be especially tricky.

“There’s a social pressure to say `no Mr. Boss Man, you can’t be my friend’ but you can’t,” he says. “I work for myself, so I don’t care. If I sneak out to go to a movie, it’s me I’m sneaking out on. I don’t care if you went to some party and have pictures of yourself inebriated, but I’m not everybody.”

Since it’s awkward rejecting a friend request from an employer, it can be equally as awkward giving your employer a window into areas of your not-so-professional life. That’s why he dug through Facebook tools and settings and came up with ways of easily keeping track of how much your boss can see.

Morton says that by adding friend circles, you can limit what your boss and co-worker views without having to make the tough decision to reject their Facebook friendship. Close friends can be kept in an “inner circle” while employers can politely be shuffled off to the “outer circle.”

“Then they can still feel that they’re your friend,” he laughs.

He suggests clicking on the “friends” link at the top of the page navigation, and then on the “friends list” link on the left column. Click on “make a new list” and begin adding your lists of friend circles. Morton chose to make an “inner friend circle,” a “regular friend circle” and an “outer friend circle” where he suggests adding employers and co-workers.

The next step is to decide what access you want each group to have to your information. Click on the “settings” tab on your profile, then “privacy settings” and finally “profile.” In there, you can customize which parts of your profile are visible to each group, and hide your profile status updates, group lists and photos from your creeping boss.

John Ciechanowicz, an intake counsellor with JVS Toronto Career Counselling, says employers and employees should never get too close outside of work, and that includes Facebook.

“I’m friends with my boss,” he says. “I’ve known him for eight years. But, we still don’t socialize outside of the office.”

He says that if you are put in a position where you hesitantly accept their Facebook friendship, start thinking twice about what you allow on your page.

“You’d really have to be careful about what you say on your profile,” he says. “People should be careful no matter what they’re doing. Once it’s on the internet, it’s out there.”

Morton agrees. “I err on the side of saying the less stuff that’s personal, the better,” he says. “I always warn everyone, if they want anything you post badly enough, they will find it.”