Safer Places Inc., a firm providing pre-employment screening, tenant screening and security consulting, today announced the expansion of its social media screening and monitoring services in deference to the greater concern in the business community regarding the social media posting practices of job applicants and current employees. The expansion includes being able to monitor two new platforms—Reddit and YouTube—and being able to scan two additional risk categories—sexually explicit text and terrorism/extremism.

According to a survey by CareerBuilder, 70 percent of all employers use social media to screen their candidates. Additionally, of those employers, more than 50 percent said they found something that made the employer not hire the candidate (other studies on this topic put this percentage closer to 69 percent).

“Most employers review job candidates’ online profiles and postings to make sure there is no hate speech, bullying or any other type of objectionable behavior. This approach can create a slew of legal issues and put your company at risk of violating EEOC protected class information as well as FCRA rules,” said David Sawyer, president of Safer Places, Inc. “That’s why more and more employers outsource social media screening to companies like Safer Places, Inc. With our enhanced social media screening and monitoring services, we screen candidates and employees and provide a report that redacts extraneous information such as religious affiliation, sexual orientation, military status, and other information that should not and cannot be considered when making a hiring decision. By shielding an employer from information they would see if they did this on their own, they are less likely to encounter a lawsuit for discriminatory practices against a protected class.”

FCRA guidelines require permission to screen a job candidate’s social media postings. Additionally, Sawyer recommends not asking for passwords to their social media accounts or accepting friend requests. This can violate many state social media privacy laws.

As part of its social media services, Safer Places scans for a number of risks. In addition to the newly added sexually explicit text and terrorism/extremism content, Safer Places screens for: hate speech; insults and bullying; narcotics; obscene and toxic language; political speech; self-harm; threats of violence; drug-related images; explicit and racy images; violent images; and custom keywords for your industry or your company.

Safer Places screening and monitoring services cover the aforementioned Reddit and YouTube as well as the following: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tok-tok.

“Social media and how it relates to your staff members can be a tricky area. While what they post as private citizens is their business, it can reflect on your business. Then there’s the even grayer area if they are posting non-work content during business hours on your Wi-Fi or server,” said Sawyer. “Screening and monitoring may sound extreme. Yet so is having your company linked to toxic social media posts. Our social media services can buy you some peace of mind that if one of your staff members are doing that you are on top of it.”

Safer Places offers social media screening and monitoring services as an individual entity or as part of its packages of services.

For more information, visit www.saferplacesinc.com or call 508-947-0600.