Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Public Doomains

I've about had it with storms in teacups being cranked out almost hourly by a self-serving nanny and 24/7 news culture that needs to talk about something new every two seconds.

Take this: Call for ban on employers searching social networking sites

A ban on 'someone' searching for something (or 'someone' else) via information is online in the public domain? How daft is that?

It's getting so a raft of NGOs, quangos, government departments and most of today's media... certainly BBC Breakfast News... would collapse for lack of content without a call to get knickers in a twist over, and then an attempt to ban something. Followed by spirited debates all round involving 'experts' that serve only to drive ratings. Quite a lucrative industry, and one set to grow even more in the future, I suspect.

I just have to agree with Johnny R... how exactly would this WORK... IN PRACTICE? It is, by almost any measure, impossible to police. While I am sure a raft of well-funded do-gooders have decided anti-ageist hiring practices are now neatly sorted and filed under 'Job Done' via EU box-ticking rules, the reality is a bit different. So yet again the process is all that matters, with the result irrelevant. At least in this case there is some merit in the legislation, and a slim chance of it being policed.

I am not saying that many hiring processes and practices may be anything from flawed to venal, and need to be discussed, but such credence to calls for things that are frankly impossible seem essentially pointless, at least in the po-faced forms the original PR gets issued.

'Unacceptable practice'? Bless. This needs referring to the Ministry of Dim Views Being Taken, which is now hiring all the talents from Board to Local Officer level.

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