# Your Digital Footprint Could Make You Unemployable

In China, the government will [arrest and torture you](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/02/china-closing-memory-tiananmen-massacre) for criticizing them:

> \[In May 2022\], Xu Guang…was sentenced to four years in prison...after he demanded that the Chinese government acknowledge the Tiananmen Massacre and held a sign calling for redress at a local police station. *Xu was reportedly tortured, shackled, and mistreated while in detention.*

In the UK, they don’t have freedom of speech, and up to [30 people a day](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf) (meaning 12,000/year) are arrested for the crime of posting or sharing “grossly offensive” content online.

In the US, we have freedom of speech enshrined in law—you can’t be arrested for saying politically inconvenient or offensive speech—but that freedom doesn’t protect you from the decisions of private companies. So if you’re a dickhead online, you can still be prevented from being hired, or lose the job you currently have.

This got me thinking…so I asked [Claude](https://claude.ai/) the following:

> Please web scrape information about me, \[first & last name\]. Based on what you find, please summarize, from an employer's perspective, any red flags that make me unemployable.

Claude tore me to shreds—no mercy. Now I’m going about wiping my entire digital footprint. Am I overreacting? Well…

There’s currently a lot of uncertainty surrounding the [advances in AI](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Mak2kZuTq8Hpnqyzb/the-intelligence-curse):

> We are starting to see pre-AGI systems [shrink analyst classes](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/business/investment-banking-jobs-artificial-intelligence.html), [change personnel strategies](https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/c-suite-insights/the-leadership-agenda/gen-ai-is-a-tool-for-growth-not-just-efficiency.html%23:~:text%3DOne%2520out%2520of%2520every%2520four%2520of%2520the%25204%252C702,to%2520accomplish%2520the%2520same%2520tasks%2520with%2520fewer%2520workers), and [trigger layoffs](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80e1gp9m9zo).

So in an [increasingly competitive and globalized job market](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/09/gen-z-are-competitive-job-market-randstad/), recruiters may employ (if they're not already) web scraping AI tools that build comprehensive profiles of job applicants in order to find reasons to eliminate them.

The reason this could be tricky for employers (but certainly not prohibited) is because of privacy laws. As of 2023, the [California Consumer Privacy Act now requires](https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/overview-of-new-rights-for-workers-under-the-california-consumer-privacy-act/#:~:text=The%20CCPA%20gives%20workers%20the%20right%20to:,made%20about%20the%20worker's%20characteristics%20and%20abilities) employers to report which categories of personal information they’re collecting, and it grants job applicants the right to request what was found. But notice:

*It doesn’t* prevent *companies from collecting and using personal data against job applicants. It simply requires the *disclosure *of collected information upon request.*

So what are some legal ways companies could discriminate against applicants?

*   Let’s say the CEO of a company is a teetotaler. She could use AI tools to surveil applicants’ online presence (including social media) and eliminate them if they’ve ever posted any images of alcohol, stating: "data collection uncovered drug-use that’s incompatible with the company’s values."
*   With [increasing political polarization](https://news.syr.edu/2025/10/23/the-great-divide-understanding-us-political-polarization/), it’s important to remember that party affiliation is not a protected characteristic. Employers can absolutely discriminate against you for having specific political beliefs, which many people openly share on their social media.

These two examples presuppose that *humans *will always be the ones initiating employment discrimination. But with *AI* increasingly taking an active role in hiring, algorithms could make decisions on their own without humans ever directly being involved.

Continuing the alcohol example, an AI algorithm could examine the damaging effects of alcohol (on both an individual and societal level), and decide that alcohol probably makes people less productive employees. It could then automatically devalue job applicants that have ever posted images displaying alcohol (even if their photo was just from a common social function, like a wedding).

We're moving towards a world where *every publication of personal information can become permanent career collateral.*

* * *

Maybe once I become financially independent (in a few decades), then I can begin posting under my own name. But for now, the risk of having a public online presence seems to be asymmetrically giving power to corporations at the expense of private individuals. *Authenticity and personal accountability are becoming just another privilege of the rich.*

Privacy law could catch up eventually, but Pandora’s Box has been opened: it’s now easier than ever to surveil and discriminate against job applicants. *There’s now a strong incentive to anonymize your online presence in order to protect your economic future in a job market that has just obtained unbelievably advanced surveillance tools.*

*1/12/2026 Edit*: Within the past month, I have since changed my mind about being anonymous on LessWrong and have reverted to my public name. Why?

*   I've been public for two years and nothing bad has happened to me. Perhaps I let my overactive fear push me towards anonymity.
    *   As long as I'm being authentic, while not oversharing intimate details on the internet, I doubt that I would receive much (if any) pushback from employers (who probably don't look at people's blogs anyway).
*   At the [LessOnline](https://less.online/) event last year, a dozen people recognized me from my LW posts and that was cool.
    *   Being public makes it easier to connect with other people in the community.