Read the response to the instructions listed below. Do you agree with the response? Why or why not? What are your thoughts? Explain

Instructions: Please use the 5 criteria (i.e., reliable, valid, generalizable, practical, and legal) to analyze the effectiveness of using Social Media as a background check.

Response: Reliability- when using social media as a source to check on someones background, its not always the best thing to judge a person on. A social media account, for example instagram. Wont always give out information such as qualifications, what degree someone might have earned, job experience, or what they are capable of even doing. For example, I only have an instagram account I dont really use too much, based on the photos I will see people post, I couldnt tell you what that persons job status is or anything along those lines. Social media however can give you more of an idea of what a person is like outside of a work environment, some of the things they might be interested in, who their friends are, and things they partake in.

Valid As a valid source, its not a reliable source. For one thing people can bluff about certain things theyve achieved and try to make it seem more impressive than it really is. Or they can just flat out lie in order to get praise from others on the platform they are using. In some ways, its almost the person looking at the users pages job to figure out whether or not that person is telling the truth or not. And even if the information is accurate, is it up to date or is it a few years old and outdated?

Generalizability as for the research in a more academic extension its again not that reliable. When you compare things like Facebook, instagram, or twitter they are all used differently and can maybe offer different information. Facebook now compared to tens years ago when I was still using it is probably very different. Plus not everyone in the workforce has social media and if they do, they might only have just one type of it. Like instagram, where in some cases can be very vague and not give you hardly any information on a person. Or what if someone has their page on private, and the only way you can look at their information is by adding them as a friend? I dont think its bad a for a company to just look out of curiosity, but to use it to weigh someones ability for a job isnt a good idea.

Practicality Social media I would have to say isnt practical when it comes to trying to either find employees or get better understanding of qualifications. First off, you can paint a completely different picture of yourself and make people think your one thing, but in actuality youre really something entirely different. Most people can make their page or profile look impressive and try to fool the general person that might just happen by your page. There might also be some sort of biased behavior behind the employer, but thats something that falls more under the legal category.

Legal When it comes to whether or not its legal, in some cases it can be depending on if it lead to a person not being hired. Lets just say an employer saw some posts that happened to be political and the employer doesnt agree with those policies. And this lead to the person not getting hired, even though they were a good fit for the job. Or if a person wasnt hired because the employers saw this person had a disability or medical problem and the employer assumed that this candidate would either be a bad pick or would slow the work process down. There are also a multitude of other things someone can find out about someone on social media. Such as religion, what race they are, and even possibly there exact age, or at the every least get an idea of how old they are. Employers can get sued for this sine these are considered protected characteristics.