Orwell’s Big Brother is Watching

Today is the anniversary of when George Orwell published 1984, way back in 1949.  Orwell’s vision was quite pessimistic, though perhaps not that far off.  In the book, the state, called “Big Brother,” was everywhere with overt surveillance.  Today, the greater threat is not quite a worry about the Government (though the tinfoil hat crowd still is worried about the Patriot Act provisions), but rather the fact that your boss is watching you.

That’s right, even if you think those cool pictures of you on Spring Break are harmless enough, think again.  Sure that only your “followers” are reading your words, you might want to reconsider that thought.  Again and again I tell students (and my daughters) to remember that once something is on the web, its there forever.  Perhaps facebook, myspace, twitter and whatever else is now the coolest thing out there needs to do a better job of warning.  Well, it probably won’t help these people.

Take a good look before you tweet lest  you get fired. The Supreme Court has been deliberating recently on who actually owns the texts that you send from your company phone.  Other conversations are happening about everything else that happens while at work.  The law certainly supports your boss watching your computer, your phone and now, apparently, your texts. I’m not complaining nor trying to imply they shouldn’t know what we, as employees, are doing.  Consider this more of a reminder that we work for the purpose of, well, work.  And, whatever you think you are doing in private, such as posting on facebook or myspace, could clearly come back to haunt you.

Of course, you might find out that you WERE fired via facebook. That’s kind of low, but its the world we live in now.  I guess we need to get used to it.

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