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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

#41

Post by nickstinemates »

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…

> 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 employer?" "if I post this, will it offend one of my friends?" "Could this retweet become viral?") is paralyzing and exhausting, but not sharing is just as hard.

Shared feeling and thought process here. Sharing in this way has been a big part of my life.

My only 'solution' has been to scrutinize every word choice to ensure maximum sharing without allowing too much exposure. It is draining but, at least for me, has becomes second nature.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#42

Post by VLM »

pluma wrote: post #25
imgabe wrote: post #8

Unfortunately supply and demand in a place like NY is such that people will probably have to put up with nonsense like this. In other areas there would probably be a market opportunity for landlords who are only going to focus on things that are actually relevant to whether someone is going to be a good tenant or not.

Frankly I don't see what asking for someone's Twitter handle adds except for a high risk of (intentional or un) discrimination. Who are you trying to filter out? Credit checks are likely already required so you already know their financial situation. If they're lying about anything critical, the contract likely already has that covered. If anything, it's a tone-deaf sociopathic attempt to "get to know each other".

I've noticed the theme of "twitter as customer support" and I suspect that would be incredibly unappealing to a landlord. Being known as "that landlord on twitter with the dripping faucet" is probably not a major career goal for most landlords.

Then there's people who post pictures of property damage "So drunk I puked all over the carpet last night", perhaps with an attached pix of vodka and blue kool aide, is not going to sell well to a guy who just paid for new carpet in his rental.

And then there's pets, cat owners can't avoid posting cat pix, although "in the olden days" a quiet although banned pet might have been tolerated under a "no problem for me, no problem for you" doctrine but if half your posts are cat pix its kind of hard to consider that "keeping quiet". At the complex I lived in during my bachelor years there was some variation between what corporate thought one onsite manager would do and enforce, and what one onsite manager physically could do and enforce, and given 200 hours of theoretical work per week the manager was very libertarian WRT no complaints = not a high priority for him. But he can't CYA with corporate if some tenant insists on posting daily (banned) cat pictures. Not to mention if it came to eviction time having to explain to a judge why documented misbehavior was tolerated for months or only enforced against some pet owners (here's three twitter accounts of kittens, why is my hyperactive Shetland Sheepdog the only pet the rule is enforced against, surely its because I'm a minority)

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#43

Post by gmarx »

qyv wrote: post #39
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.

I disagree. Online posts express tone poorly. It's much less dangerous to discuss controversial topics in person.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#44

Post by qyv »

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.

Anyone who posts anything online using their real identity or anything associated to their real identity, needs to understand that it is now potentially publicly tied to them indefinitely. Do you think that when you apply for a job your employer doesn't look at your social media? The private sector uses social media data extensively when making judgment calls on individuals, and the scope of this is only getting larger.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#45

Post by k__ »

qyv wrote: post #39
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.

Next step: Act like you want to be perceived by others.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#46

Post by coldpie »

pluma wrote: post #26
roel_v wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? 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?

Because trawling your social media profiles is the only way to find out the relevant bits of information to base such a decision on? I wonder how landlords have dealt with this problem all that time before we had social media. The words "false dichotomy" come to my mind. By your logic landlords are just handing contracts out at random if they can't stalk you online.

You're going too far in the opposite direction. It's simply another datapoint.

> I wonder how landlords have dealt with this problem all that time before we had social media.

They would ask for your previous landlords, and possibly call them for references. Maybe there was just more damage done back in those days, which is now preventable. I don't think they pay people to stalk social media for fun, there's probably a legitimate business practice behind it. Whether that improvement in their business performance is worth the loss of privacy is an open question and worth debate.

> By your logic landlords are just handing contracts out at random if they can't stalk you online.

What? They didn't say that. Don't put words into the parent's mouth. Strawmen are really poor argument opponents.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#47

Post by WDCDev »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #36
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.

Self censorship is one of social media's greatest accomplishments.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#48

Post by mc32 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #37
TodPunk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

What civil right would the lessor be violating, I'm curious. I would be taken aback by being asked for social media identities, but I can't imagine what civil right asking for that would violate.

I imagine it'd be similar to banning asking for phone number or social media handles of someone you're trying to chat up for fear it could lead to harassment.

Badness can only happen with what they do with the information, not the information itself.

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#49

Post by will_work4tears »

qyv wrote: post #39
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.

This is probably pretty good advice for most, but I'm one of those with a dry, sarcastic, sense of humor, and that doesn't always translate well online (unless, perhaps, as a video).

Re: What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

#50

Post by vinceguidry »

mc32 wrote: post #48
vinceguidry wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

What civil right would the lessor be violating, I'm curious. I would be taken aback by being asked for social media identities, but I can't imagine what civil right asking for that would violate. I imagine it'd be similar to banning asking for phone number or social media handles of someone you're trying to chat up for fear it could lead to harassment. Badness can only happen with what they do with the information, n…

> What civil right would the lessor be violating, I'm curious.

Privacy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy

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