51–60 of 71 posts
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 progr…
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.
In-person communication is rife with unspoken, yet understood, shared knowledge: body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, information about social standing between two individuals, etc.
Whereas we're still sorting out how to properly interact online, having only been doing it (at scale) for ~20 years.
Cycling twitter posts at top of article were very annoying and not at all what I wanted to see early in the morning. My brain is still trying to recover two minutes later. Horrible.
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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 go…
Due diligence aside, documented evidence only comes into play if you become aware of it. If your tenant is posting pics of a pet they're not allowed to keep in the apartment but you're not aware of the pics, no problem. If you pre-emptively ask for their social media details and then neglect to act on the information you find, sure, all blame on you.
There's an important difference between being made aware of information and actively seeking it out. Morally there's no difference between a landlord denying you an apartment because they've been shown a tweet of you bragging about doing property damage or because they were actually there and saw you do it. But there's a world of difference between either of those and intentionally rummaging through a candidate's social media presence to actively look for grounds of denial.
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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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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 go…
For the pet issue, yeah if you don't uniformly enforce the rules you have, you're going to have a bad time. That should be common sense. If pets aren't allowed, then don't allow pets. That's pretty simple. There are plenty of places that might allow small pets but not a large sheepdog and that's perfectly fine as long as its clearly spelled out in the lease.
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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.
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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
It's like saying my name is private. Moreover, when they do background checks they get private information on me which I would actually have to pay for even when the information is about me. I don't think its as clear cut as you make it out to be.
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I have no twitter, no fb, no reddit, no g+, Github, and my account here is a throwaway which I regularly abandon and create a new one. I was never asked for any of this (well, except github on job applications in the past which never been a problem when I explain them I don't have one) and if in the future I am, I probably will drop the deal (whatever it is) on the spot.
And how are you getting on? Any problems, ie not being invited to friends' events because they're only announced on FB?
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> What civil right would the lessor be violating, I'm curious. Privacy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy
Can it be claimed information published on the www for everyone to see as "private"? It's like saying my name is private. Moreover, when they do background checks they get private information on me which I would actually have to pay for even when the information is about me. I don't think its as clear cut as you make it out to be.
Though I don't think in this case not having a Twitter account would cause you to be unable to rent in NYC. She could have simply said she didn't have one. Not sure if that would make you legally culpable or not.
> I don't think its as clear cut as you make it out to be.
I don't mean to be rude, but these kinds of questions are exactly what the judicial system and the body of civil rights law and precedent are aimed at answering. We pass the law, then it's the judicial system's job to work out the particulars by adjudicating individual cases. It's the whole reason they exist.