\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely troubling what some of the colleges are doing,\u201d<\/em> attorney Bradley Shear, who specializes in social media cases, told RT. Many universities are hiring monitoring companies that comb the social media lives of applicants, even going so far as to spy on their search histories and internet activity.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very problematic situation,\u201d<\/em> Shear said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very big problem and it\u2019s only getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Shear shared a story about one client of his, a 17-year-old who was asked in his college admission interview why he followed Alex Jones on Twitter. Last week, half a dozen platforms banded together to ban, block and delete the accounts of Jones<\/a> and his InfoWars show.<\/p>\n The teen had never liked or retweeted any of Jones\u2019s content \u2013 his \u201ctransgression\u201d<\/em> was merely following the conspiracy theorist on Twitter, Shear explained. The way he tackled the case was by going to the college and arguing the admissions interviewer displayed improper political bias.<\/p>\n \u201cI made sure the situation was resolved to the student\u2019s satisfaction,\u201d<\/em> Shear told RT.<\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n Another client wasn\u2019t so lucky, losing a $250,000 scholarship and admission to \u201cone of the most prestigious universities in the world\u201d<\/em> over an emoji and like on a Facebook post related to the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though this teen\u2019s social media accounts had the highest privacy settings, a \u2018Facebook friend\u2019 took a screenshot of the alleged inappropriate like and emoji, saved it for months, and anonymously sent it to the admissions office of the teen\u2019s top college choice,\u201d<\/em> Shear said in a November 2017 Baltimore Sun article.<\/p>\n Though tech platforms have a legal cover for banning someone by invoking their terms of service, \u201cI\u2019m of the belief that, in general, people should be heard,\u201d<\/em> Shear told RT on Thursday. \u201cAnd whether or not you like, or agree with, someone\u2019s statements, that\u2019s an individual determination of everyone using their platform.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a big fan of not only personal privacy, but freedom of speech,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n The major problem with social media companies is that they are \u201cinvasive\u201d<\/em> in their demands for personal data, the attorney said. Using technology, private institutions gather information about your race, religion, political viewpoints, and so on. Facebook has even reached out to banks<\/a> about getting the private information of their customers, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are taking this information and using it against you,\u201d<\/em> Shear said. \u201cI don\u2019t want Facebook to know my bank account information. It\u2019s none of their damn business!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Even as political campaigns seek information on potential voters to better target their online advertising, having little or no social media presence might be an asset for aspiring candidates for public office in the future, as there won\u2019t be any \u201cdigital dirt\u201d<\/em> to dig up on them, the attorney told RT.<\/p>\n Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Merely following Alex Jones on Twitter almost cost one teen a college admission. Another lost his scholarship over a Facebook message about the 2016 election. Anything you post can and will be used against you, a lawyer tells RT. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely troubling what some of the colleges are doing,\u201d attorney Bradley Shear, who specializes in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":372959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-372958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n ![\"Alex](\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2018.08\/thumbnail\/5b6919c2dda4c8905f8b45e0.jpg\")
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