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Social Media Background Checks Becoming More Common

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- You've heard of employers conducting criminal and background checks. Now, some companies are also conducting social media checks of potential employees.

Evan Urbania with Chatterbox, a social media consulting firm, explains there are companies who can gather all your online comments, posts, feeds and photos to create a profile of who you are online.

"We know that the software and technology and tools that are out there started kind of really recording and logging the social space, going back to about 2005 and 2006 when social media really started to take shape," Urbania says.

He also says the firms aren't doing any secret detective work; they're simply gathering information that's already out there.

"The default settings for a lot of these profiles and for a lot of your history on the web is kind of set for public."

Urbania says today, it's more important than ever to be conscious of our online image, and he says it's in each individual's power to create something that's positive or negative.

"Clearly, we all have the ability to be our own voice, our own publisher, our own broadcast network, and that's really powerful. It's really important, and it has implications both to your personal brand, to you as an individual and to your employer!"

Reported by Hadas Kuznits, KYW Newsradio

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