I request social media links (not passwords, just profile links) from everyone I'm considering hiring, because any/all information I can use to winnow potentially problem hires out before I make an offer is extremely valuable to me.
You can tell a lot about a person from their social media profiles and posts.
I think that's insane and abusive.
Asking to see someone's public webpage isn't.
The exterior of someone's house isn't useful in hiring. Their thoughts and opinions they choose to publish to the billions on the internet generally are.
Edit: and I kind of agree with the others.
I don't have a Facebook account, nor Instagram, but would my Fetlife profile be okay?
* If not, why is Fetlife exempt from your idea of what a social-network is?
* If so, what business does my employer have at all seeing my Fetlife account?
* If you decide not to hire me entirely on the basis that I have a Fetlife account then you're opening yourself up to an unlawful discrimination lawsuit.
Also, the last point is incorrect: being kinky is not a protected class, and one does not even need to be kinky to be on Fetlife. Not hiring someone because they are on Fetlife isn't protected class discrimination even if their Fetlife profile happened to disclose they are in a protected class. It's a social network like any other.
Interviewing someone opens oneself up to a potential lawsuit, period. Asking for information about a candidate that has nothing to do with membership in a protected class (such as "show me your public websites", which is what such a request amounts to) is no more risk than asking in what city someone went to university (the city for which, for example, could suggest they attended an HBCU). The whole process is fraught with risk; we should not allow that to prevent us from learning a detailed picture about a candidate's lifestyle and character (assiduously avoiding specifically seeking out information associated with protected class membership).
It's already common to ask for a LinkedIn or GitHub profile for hiring certain types of roles. There's no difference asking for Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.
Would you hire a photographer without seeing their Instagram?
It's also entirely legal to discriminate against someone for the specific set of social media services they do or do not have an account on, as long as they aren't serving as a proxy for protected class discrimination (eg ChristianMingle).
All of hiring is a process of discrimination: against the less skilled, less diligent, less suited to a particular job role. More information helps in that process. One has to always be careful to avoid discriminating against protected classes, but most attributes of most people, even outside of the professional sphere, are not protected and are legal and prudent grounds for hiring discrimination.
LinkedIn is a professional networking - and resume/CV hosting site. Facebook and Instgram are for friends, family, hobbies, and the like. They're worlds apart and it's intellectually dishonest of you to equate them.
> Would you hire a photographer without seeing their Instagram?
No, I wouldn't. Instagram isn't Flickr, deviantArt, nor their professional portfolio.
Absolutely not; public webpages are public webpages. What someone chooses to publish, and where, is an important measure of their personality and attitude.
- I see your point is based on the notion that "if it's public in one space, you intend for it to be public in all spaces in your life" - but that's an incorrect assumption: Fetlife profiles aren't "public" (insofar as Google can't see them), and I don't have my real-life name on it, and I certainly don't intend to share it with anyone whom I want to maintain a strict separation from my private life.
Am I not entitled to a private life? What right do you have to enter my private life?
Can I see your Fetlife account? Can I see inside your house from the street-level windows? Can I bring a ladder to the side of your house and peer into your upstairs bedroom? Where's the limit for you?
I am talking about public webpages.
As for my Fetlife account, my username is the same there as it is here, and on IRC, and on Wikipedia, and on GitHub, et c.
I have blackout treatments on my windows.
The aptitude for being aware of what is or isn't public/published is something I hire for, too. Then again, I work with data and customers that live and die by such things.