Only time for a quickie today - but I had to draw everyone’s attention to this idiocy from Habitat in which the company uses Twitter to gain customers.

Nothing wrong with that in principle, but Habitat decided the best way of doing this was by pretending it was Tweeting about the Iranian elections. The full story is here.

Someone somewhere thought this was a good idea.

Tags: habitat, twitter, twitterfail, habitat fail

So, an employer has asked job candidates to hand over their passwords for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and just about anything else of which they might be a member as a matter of course. You don’t believe me? Have a look here.

This is of course appalling. You should no more have to hand over your social network details to someone who employs you than you should hand over the password to your online bank. You are allowed a private life.

Of course, the employer in turn is allowed to ensure that you don’t bring them into disrepute, and if you do so then you may expect to lose your job. But then, every contract of employment I’ve ever seen already takes that into account. I’m not aware of any need for new rules for the new media.

I’d be very interested, as well as somewhat disturbed, to hear from anyone who’s been asked anything similar.

Tags: privacy, twitter, facebook, social media, social network