What My Landlord Learned About Me from Twitter

The author writes, &quot;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. &quot;<p>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 (&quot;could this be misconstrued by an employer?&quot; &quot;if I post this, will it offend one of my friends?&quot; &quot;Could this retweet become viral?&quot;) is paralyzing and exhausting, but not sharing is just as hard.<p>I&#x27;ve written a post about this feeling [1], but I don&#x27;t have any solution. As someone who enjoys sharing ideas through writing and meeting people online, but is also very aware of how mob-happy our online civic society has become, it is a hard position to be in.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.vickiboykis.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;01&#x2F;the-snarling-crowd-in-the-shadows-watching-us&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.vickiboykis.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;01&#x2F;the-snarling-crowd-in-th...</a>

How the hell do these people think that kind of behaviour is even remotely appropriate?<p>Maybe it&#x27;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.

I&#x27;ve sanitized all of my social media because, as a startup founder, the magnifying glass of &quot;due diligence&quot; is hovering over me at all times. The last thing I need is a problem because of something trivial.<p>In fact, regarding twitter, my policy is to never use it except to link to other things or retweet someone else&#x27;s post. Because a 140 character statement on a complex topic is a recipe for disaster.

It&#x27;s a shame to see the actual outcome of the false promises of social media. So much talking about how social networks would bring people together and help people connect and interact and give people a voice, but in the end it seems that the biggest results are that large companies have a new outlet to get eyeballs on their PR, online troughs for people to get their feed, and people have to build up even more false layers of &quot;personal branding&quot; around themselves, curating their eternal public record to avoid hurting their future career prospects.

Would anyone believe me if I said I don&#x27;t have a Twitter or Facebook account? (Actually I think I have three Twitter accounts, never used, and no idea what their names are.)<p>Or might they believe me, and think I&#x27;m too odd-stream to rent their apartment or work in their office?

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.

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 program would request this info, I asked why and for what purpose they would need this info for. I was surprised at their response - it&#x27;s their primary means of notifying parents in the event of a closure, emergency, schedule change, etc. and for misc communications. They request the parents twitter handle and follow those who have children actively enrolled (via opt-in) to enable DM&#x27;s.

The title is highly misleading. It says nothing about what her landlord actually learned from her Twitter feed.<p>It should be titled something like this: What I learned about myself when my landlord asked me for my Twitter account

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.

I dont think a lot of millennials understand the implications of posting personal thoughts or information on <i>public</i> websites.<p>I&#x27;ve never had any known repercussions from my posts but I know of 3 instances where people I knew have. Perhaps I dont know of an instance where I was looked over because of Social Media.<p>One was a person failed a class for saying &quot;the final was so easy it was like I cheated.&quot;<p>Another person was denied a house to rent because they told the Landlord they didnt have dogs. Landlord checked their facebook and saw pics of his two large pitbulls.<p>The last person had a pic of them uploaded on Instagram while they were eating at work in uniform with their middle finger up (we worked at a restaurant). There was an investigation and person was suspended until it was finished. Luckily he didnt loose his job and was allowed to come back.<p>Be care what you post for!

Unless I missed something, it doesn&#x27;t seem like the landlords were demanding this information. Is the worry that they might not consider you if you don&#x27;t answer every question?