Social Media- Reliable Information?

     According to Sarah Buduson, a Phoenix reporter for KPHO news, "Federal employees are using social network websites to investigate immigration fraud among petitioners who want to gain citizenship through fake marriages" (2010). Buduson explains throughout the article how it is quite easy to become friends with strangers through social media, which ultimately allows for a great deal of personal information to be made public.
     Although U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson, Chris Bentley "denied the agency dupes green card applicants or others immigration petitioners into making connections on social network sites" (2010), it is an interesting concept to consider. It is also worth noting that at the end of the article, Buduson reports that a different U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman, Matt Chandler said that they do in fact "look at public information on social networking websites to investigate green card applications" (2010).
    As social media has become more popular, companies have found it to be a useful means of obtaining information about potential employees- information that they would otherwise have a hard time getting. It does seem like an invasion of privacy, but is it? It is your personal information, but you are also the one putting it out in the open, thus putting yourself into a potentially vulnerable position. When information about yourself is put onto social media sites, many people can learn quite a bit about you- often without your knowing.

    Ultimately, I think it is pretty interesting that Federal employees may be using social media to determine whether a marriage is real or fake for immigration purposes, but question how reliable such information could be in a case in court. I also am torn on how I feel about the issue, on one hand, I think it is wrong to probe social network sites for such information in order to use it as basis for deciding whether someone ought to be granted or denied citizenship. On the other hand, I think that people should be more conscientious  when publishing personal information online and should consider the audience that has access to such information.

http://www.kpho.com/news/25510617/detail.html