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What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

nytimes.com

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Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#31

Post by drcross »

DanAndersen wrote: post #9

It's a shame to see the actual outcome of the false promises of social media. So much talking about how social networks would bring people together and help people connect and interact and give people a voice, but in the end it seems that the biggest results are that large companies have a new outlet to get eyeballs on their PR, online troughs for people to get their feed, and people have to build up even more false…

Or just leave your phone at home and go outside, in which case you don't need to worry about it at all.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#32

Post by brixon »

akgerber wrote: post #27
pluma wrote: post #5

How the hell do these people think that kind of behaviour is even remotely appropriate? Maybe it's just German privacy laws speaking, but I find the idea of a landlord asking for your Twitter handle (or stalking you on Facebook) appalling.

I don't think the people requesting her information are landlords so much as leaseholders whose home she would be subletting, and they are concerned about subletting to someone who would destroy all of their property. Standard New York landlords who are leasing empty apartments as a business just run a credit check— they'd probably exposing themselves to problems under fair housing laws if they asked for much more.

Agreed, renting an apartment is a business (most of the time), but subletting is a personal transaction. A business cannot discriminate outside of ability to pay the requested cost for the service/product. An individual can discriminate all day long. Where I used to live you were not a business if you had 3 or fewer rentals, but you were a business with 4+ rentals.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#33

Post by theseatoms »

vkb wrote: post #17

The author writes, "Before I started looking for an apartment, I never gave much thought to the cumulative identity I had been presenting, or even performing, on the Internet. " This is completely the opposite of my (also a millennial) experience. I blog on a regular basis, post things on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, what have you. The amount of thought that goes into each post ("could this be misconstrued by an empl…

I very much feel this, and it's kept me from sharing online. It's easy to imagine worst case scenario, a la Justine Sacco. My online writing has become riddled with caveats and disclaimers, pandering to the least charitable readers. Poor style, I know.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#34

Post by tjsix »

While it seems, at least through what the author reveals, that they were in fact requesting her twitter handle for background info purposes, requests like these may not always be what they appear to be. As an example, my wife and I recently enrolled our son into an early start program. One of the initial questions in the parent info section was twitter handle. As it struck me as quite odd that a publicly funded program would request this info, I asked why and for what purpose they would need this info for. I was surprised at their response - it's their primary means of notifying parents in the event of a closure, emergency, schedule change, etc. and for misc communications. They request the parents twitter handle and follow those who have children actively enrolled (via opt-in) to enable DM's.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#35

Post by wil421 »

I dont think a lot of millennials understand the implications of posting personal thoughts or information on public websites.

I've never had any known repercussions from my posts but I know of 3 instances where people I knew have. Perhaps I dont know of an instance where I was looked over because of Social Media.

One was a person failed a class for saying "the final was so easy it was like I cheated."

Another person was denied a house to rent because they told the Landlord they didnt have dogs. Landlord checked their facebook and saw pics of his two large pitbulls.

The last person had a pic of them uploaded on Instagram while they were eating at work in uniform with their middle finger up (we worked at a restaurant). There was an investigation and person was suspended until it was finished. Luckily he didnt loose his job and was allowed to come back.

Be care what you post for!

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#36

Post by Nicholas_C »

vkb wrote: post #17

The author writes, "Before I started looking for an apartment, I never gave much thought to the cumulative identity I had been presenting, or even performing, on the Internet. " This is completely the opposite of my (also a millennial) experience. I blog on a regular basis, post things on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, what have you. The amount of thought that goes into each post ("could this be misconstrued by an empl…

I would say about a quarter of the things I type out on social media and elsewhere on the Internet don't get posted because I think about their implications and scrap the post.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#37

Post by vinceguidry »

TodPunk wrote: post #7
pluma wrote: post #5

How the hell do these people think that kind of behaviour is even remotely appropriate? Maybe it's just German privacy laws speaking, but I find the idea of a landlord asking for your Twitter handle (or stalking you on Facebook) appalling.

"I don't like X unenforceable thing" is the mark of our generation. Every tweet is public, and if anyone thinks they've protected them somehow, that is both unlikely to be true in all cases and definitely is missing the point that making your tweets private is a different statement entirely. This isn't even anything new. We used to ask for references, and we'd follow up further if the stakes were high enough. I got i…

> "I don't like X unenforceable thing" is the mark of our generation.

A ban of this sort of thing could easily be enforced. They already prohibit discrimination, and there's already a body of precedent to help adjudicate grey areas. Make it a civil rights violation for landlords to ask for social media handles in applications. Then anyone who wants this kind of anonymity can simply avoid tying their real name to the service.

As social media posts could be used to glean protected information, I don't think it's even be that hard politically to get such a law passed in many states.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#38

Post by Retric »

roel_v wrote: post #21
pluma wrote: post #5

How the hell do these people think that kind of behaviour is even remotely appropriate? Maybe it's just German privacy laws speaking, but I find the idea of a landlord asking for your Twitter handle (or stalking you on Facebook) appalling.

? Do you think people who are handing you the keys to at least 100k worth of property, with 2 months rent as a deposit if that, do not want to know who they're renting to?

Insurance... it's a thing.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#39

Post by qyv »

vkb wrote: post #17

The author writes, "Before I started looking for an apartment, I never gave much thought to the cumulative identity I had been presenting, or even performing, on the Internet. " This is completely the opposite of my (also a millennial) experience. I blog on a regular basis, post things on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, what have you. The amount of thought that goes into each post ("could this be misconstrued by an empl…

It is actually extremely simple: Don't act online how you would not act in person.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#40

Post by wil421 »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #28
wdewind wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone looking for an apartment in NYC right now, who has lived here for edit: the entire time social media has existed, this has never happened to me or anyone I know. I don't think it's a "thing," as the article implies. Edit: 26 years -> the entire time social media has existed, to please the pedantry.

>> "who has lived here for 26 years" I don't think that part matters too much considering social media in its current form wasn't really around for most of that time :)

What you were never asked for your AOL username when you were trying to rent a house or get a job?
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