Another person gets fired for what they write in their weblog. This leads me to a thought I've been having for a while now. When Dejanews came out, there was trend in certain parts of the tech sector to do a Dejanews search on a potential employee. Some of these searches were benign - to quote from memory one online friend, "Their posts in comp.software.xyz would give me a good idea of how much they know, and how they deal with people, and if someone hasn't shown themselves to be a participant in the xyz software community, why should I hire them?" On the other hand, the potential prejudice if someone found your posts to alt.lifestyles.furry, or the fact you used to troll alt.usage.english could be rather career-limiting.
Companies are getting more and more anally retentive about hiring. Drug tests are getting more and more common (I haven't taken an illegal substance since 1996, but I'd still like to think I'd refuse to work for a company if it required a blood test from me. Luckily this sort of thing is still illegal in Australia). HR departments make money coming up with weirder and weirder ways to assess your "capabilities". It's quite logical that firms will start to appear that specialise in "Internet Investigation". And I don't mean those shady deals that spam you with FIND ANYONE ONLINE, I mean serious professional organisations that hire themselves out to let potential employers know just what you've been up to on the Internet.
Heather Hamilton who got fired for her weblog, was probably asking for it because she apparently spent a lot of time talking about how much she hated her job (although she never named names). On the other hand, Mark Pilgrim was fired for his weblog last year, for writing a very good article on addiction based on his own personal experiences with drugs, despite the essay making it quite clear that he'd been clean for all the time he'd been in his current job.
Think you're safe because your online journal is written under an alias? Are you sure? Do all of your friends (who link to you) have aliases? Do you mention the names of your friends in your journal? Chances are, you can be found.
If you have controversial posts marked friends-only, how well do you have to know someone before you add them as a friend? A lot of people will tend to add someone who seems vaguely interesting by reflex if they get added themselves.
The moral of the story is that it remains true - you should never write anything online that you don't want your parents, your priest or your potential employer to see.
