should I ask a candidate about her past online behavior?

by Alison Green on May 6, 2025

A reader writes:

I manage the recruiting of volunteers for a small nonprofit, and there’s an otherwise strong candidate, Jane, who has a past on the Internet. Another volunteer and I interviewed her for an open position, and it was wonderful. She presented herself as warm, professional, and knowledgeable in our work, and she was one of my top choices. However, a different volunteer recognized Jane because of a small “incident” that had happened at the volunteer’s alma mater, and the volunteer showed me evidence of what happened online.

Six years ago, Jane’s then-high-school-aged sister had applied for a university in the midwest and wanted to be on a particular sports team there. Before any actual confirmation had been sent from the admissions office that the sister was accepted, the head coach of that team had sent an email congratulating the sister for her acceptance into the university. The sister had taken this at face value, but the official acceptance letter never came. When the sister reached back out to the coach, the coach confirmed that he had mixed up the “recently applied” and “accepted” lists of applicants and gave his sincerest apologies to her.

Jane, however, decided to go on a public campaign to name and shame the coach online on her sister’s behalf. She shared screenshots of emails from the coach on her Twitter page with his personal phone number, encouraging people to call it to demand “answers.” She also made a post on a popular website (with enough details to match the information on her Twitter page) to ask if she was in the right, which had hundreds of comments. She was very combative and vitriolic both on both sites, and nobody on either platform supported her cause. Those who had responded on both platforms tried to be gentle and constructive, and some even gave advice on how the sister should move forward. But Jane was digging her heels in and snapping at everyone.

There are enough photos of her with personal information on the Twitter profile (including one on her LinkedIn) to verify that it was her, although I wonder if there’s a way I can ask her directly to verify.

Again, this was all six years ago. The person we interviewed seemed like a very different person than the one online. One could perhaps make a case that the coach’s disorganization had led to a completely avoidable mistake and could’ve saved heartbreak on the sister’s part. However, the coach was entirely apologetic, and the overreaction from Jane at the time gives me pause. If there’s any conflict that involves her in the future, how will I know that she won’t blow it out of proportion online and dox people?

I’m disappointed because she was such a great candidate, but this has sullied my opinion of her. But part of me wonders if I am being unreasonable to hold her against something that happened back in 2019. Should I ignore this and assume that she has changed for the better since? Is there a way to address this with her before deciding whether to accept her? Should I perhaps call her on the phone to specifically ask her questions on how she would handle adversity and conflict?

How old was Jane when it happened? If she was barely out of her teens at the time … well, people grow up a lot in their 20s and she may be a different person now and mortified at what she did. On the hand, if she was already solidly into adulthood when it happened, that’s different.

More importantly, how big is the volunteer role? If it’s relatively small, not high-profile, and doesn’t have much focus on interpersonal communication or conflict resolution, I might not pay any attention to this at all, figuring it was years ago and this is a minor volunteer job rather than than your director of communications or similar.

But if it’s a pretty significant role and/or if Jane handling a conflict in a similarly combative manner could do real harm, it’s reasonable for this to give you significant pause.

I wouldn’t just call her up and ask how she would handle adversity and conflict, though. First, that’s easy for someone to BS their way through and second, it won’t necessarily give you the info you need. Instead, if that’s the situation, just ask her about it! “We think you seem great, we found this online, it gave us some pause because this work requires handling conflict at times, and I wondered if you’d talk to me a little about what happened back then and whether you’d handle it any differently now.”

You might hear that she’s mortified by how she handled things six years ago. Or you might hear that she still feels justified in her response. Or she might be outraged that you’re even asking her. However she responds, you’ll come away with a lot more data than you have now about whether she’s someone you’re comfortable moving forward with.

You may also like:
{ 314 comments }

{ 314 comments… read them below }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    I’ve removed some comments from people who went trying to find the original posts and then posted info here about them. Please let the players remain anonymous; it’s not necessary to hunt down outside details about the situation in order to discuss the question the LW posed.

  2. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    What an interesting situation. I don’t see why you couldn’t just ask Jane about it. She’s probably really embarrassed about the whole thing. And if she doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal, or she makes excuses or goes on a rant about the situation, then you have an idea of her behavior.

    1. juliebulie*

      Exactly what I was thinking. Her attitude will probably tell you what you need to know. I am really curious!

    2. Unemployed, in Greenland*

      One caveat I would mention before asking is to be careful not to phrase the question in a way that leads her to believe she should be embarrassed. You want her unfiltered thoughts on it not what she thinks you want to hear. Example: instead of asking her what she would do differently, ask her how she would handle it if the situation happened today. Subtle wording can accidentally reveal much more than we mean for it to.

    3. Richard Hershberger*

      Alison’s last paragraph is the most important. If she is mortified, then move forward. If she isn’t, then that is still where she is. Act accordingly.

      1. Jane*

        I think Jane is trouble, regardless. She goes nuclear when something doesn’t go her way, and tried to publicly ruin someone’s life. Most people, young or old, would never do this.

        1. Boof*

          Eeehhhhh I will give someone young some leeway for being able to change from something like this, even if not all youngsters mess up this way. How Jane reacts to an inquiry about this will speak a lot about whether she’s changed her attitude or not.

          1. RVA Cat*

            I think there’s an important line to draw if Jane did this while she was still in school than when she’d been in the workforce. This seems like the teapot tempest somebody would stir up while in undergrad.

        2. Leslie*

          I can’t disagree more. I will fully admit that I said and did stuff when I was younger that makes me cringe today.

          1. I Have RBF*

            Seriously. I’m glad there was no internet for me to make an ass of myself on in my early 20s. I’m 63 now, and I still cringe at some hoof-in-mouth stuff from then.

            1. StarTrek Nutcase*

              I too grew up before the Internet and certainly had a few thoughtless acts, BUT what she did is to deliberately target another person for attack by strangers (many of them). And she knew full well what kind of shit storm she was creating (anyone her generation – whether she was 16 or 24 yo – knows the power of social media which is EXACTLY why she did it). Her actions are the epitome of extreme bullying. Even 6 yrs later, I’d not trust her to have changed enough. Admittedly, I’m a big believer in consequences and in longer periods to suffer them when the actions are egregious. Her actions wasn’t victimless.

              1. Clara*

                Yeah, a twitter rant is one thing. Doxxing someone over this? I’d struggle to overlook that.

                1. Boof*

                  I can sort of see a kid who is full of vim and maybe can’t yet tell a mountain from a molehill too well taking DEFEND THE FAMILY FIGHT THE MAN a bit too far tho just like this – they also might not have yet understood the harm doxxing someone can potentially do it easily feels like yelling into the void when you’re not actually directly interacting with anyone face to face

              2. JB (not in Houston)*

                I’m going to have to disagree that a 16 year old will necessarily fully understand the consequences of her actions, and I think we have all done things as a young person that we regret when we’re older and would never do again.

          2. D*

            Same! Part of the learning and growing experience of being a human. (Although, the learning and growing is optional I guess).

          3. JM60*

            This doesn’t sound like a situation where the person merely said something really dumb a time or two. It sounds like prolonged harassment over a long enough period of time for her to have a chance to reflect on whether or not her behavior is appropriate.

            I’m willing to give someone grace for what they did 6 years ago if they’re at an age where that would be the difference between being a child and being an adult. But IMO, this sounds like the type of thing that extends beyond that grace.

        3. Analytical Tree Hugger*

          I regularly went nuclear when things didn’t go my way: tears, screaming, biting. In public, at home, it didn’t matter. In fact, I’m pretty sure I slapped someone once.

          Also, I was six.

          Does that mean I’ll always be that way? Apparently so…

          1. Jennifer Strange*

            I don’t think Jane was posting to Twitter and Reddit when she was six.

        4. Scrimp*

          If this past behaviour is too egregious for a volunteer position even of she’s since changed, then how can she possibly ever move on? Should her whole life be ruined from this?

          What are we supposed to do if we are always only judged by our worst actions?

        5. NotAnotherManager!*

          I disagree that most people will not do something they deeply regret as a teen/young adult. The difference is that now social media lets everyone see (forever) what mistakes they made. I’m an incredibly responsible adult (ans was one of the most mature and risk averse of my friends) and did wildly stupid things that I’m glad there’s no permanent record of.

          I also hate the idea that making a mistake as a teen/young adult is perpetually disqualifying. Very few things rise to the level of no second chance or benefit of the doubt ever. If you can never recover from it, what’s the point of even trying to be better?

          1. Quill*

            Also, the internet of six years ago is not the internet of now, or the internet of ten years ago. Jane may genuinely have been too young / inexperienced to realize that naming and shaming an individual can have real life harm, especially when various online cultures really encouraged that. (Hi, I was on the internet six years ago…) It feels like the past decade has been one long online public breakdown, but if you don’t understand where it comes from, you probably don’t understand how much harassment goes on online.

            Talk to Jane. If she hasn’t grown, you have your answer, if she has, you also have an answer.

        6. What_the_What*

          No. We don’t know that she “goes nuclear…” now. We know that she WENT nuclear once, six years ago. I’m ashamed of some of the over the top emotional things I did in my youth and can only thank goodness that there was nobody around to document them! I practically stalked my first boyfriend when we broke up. I cringe now at how needy and annoying I was with the constant sobbing calls and pleading to take me back, etc… I’d give Jane the benefit of the doubt that she’s matured and now realizes the excessive nature of her actions.

        7. Lydia*

          There is no indication that this is how Jane responds to things on the regular. Unless there’s a string of tweets on Jane’s account about a whole mess of different situations, then this is possibly a one-time thing that was really brought about because she felt the need to defend her sister.

    4. Momma Bear*

      The internet is forever and I expect that any new company is googling my name to see what I’ve been up to. Some companies go so far as to ask to see people’s social media accounts. I would bring it up specifically and see what she says – again, her reaction will tell you a lot. Her behavior was significant enough that someone remembered it/her. It’s probable that other people involved with the org will, too, and I think LW needs to be direct about it. If she goes on a rampage toward them, then they will be doubly reassured she was the wrong person for the role.

      1. Despachito*

        “Some companies go so far as to ask to see people’s social media accounts.”

        What if a person does not have any?

        1. Fool's Gold*

          They’d probably google around anyway to try to find whether that’s true.

        2. I Have RBF*

          See, if it’s not public, I’m not giving any employer access to my accounts. If it’s public they can look it up themselves. Most of my social media is either pseudononymous, or “friends” only.

        3. The Suspicious Fish*

          I have been deemed suspect for not having Social Media. The businesses that insisted on this information when I applied, inevitably did not wish to proceed with my candidacy, despite the jobs having nothing to do with social media.

          I myself suspected (and later confirmed) management was using this information to keep tabs on employees, and not only for stuff like:

          “This is the third time Ptery called out sick on a Monday in 6 weeks, is Ptery really sick or just hungover?”

          …but also for reasons I’d advise my friends against letting their teen take a summer job there.

          I didn’t know these things in advance, or I would have looked elsewhere. Now I think twice before applying if the job if there is a lot of emphasis on giving them access to your Social Media.

        4. allathian*

          I’m so glad it’s illegal for employers here to Google people’s social media accounts. Sure, they can ask about them, but they can only click on the links candidates provide. If they google, they aren’t allowed to use what they learn to reject a candidate, so it’s more prudent not to. It’s like asking a candidate if she has/wants kids.

          Obviously security checkers go through everything if it’s a high profile job.

            2. Colonel Gateway*

              Laws evolve and people live places other than the USA. That makes it make sense to me.

          3. Despachito*

            If someone does google a candidate, how can you tell whether they used the information they found to their detriment (if they are perspicacious enough not to spell it aloud)?

            It is very easy to look the candidate up, find out that she has a blog full of racist rants, and to refuse her on the basis that you decided for a better candidate?

  3. I see you Doris Burke*

    What has Jane been doing in the six years since? Does she have references you can call?

    If this was a one-time thing when she was younger I’d probably not pay much attention. Of course it might also depend on how many volunteers you need and how many candidates you have.

    1. Festively Dressed Earl*

      Cosigned. If Jane’s still hostile and combative, it’ll show in her workplace history. She might have grown up.

  4. Llama Llama*

    I honestly think it’s crazy that you are digging that much into the past for a volunteer position. She is someone who is willing to work for free!

    I have volunteered many, many times in my life but don’t work for a non profit and never have so maybe I have a skewed point view. (I get vetting though).

    1. Rusticatrix*

      I’d guess they don’t dig this much normally, but another volunteer recognized her and brought it up.

    2. Lemons*

      OMG I totally missed that this was for a volunteer position! If she’s not involved in any social media in the role, I’d go ahead and accept her, it’s easy enough to let a volunteer go if she’s a problem.

      1. Venus*

        Oh, that’s not true in many charities! Often it’s harder to push out a bad volunteer. There was a letter about this recently, where OP was struggling to get rid of a problem volunteer and there were comments about how it can be hard when a salary isn’t involved. When you pay someone a salary then it’s reasonable to point to it and say “You aren’t doing your job at all. We aren’t getting our value and need to reallocate this salary to someone else” whereas it’s often hard to say to someone that their negativity is actually a detriment and overall they are more a burden than any benefit they are trying to add.

        1. Frosty*

          I just don’t see how it’s harder to get rid of a bad volunteer. You tell them their work is detrimental to the organization and that you will no longer be using their services. If this is a challenge, then volunteer organizations need to write better agreements for the beginning of the relationship.

      2. Dawbs*

        ih, as someone who has let go of volunteers and staff over the years, the reverse is true. volunteer firings are SO much harder than staff

        with staff, letting them go is often “just business”and can be treated as such. think of all the reasons you think that is easy to let a volunteer go and assume it’s the opposite. and you have to assume the fired volunteer is going to burn it ALLllll down

      3. stunner266*

        Yes, but if she gets let go is she going to post her bosses personal details online and try to ruin her life? Way too much of a risk.

    3. MsM*

      The trouble with working for free is that some volunteers think that means you’re not allowed to impose any kind of expectations or standards on them. And the ones who have that kind of attitude have a tendency not to go quietly when you suggest that perhaps it would be best for all involved if they take their talents elsewhere. Throw in someone with a documented history of throwing extremely public tantrums, and…yeah, it could get ugly.

      1. Koala*

        I totally agree. In many ways firing a volunteer can be much harder than firing a paid staff member. If the organization in question doesn’t have a policy about firing volunteers (any a surprising amount don’t), they should develop one before moving forward!

      2. Mazzola*

        It is a cultural shift though too. Years ago orgs would be so glad of the help that you’d have had to do something *serious* to be undesirable as a volunteer. That mindset is changing but it’s slow.

    4. Lady in STEM*

      Oh, maybe I can help? I work for a nonprofit and our volunteer force is extremely public-facing. We are so, so grateful that they are willing to help us- for free!- but we would absolutely pause if someone had done what Jane did. It doesn’t disqualify them, but we’d want more info. If they still displayed that behavior, it’d be a nonstarter. They are volunteering, yes, but they’re volunteering to be one of the faces of the org. We cannot have someone publicly representing us act in a way that might be, at best, extremely off-putting.

      And honestly, fwiw, I would still want to vet non-public volunteers, too. Nonprofit workers are barely hanging on to our sanity as it is- I’d rather have nobody helping than have to manage difficult and problematic volunteers.

      1. Observer*

        They are volunteering, yes, but they’re volunteering to be one of the faces of the org. We cannot have someone publicly representing us act in a way that might be, at best, extremely off-putting.

        This, 100x over.

        I’d rather have nobody helping than have to manage difficult and problematic volunteers.

        Very much the case. Being stretched thin is bad. But being stretched thin and ALSO needing to manage the fall out of a difficult person? OY!

        1. Hannah Lee*

          I had a boss once whose staffing approach was “bad breath is better than no breath”

          He was 100% positively, absolutely wrong about that.

          A problematic volunteer can do incredible damage to an organization, especially if they are in a public facing situation. And even if they are not public facing, I’ve seen more than one case when a problematic volunteer’s behavior caused other volunteers to leave … so the org not only still had a jerk that was not helping the org’s mission, they lost trained, skilled volunteers who WERE helping it. (because why keep working with a jerk, with an org that tolerates jerks if your livelihood, career doesn’t depend on it)

      2. The turtle moves*

        This, absolutely. One of their other volunteers already recognised Jane as being the person who did all this, so it’s realistic to assume members of the public will too, and they’ll have their own opinions about it.

        My organisation also uses public-facing volunteers, and we have a formal vetting process for them. We found out that one of them had lied about his criminal record from a member of the public who recognised him. It turned out he’d put acid in the shoes of I think a coworker, causing serious injury. We obviously had to let him go, both because of the lie and the nature of the crime itself. Those things weren’t irrelevant just because we weren’t paying him.

    5. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Just because they’re working for free doesn’t mean you don’t want to ensure they’ll be pleasant to work with! It makes sense to be wary of a volunteer who might make the work unpleasant for you or for other people who are working for free, who will find it easy to simply leave (or at least easier than is often the case with paid jobs).

    6. Jennifer Strange*

      Being a volunteer doesn’t mean the organization shouldn’t have standards. To be clear, I’m not saying Jane should be rejected – I do think this is a situation where it makes sense to just talk about the situation and see how she responds- I’m just pushing back on the idea that being a volunteer position means you shouldn’t give it consideration.

    7. Saturday*

      Lots of nonprofits have their choice of people who will work for free though. And they don’t want to bring in anyone who is going to be difficult to work with – that can really affect morale fast.

    8. Three Flowers*

      She might be willing to work for free. But OP is right to question whether a known doxxer is an acceptable risk. If she still behaves publicly in questionable ways, it could *literally* cost the nonprofit more than it would to hire a paid person to do the work.

      Doxxing is a really, really big deal. This is not drunken-night-out-on-Facebook stuff.

      1. Heidi*

        What I find interesting about this story is that she attempted to doxx someone, but the internet responded by politely telling her that she needed to chill out.

    9. Crencestre*

      Volunteer or paid staff (and I’ve been both at various nonprofits), every manager wants and needs people who will be able to handle conflicts and challenging situations calmly, maturely and professionally. One volunteer who goes off the deep end can do a LOT of damage to an organization’s standing in the community! The LW here is entirely justified in hesitating to take someone on board who could react to conflict by blowing up like an exploding sewer pipe.

      Alison’s take was accurate, though; find out how old she was when she went ballistic over the slight to her sister, AND find out how she’d handle a similar situation today. If she was in her teens when this happened and she acted out of loyalty to her sister (AND now recognizes that she actually worsened the situation), well and good. But if her reaction is “I’d do the same thing all over again!” then she isn’t the right person to represent your organization.

    10. Kay*

      If you’ve ever had to work with a horrible volunteer at a non-profit (it doesn’t matter if you are staff or volunteer), you might not have this same take.

      A horrible volunteer is the same as a horrible co-worker. No one wants to interact with them, no one. Especially not other volunteers who don’t want to spend their free time working with people who behave badly. One bad volunteer can decimate an organization’s volunteer base, donors, community relationships, you name it. Just because an organization doesn’t have to pay for their labor doesn’t mean their aren’t costs involved with volunteers.

    11. Observer*

      I honestly think it’s crazy that you are digging that much into the past for a volunteer position. She is someone who is willing to work for free!

      Sometimes “free” is *very* expensive. Depending on the role, this could be a total nothing burger or a potentially big deal.

    12. SB*

      It probably depends on the volunteer position. I volunteer on the regular with kids. The organization needed references, a phone interview, and a background check. The background check gets refreshed every few years.

      If I was just sorting food at a pantry, I’m sure I wouldn’t need all that and no one would care. Since I have access to a vulnerable population in a volunteer capacity, the bar for behavior is higher.

    13. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      I have to assume that “volunteered many times” means you’ve done one-off events. If you’ve ever volunteered long term for the same org, there’s no way you wouldn’t have encountered the kind of awful volunteer that all the other volunteers try to avoid.

      I always wondered why they wouldn’t fire someone so awful. I guess your attitude is the reason. Can’t have standards and expectations of free labor, anyone with a pulse will do, who cares how they behave, it’s free.

    14. Been There, Done That*

      Oh no no no. If she’s still this volatile then even as a volunteer she can cause incredible damage to the team, the organisation, and their personal and organisational reputation.

    15. George Sand*

      Her behaviour and values still matter!

      If somebody was bullying colleagues, or stealing from the organisation, or lying about work related issues, or harassing people, are starting fights, or generally creating a negative work environment for others, that would all be (hopefully!) addressed.

      Not least because all the other volunteers are working for free too, and they deserve to be doing so in a professional respectful environment.

    16. Eldritch Office Worker*

      This is definitely spoken as someone who hasn’t hired volunteers – and I don’t mean that as a slight, I think this line of thought is logical if you don’t know. Volunteers can be the life blood of an organization. They’re also inherently public marketing – they’re doing work, they’re talking about the work they’re doing, they’re often interacting with the public – and you have little to no control over them. And I don’t mean control in an insidious way, I mean they’re incredibly hard to manage. The relationship is completely different than it is with an employee. You need people in those roles that you can trust.

  5. Stef*

    This is the kind of thing that makes me so happy I didn’t have the internet (well, aside from aol) as a teen because I can imagine myself doing something like this then, but never now. I really like the advice here. And it’s also good that this is not some sort of racism, transphobia, etc. type thing.

    1. Mazzola*

      Same, I’d be in hiding for the rest of my life if I’d had a public platform to vent all my troubles as a younger person!

    2. Elizabeth West*

      Omg yes, because teenagers are gonna teen. Also, there are no phone snapshots of my teenage (or early young adult) foibles, and so they cannot be on the internet, thank DAWG.

      1. UKDancer*

        Definitely. I never doxxed anyone but I was foolish and naive and had embarrassing crushes that I wrote about in my (paper) diary. I am so glad none of it is online because it means I could move on and grow up into a less awkward being.

    3. Disappointed with the Staff*

      I have my online history going back more than 40 years still available. Along with the history of many of my friends, thanks to the ease with which you can archive BBS and early internet sites. It’s more a question of knowing the nyms people used, back when online anonymity was easier to accomplish.

      The main take-away from my early history is just how obvious my undiagnosed ASD is in retrospect.

      1. I Have RBF*

        The nice thing is that the early internet was a lot more nym friendly. I used a pseud for 99.99% of my UseNet stuff.

        1. Lydia*

          Once upon a time on the Internet, I was the only person anywhere that had my particular handle so if you looked for that particular handle you would only find my posts/interactions/etc. My personal ID wasn’t associated with it, and I am grateful for that. Not that I was going around making bad decisions and being a jerk, but being anonymous in the world was nice.

      2. Airy*

        The internet is forever… unless it’s something you wish you hadn’t deleted in an emotional moment, in which case it’s gone forever!

  6. Professor X*

    I’ve taught college students for the past 20 years and I feel like there’s a generation of people who grew up with access to the internet, but were not nearly as careful as they should have been about putting all their thoughts, feelings, and traceable identities online, where anyone could find it even years later. But yes, if this is something Jane did as a teenager or young college student, people grow out this impulse (hopefully). If this is something Jane did as a 30-year old? I’d be more concerned.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      We’re at more than one generation of it at this point.

      1. CeeDoo*

        It kills me that there are voters out there who have never lived in a world where Miley Cyrus wasn’t famous. There are fully grown adults who don’t know of a world pre-Britney.

        1. NotAManager*

          …what does that have to do with voting? If we’re looking for a world without pop stars, we’re at least looking at time-traveling to the 18th century, pre-Mozart, if not longer.

          1. Myrin*

            I think they meant in an “old enough to vote” kind of way, but I could be wrong.

            1. Quill*

              I just find comments funny because, hi, I’m the person who is too old to get teenagers now and I didn’t remember a world before Britney Spears.

          2. Lady Lessa*

            A lot of the composers that we think of as classical were pop stars of their generation. You know that Vivaldi wrote music for teenage girls, since he was one of the major musicians at the orphanage called the Pio Ospedale, which was for upper class girls. Many of them chose to stay musicians instead of getting married.

          3. CeeDoo*

            Old enough to vote. It’s crazy how old you feel when a person whose birth you remember is a full grown adult.

        2. A*

          This is something every generation says about each other, though.

          It’s timeless.

          1. But Of Course*

            As Yoshida Kenkō said in 1332, “Modern fashions seem to keep on growing more and more debased … The ordinary spoken language has also steadily coarsened. People used to say ‘raise the carriage shafts’ or ‘trim the lamp wick,’ but people today say ‘raise it’ or ‘trim it.’ When they should say, ‘Let the men of the palace staff stand forth!’ they say, ‘Torches! Let’s have some light!’”

          1. SB*

            Because it makes us feel very old when we have forgotten that we are very old. It’s like being poofed into dust with age and then you just blow away like a tumbleweed.

            1. Jennifer Strange*

              Oh! That makes sense. Sorry, I thought it was a “Ugh, people who like Miley Cyrus can vote now, how stupid!” kind of thing.

              1. SB*

                To be fair, I didn’t make the original comment – so maybe they intended it that way.

                But to me…well, I just feel so very very old. It’s an odd feeling when you realize someone you interact with doesn’t have the same cultural markers you use to judge age.

            2. RVA Cat*

              Makes you feel like you “chose….poorly” when no one gets that reference.

            3. Scholarly Publisher*

              Like when I did the math and realized that Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” is older now than Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” was when the Journey song came out. I’ll return to my sarcophagus now.

    2. T.N.H*

      I get that and have had social media since I was a teenager. But there’s a big difference between putting your every thought and photo online and doxing someone.

    3. Melicious*

      I also feel like her age makes a difference here. People and behavior are much more likely to change between the ages of 19 and 25 than 30 and 36.

    4. Junior Assistant Peon*

      In the 1990s, anything you posted on the Internet would only be seen by your computer-nerd friends. I remember friends posting stuff on LiveJournal that they would have been mortified for their parents or the whole school to see.

  7. Isben Takes Tea*

    What gives me the most pause is that all those original posts are evidently still there. As far as I can tell from the letter, the Twitter posts are still up, the web post is still up (rather than other people screenshotting her original, now-deleted posts). If someone is truly embarrassed and realized doxxing someone was the wrong thing to do, they would have deleted them.

    By all means call and ask, but this to me is what tips it from a “one time bad decision when she was younger” and current questionable judgment.

    1. Nomic*

      I hadn’t thought about this part. Now that you’ve brought it up, I think that would be part of my discussion with Jane: “OK, we’ve asked you about your behavior 6 years ago, and you’ve answered that. A follow-up question is, ‘Why is still out there?'”

      1. I see you Doris Burke*

        Because maybe it’s a pretty minor incident from six years ago?

          1. Whose cheap a$$ rolls??*

            FWIW, as someone who works in an admissions-related role in a very competitive institution in higher ed, what the coach did is really, really awful. The coach should have been fired, if not seriously reprimanded. If we mess up an acceptance, *we* own that and do not expect the student to accept an “oops, our bad”

            1. Jennifer Strange*

              It sounds like the coach did own it. Per the LW: “the coach was entirely apologetic”. Not saying that wasn’t a HUGE misstep (and maybe being fired would have been appropriate) but what Jane did was a much bigger misstep.

              1. schmoop*

                Seriously! If we can’t have grace for an honest mistake, we’d all be fired.

                1. Been There, Done That*

                  I was fired for what the investigating officer termed “an unintentional careless mistake made at a time of extreme emotional duress”. And it is out in the public domain, online, that I was terminated for a breach of code of conduct (government, not US). This is not a small deal for the Coach, it can destroy your reputation for a very long time.

            3. Elitist Semicolon*

              I can’t imagine a coach being fired over this (I work at a D1). It’s a clerical error that was embarrassing for the school and potentially devastating to the student, but the coach can’t override admissions decisions (though maybe they tried; who knows). The person/office at our uni who accidentally made our grad admissions database publicly searchable via Google, however…

            4. GammaGirl1908*

              Meh. A similar thing happened to me. I got an “oops, our bad.” It was disappointing and heartbreaking, but I really don’t think it was a firing offense.

              Specifically, I got a rejection letter from a grad school, and then a couple of days later got a packet in the mail of information very clearly intended for admitted students. I called to confirm which was the mistake, and the packet of information was the mistake, not the rejection letter.

        2. Jennifer Strange*

          I’m sure if someone posted your personal contact information and tripped to whip people into a frenzied mob about you, you wouldn’t consider it “pretty minor”.

          1. I see you Doris Burke*

            You are right – minor wasn’t the best way to phrase that. I’m just of the opinion that something like this shouldn’t affect whether someone can volunteer all these years later. It’s fine to ask about it though

            1. George Sand*

              It shouldn’t *automatically* stop someone volunteering years later, but if, when asked, Jane says “I did nothing wrong, what’s the problem, I’d do it again, he deserves it,” then that is a massive issue.

      2. Dahlia*

        There are plenty of accounts I had when I was 18 or 19 that I not only wouldn’t have any sort of access to, I don’t remember if they exist or not.

        1. Kay*

          But this is from 6 years ago, not Myspace from 20 years ago. I’m not saying it isn’t possible, just that the likelihood is much less that they couldn’t find a way to get those accounts scrubbed.

          1. Observer*

            So? She might not remember. And even if she does, she might not have access.

            I just went through some real stupidity to get access to a work related X account. The amount of hoops we needed to jump though was ridiculous. And we almost were unable to get the access back.

            Think about this – people whose *job* (it was not just me) it is to deal with this stuff can have a hard time getting to accounts like this. What do you expect from people who don’t have that kind resource and expertise.

            It happens a lot.

            1. Wayward Sun*

              Speaking as someone who’s been bullied, it does NOT make it better to learn that the bully doesn’t remember what they did to me. It’s like, “oh I see, you made my life hell for four years and you didn’t even care enough for it to go into your long-term memory.”

              1. Swiss Army Them*

                Observer isn’t saying that she forgot the bullying. They’re saying she might have forgotten her social media passwords.

          2. Dahlia*

            Gmail accounts will go inactive after about 8 months if you don’t use them. After 2 years with no sign-ins, they’ll be deleted. It doesn’t take that long.

    2. Potato Potato*

      I wouldn’t necessarily jump to that conclusion. Deleting the posts would be the smart thing to do if she were embarrassed about this. But just because it’s the smart thing to do, doesn’t mean that she did it.

      I have some embarrassing posts on my Facebook. Nothing malicious- just me being young and naive. I probably should delete them, but I haven’t, for some reason or another. My partner has a few of these too (also not malicious, just embarassing), except one of her early internet mistakes went viral so it’s bigger.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Eh, I would argue that these actually being malicious require more consideration than embarrassing photos. I’m not saying her still having them up means she’s a terrible person, but if the LW DOES talk to her about them and she doesn’t remove them immediately after that conversation it wouldn’t look good for her.

        1. Mallory Janis Ian*

          Exactly. Leaving up something that is embarrassing for oneself is one thing, but leaving up something excoriating someone else, publicly, by name, address, and phone number, is something else entirely.

          Leaving up things that are slightly embarrassing to oneself could show a healthy sense of detachment from the small embarrassments of the past, but leaving that up about someone else seems like it could indicate a carelessness or callousness toward other people and their legitimate concerns.

      2. Isben Takes Tea*

        Right, which is why I agree that a conversation is still warranted. But there is a huge difference between embarrassing posts of youth and active doxxing. If the result of the conversation isn’t “OMG I didn’t realize those were still up, I’ll delete them right away,” (or somehow a really, really good reason why they are still up), that would make this person a Do Not Hire for me.

    3. Sneaky Squirrel*

      I’m not familiar with Twitter use, how easy is that to do? I delete my own cringe posts from social medias when I run into them organically, but I’m not going out of my way to scroll back on my old social medias to unearth something that’s been dead for 6 years. And if I didn’t have the password for the accounts or stopped using the accounts, I don’t think it would cross my mind to go back and do any deleting.

      Granted, I’ve also never doxxed someone one the internet so my cringe posts are just embarrassing, not harmful.

      1. Dahlia*

        Twitter has actually made it very difficult to delete old tweets because of their api policies, unless you have a specific link to that tweet and delete each individually, or nuke the whole account.

        1. JM60*

          I’d argue that if you doxxed and harassed someone like this on your Twitter account, you should delete that entire account if deleting the doxxing/harassing tweets is otherwise too impractical.

          If she still hasn’t taken down her doxxing/harassing posts (insofar as she’s able to) in the six years since, I think that’s a sign she hasn’t grown sufficiently since. Even if she suddenly deletes them after being asked about them, I’d see those deletions as motivated more by a desire to get the position than by a desire to do the right thing.

    4. Desert Rat*

      I initially thought the same thing, but I have multiple social media profiles from years past that I forgot the password to and haven’t cared enough to try to reset the password and delete them. This includes Twitter. Even if I wanted to go back and delete my cringy tweets from 2012, it would take so much effort to get back into the account.

      1. Been There, Done That*

        I don’t have the same email that I used back then, I’d never get back in

    5. Office Plant Queen*

      It’s possible that by the time she matured enough to be embarrassed, she’d mostly forgotten the incident. And if she’s never gone through and scrubbed her social media for professional purposes, it may genuinely have never occured to her to remove that stuff. I can imagine thinking about it later as “stupid thing I did that is in the past” and not as “stupid thing I did that is still visible to other people if they go looking”

      1. Jellyfish Catcher*

        I don’t buy that. She doxxed a person and has left that online.
        I bet that person hasn’t forgot it.

        1. JM60*

          And this incident was major enough for someone else to mention it to a hiring manager! I too don’t buy that she forgot about it.

          I think people in these comments are giving her way too much grace.

    6. The Funcooker*

      I mentioned this further down, but long story short, the user’s account was suspended from one of the platforms in question — I’m not sure if you can delete a post if you can’t log in anymore…?

      1. Isben Takes Tea*

        True, and why a conversation is warranted. If the attitude is “I wish I hadn’t done it, but I can no longer delete those posts, and I would never do something like that again,” that’s very useful information.

      2. I'm just here for the cats!!*

        That was my thought. Or if it’s saved as screenshots from someone else’s account. It wasn’t clear to me in the letter if they looked on her account and saw it or if it was screenshots that people had shared

    7. Kay*

      This was my first thought too. A reasonable adult would do their best to scrub any of that stuff.

    8. Bossy*

      Didn’t LW say that Jane put the coaches contact info online? That is NOT minor. It’s pretty close to swatting if you ask me and someone doing that is opening up the doxxed person to being targeted by some random psycho. But I guess you’d be ok if this happened to you…m’kay.

      1. ad astra*

        I’m not saying this to minimize what she did—it was rude & unethical, demonstrated poor judgement, and opened him up to harassment by strangers. But yeah, I’d be a lot more ok with some random twitter user publishing my phone number than them publishing my address—and neither of those things, in my opinion, is “pretty close to swatting,” which after all is targeting someone *specifically by lying to armed law enforcement about a threat.*

    9. Ellie*

      There’s no mention of an apology either. I’ve seen plenty of rants online, with one person realising they went too far and attempting to own it. If there’s nothing like that and if there are plenty of other volunteers to choose, I’d probably just reject her. I wouldn’t want to risk that kind of venom being turned on me or the business.

    10. M*

      She may not be able to take all of them down – sharing contact information on certain social media sites, particularly if encouraging others to contact them, can result in account suspensions, even if that contact information is technically publicly available.

      That said – I think Alison’s advice here is broadly on-point. A little while back, my company was hiring for a role that was semi-public facing. We had an offer out to a candidate when one of our existing team spotted – for very non-stalkery reasons, they had good operational reasons to do it – that if you googled his name and his home town, you got a set of small-town-media reporting about an extended dispute he’d been involved in, that reflected very poorly on him on several levels. Like with this letter-writer, part of that was a strong indication of a tendency to… go rather nuclear, when something did not go his way.

      Given we already had an offer out, we did basically what Alison suggests here, and the resulting conversation made it very clear that our instinct to pull the offer was very correct (and that we’d dodged a fairly massive bullet).

      He was a fair bit older than Jane, and the most recent relevant incident was more recent. I think we’d have been justified in just pulling to offer without the due diligence conversation, but having the awkward call (which, to be clear, was wildly unpleasant) meant no second-guessing whether we’d made the right choice. For a volunteer position where it sounds like Jane was the standout candidate, I’d probably take the time to do it.

  8. E*

    If this volunteer position is low-risk and low-profile, sure, go forward if you think she’s more mature today (I like Alison’s suggestions, and talking to references would also be helpful). If it’s more important than that, I’d trust your gut’s hesitation. I was hiring for a position once and we knew that one of the candidates had been litigious in the past—they sued their university and *then* sued someone who criticized the merits of the lawsuit. We decided to ignore it and hired her, aiming to be fair and to focus on what we thought was the relevant information on her candidacy. Well, that was a mistake—the individual had a kneejerk defensiveness, handled disagreement poorly, and generated more conflict than collaboration. We ended up thinking that we had in fact ignored relevant information. Just an anecdote…but don’t ignore the online behavior!

    1. Jellyfish Catcher*

      Always trust your gut.
      The concern is the maliciousness at the time and that it is still online.

      Most of us made stupid mistakes in our teens/ early 20’s, but hopefully learned and grew – and ffs, removed anything relevant offline.
      All of us who have ever hired, have also ignored our gut feelings because we discounted ONE concerning problem with an otherwise attractive candidate.
      Then….. had to fire and hire again, along with the stress.

      Trust yourself.

        1. Jellyfish Catcher*

          Of course, verify. Obtain as much reliable info as possible; I wasn’t suggesting
          skipping the usual sources and steps.

  9. CubeFarmer*

    She’s a great candidate for a position that’s unpaid (volunteer) except that she did one thing six years ago.

    For real?

    I could see if you were interviewing someone for a CEO position, but this is a volunteer spot.

    1. mlem*

      One bad volunteer can destroy a volunteer-driven organization. Source: I volunteer at an animal shelter, and it’s been *bad*.

      1. Pescadero*

        No… only bad management can destroy a volunteer-driven organization.

        If one bad volunteer causes lots of problems – that is a management issue, not a “bad volunteer” issue.

          1. Limozeen*

            I would absolutely be surprised if one volunteer was causing such a huge problem as to constitute “destroying” an organization, and management didn’t step in and fire them. It’s a bad management problem.

            2. Eldritch Office Worker*

              You’re overestimating how much you can realistically manage volunteers, and underestimating the impact bad volunteers can have on an organization – even after they’re fired.

              Yes, management is important. Part of that management is making sure you get the right people in the door in the first place and don’t set yourself up for failure.

        2. Allonge*

          But part of the management solution to the ‘management issue’ is not to hire the bad volunteer in the first place.

      2. Hannah Lee*

        I had a friend who volunteered for a while at a organization that raised and trained puppy to 2 year old dogs to prepare them for service/support dog training at some local orgs.

        There were 3 volunteers who had years of experience as guide/service dog puppy raisers and/or dog trainers and/or medical techs (who could administer basic medical care like vaccines, treatment of minor scrapes, etc … the orgs vets loved having the back up for routine care so they could focus their limited time on more complex things for the org). They got along great with the staff and (most of) the other volunteers, did really well with all the dogs, and believed in the mission, were happy to pivot to whatever tasks the manager needed done on any particular day. So basically super valuable volunteers for an org like that.

        But there was another volunteer who had no prior experience, but liked puppies and had donated some money to sponsor one of the puppies – this volunteer did not work well with others, wanted to be the ‘top dog’ and liked to criticize, undermine people she did not like down. She routinely violated the orgs’ handling guidelines (she thought SHE was entitled) and would launch attacks at staff and volunteers she felt were threats to her supremacy (sometimes sneaky, sometimes blatant, sometimes incredibly personal … like body shaming in front of the whole team).
        The combination of Nasty Volunteer’s actions and the Org not addressing it caused every one of those skilled volunteers to quit. And after witnessing one of Nasty’s public attacks at one of the skilled volunteers, my friend quit too. If the exec director, management didn’t know Nasty was corrosive and driving people away, they were clueless/incompetent. And if they knew and did nothing, they were clueless / incompetent. Why would any good volunteer commit time to that?

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      As I said above, volunteer positions still need consideration. When I worked at a theatre we had folks volunteer to be ushers. You can bet we rejected folks who we thought would be a bad fit due to previous behaviors. These are the front face of our organization! Why take a risk on someone who gives you reasons to be concerned?

    3. Mallory Janis Ian*

      Even volunteer organizations should want to screen out people who might address conflict with full-on excoriation of the other person(s) involved. Maybe she has matured and maybe she hasn’t, but it is a good idea to try to find out.

    4. Constance Lloyd*

      I disagree. A badly behaved volunteer can drive away good volunteers. Some orgs serve vulnerable populations and have a duty to ensure volunteers can be trusted. It’s fine and normal to ask Jane about this before deciding to bring her on.

    5. Myrin*

      If I have an unpleasant and nasty coworker, I honestly don’t care if they’re being paid or not!

    6. Three Flowers*

      A bad volunteer can wreck an organization interpersonally. A bad volunteer who takes it on themself to make as big a stink as they can publicly can do much worse. A person with a history of doxxing is a huge risk.

      Imagine (and yes, this is worst-case, but if you’re a small financially strapped organization you have to consider it) she gets pissed off with a collaborating organization and decides to “name and shame” someone there–not even necessarily doxxing them. OP’s organization could lose public goodwill, donations, grant funding, and collaborators. They could even be sued if someone tried to make a case that the volunteer was speaking on their behalf. A small NP could easily be sunk completely by the financial and social capital losses.

      1. Three Flowers*

        And whoever supervised the volunteer would *definitely* lose their job.

    7. LaurCha*

      A concentrated social media attack on a person who she doxxed is not “one thing.”

    8. Just Thinkin' Here*

      Agreed. Is there a line out the door for volunteers? Is that why you are interviewing? Quite frankly, unless this non-profit is tied to college admissions, then I wouldn’t worry about the situation. Folks are allowed their freedom of speech (assuming U.S.) and that includes speech you may not like but doesn’t impact your organization.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Folks are allowed their freedom of speech (assuming U.S.) and that includes speech you may not like but doesn’t impact your organization.

        Free speech only refers to the government punishing people for their speech. It doesn’t mean you can’t face other consequences for your speech.

        1. Phoenix Wright*

          Exactly. Jane has already exercised her freedom to harass and dox that poor coach for his honest mistake. Now, depending on whether LW decides she’s still a liability, she might be about to experience the consequences of those actions.

        2. ComingBack as a HarpSeal*

          Thank you so very much for saying this. Far too many people don’t understand what freedom of speech really means.

          1. ComingBack as a HarpSeal*

            Can’t edit my comment…so just as a point of clarification, the government cannot exercise a preemptive restriction on speech. If the speech causes harm or is otherwise illegal, free speech doesn’t prevent the government from prosecuting the speaker.

      2. Clara*

        lol, I don’t think you know what freedom of speech means in context of your own constitution. It doesn’t make you immune to finding out after effing around.

  10. It's your reputation*

    I would be concerned about this volunteer’s potential to damage your organization’s reputation. Even if she is eventually let go, having your organization on her resume in perpetuity could be damaging. Her behavior and attitude were reprehensible, and I don’t give a pass to a young adult. I don’t think people’s underlying attitudes change that much over the course of a few years.

    1. Lokifan*

      I mean, I think it depends what you mean by “underlying attitudes”. When I was 20 or 22 – when my little sisters were applying for uni – I wouldn’t have done what Jane did, certainly. But when you’re young it’s harder to have a sense of perspective/proportion, especially about getting into the “right” college; it’s also harder to recognise that adults make mistakes, and that mistakes aren’t usually a grave injustice that should be fixed by a righteous public campaign. It’s completely plausible to me that you might do this at age 21 and be mortified by it at 27.

    2. Office Plant Queen*

      Once you’re above the age of about 25, I’d say that it’s true that your underlying attitudes don’t change much over the course of a few years. But chances are that she was younger than that, and 6 years is more than “a few” – it’s several. I’m 31 now and I wouldn’t say I’m much different now than I was at 25. But at 25, the difference between that age and 19 (6 years previous) was massive! Even 22-28 was pretty different

      And while what she did was awful, it stemmed from a sense of righteous injustice about a mistake that had a massive, life-altering effect on her sister (or at least felt like it!) Still concerning, but not as concerning as something stemming from bigotry. Finding out what college you’ll go to and how much it’ll cost and such is a Big Deal, so to basically have that rescinded (even though it technically wasn’t) can kinda feel like the end of the world. I get why she’d think something like “this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to my sister and it’s your fault” – it’s an immature perspective for sure, but understandable for someone who is in fact an adult only on paper

      1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        Maybe I misread, but I don’t see how the coach’s mistake caused her sister anything more than temporary false hopes: telling her she had a college place when she didn’t.
        Any “life-changing” effect was caused by the college not giving her a place, which I didn’t think was the coach’s decision. Or am I wrong here?

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          Nope, this is all correct. The coach made a mistake that gave the sister false hope, but wasn’t the reason the sister wasn’t accepted. Not to minimize the mistake (it was a BIG mistake) but that’s not worth the drama Jane stirred up, or the reputation she gave herself.

        2. DisgruntledPelican*

          She could have turned down other offers while believing the coach’s mistake.

        3. Office Plant Queen*

          You are right! I was trying to explain what things probably looked like from her perspective. Hence the parentheticals – not actually the end of the world, but would feel like it. Not actually rescinding an acceptance, but the situation may have seemed that way. Even if she herself had gone through the college admissions process, that doesn’t mean she understood how it works or who actually has decision making power.

          Basically, I can easily imagine how someone would get that angry about the situation because they’re simultaneously old enough and immature enough to believe that they know better than anyone else how the world should work

  11. Lemons*

    Yeah but…if Jane was mortified about this, she would have deleted the old posts, right? She’s either not sorry or not internet-savvy, but if she was otherwise a great candidate, I’d go ahead and hire her (after digging in to how she handles conflict/disappointment in further interviews, of course).

    1. But Of Course*

      Things escape internet confinement all the time, and the originator of the posts is not always in control of the platforms they end up on. Saying that she could just take down a bunch of high-drama posts that undoubtedly have been shared is not really practical and it can’t be the standard we expect.

      I did know someone who caused great harm to a religious community she was part of; when she decided to atone for it she did it by creating a post specifically rebuking her previous actions, naming her alts, naming the people she supported by giving distorted interviews to, etc – but the books written by people who used her as a data point for their Jen vendettas didn’t unpublish those books, and the person in prison for his presentation of danger to the religious leader certainly didn’t go on social media and take down all his posts. We have to think differently about what atonement for internet drama looks like, because it pretty definitionally doesn’t stay in the echo hanger if it’s at all interesting.

    2. biblio*

      Not everyone goes back to delete stuff. Especially if it has never before been brought to her attention how this specific thing is following her. And sometimes people post on forums where they don’t have credentials to go back and delete, even if they wanted to. I don’t think you can read too much into the non-deleting

      1. Jellyfish Catcher*

        The moral is that once you post, once you lay whatever down online, you may not be able to delete it, correct it, or defend it.

        If I’m really steamed about something, I’ll jot it down on paper with as many effs as needed, then clean it up the next day.

  12. MsM*

    I agree with the advice, although I’m not sure I’d take my chances without talking to Jane about it first even if she’s not in a high-profile and/or frontline role. She doesn’t really need to be to launch another online campaign if she takes it into her head to do that – and even if it’s not a threat to anything but her own employment and reputation, it’s still not an annoyance anyone needs.

    I am curious, though, OP: did you not ask her questions about handling conflict as part of the interview process? Because if I were Jane, and I thought there was even a chance this might come up at any point in the vetting process, I feel like I would want to try and get out ahead of that and raise it as a learning example myself. (I can see an argument for her not wanting to create new problems for herself if she genuinely just wants to put it behind her, though, so I don’t know that I can hold it against her if she already had the opportunity and didn’t.)

  13. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

    Honestly, if it’s a significant role or involves regularly working with others, I’d just thank her, send a generic “many qualified candidates” rejection, and move on.

    If you ask about it and she’s not remorseful, you risk yourself being doxxed and subject to online vitriol when you turn her down. If she is remorseful, you’ve still got the problem of her bad reputation, a hole she dug for herself, that other people will learn about (one person already knows, other people will find out) and may be unwilling to deal with her. Even if *you* know she’s mortified and remorseful, others will not.

    1. metadata minion*

      One person knows because that person went to the same college and so could immediately go “oh, wait, she’s THAT girl!”. How many people are going to go digging into a random volunteer’s history? It sounds like this wouldn’t necessarily have come up without the shared history with the other volunteer.

      I agree with Alison that a lot depends on how old this person was. If I found out that someone I worked with (who otherwise seemed like a reasonable, level-headed person) caused that kind of scene at 19, I would feel intense second-hand embarrassment and do my best to forget it ever happened. If I found out that a coworker did that three years ago, when they were 34, I would start being really cautious around them.

      1. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

        You really underestimate the power of gossip, especially about something that is verifiably true and could cause worry among others.

        One person knows. I would not count on that one person keeping it to themselves. Or that no one else will recognize Jane.

    2. Swiss Army Them*

      > you risk yourself being doxxed and subject to online vitriol when you turn her down

      this is a HUGE assumption. Just because Jane lashed out once doesn’t mean she’s some kind of serial doxxer.

  14. Dan*

    Hope to see an update with their response! I would def ask directly… interesting dilemma

  15. Hyaline*

    Motion that at age 25, one’s entire online and social media history prior to the age of 21 be sealed.

    2. Potato Potato*

      Yes please! Nobody needs to know about the fanfic I tried to write. Why did 13yo me think that writing about kissing was a good idea when I’d never done it before?

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        If it makes you feel any better I was still writing fanfiction well into my 20s….

        1. Office Plant Queen*

          I’m 31 and I write more fanfiction than I did when I was a teenager. I have let go of all cringe and embraced the joy of sharing fun little stories with my online community

          1. Dahlia*

            The majority of fanfic writers are probably in their 30s at least, and plenty are older. There aren’t a lot of studies about it, but that’s how the ones that have been done lean, with teenagers being the minority.

            I mean, look back at Kirk/Spock, which is the original slash fandom. The women who were a part of it were working professionals – that’s why they had access to typewriters and things.

            1. But what to call me?*

              Yeah, it’s a common misconception that fanfiction writers are mostly teens with the occasional adult who refuses to grow up (same with other nerd hobbies), but the majority of those I know (including me) are regular adults with regular adult lives who never saw a reason to give up one of their favorite hobbies just because they passed some arbitrary age. It wasn’t until my late 20s that I got confident enough in my own writing to be willing to post it online, anyway. As it turns out, it’s lots of fun! (and a great dissertation topic, but that’s another story)

              1. amoeba*

                Very true – however, writing kissing/sex scenes with absolutely zero idea of the real thing is an (almost) uniquely teen thing to do, I’d say!

                There’s some of mine out there as well, which I still find pretty amusing – the good thing is that that profile is very, very anonymous so I don’t worry about it, ha. If potential coworkers could find it via a quick Google search, I’d have deleted it years ago for sure!

                1. Dahlia*

                  I mean, most mystery writers have never murdered anyone so tbh I don’t see it much differently lol

              2. amoeba*

                @Dahlia hah, very true, but then the same goes for the readers (one hopes!) – so maybe that kind of defines the target group for that kind of romance as well, lol!

        2. Not Australian*

          Excuse me, many people I know still write fan fiction in their 70s: it’s not something one grows out of IMHO.

      2. Pomodoro Sauce*

        I feel such love and kinship for your 13 year old self. I wrote a lot of my first million words when I too knew very little about anything.

      3. UKDancer*

        Yeah I am fervently hoping nobody finds my embarrassing teenage fanfiction either. I mean what I was thinking writing terrible Highlander and Deep Space Nine fanfic with appalling self insert characters and a lot of emotional song lyrics I don’t know. I hope it’s all dead somewhere because I was a terrible writer.

        1. Another Kristin*

          This is OT but I *really* hope you wrote a crossover. I imagine Connor MacLeod and Kira would get along

    4. CrazyCatDude*

      At the very least I wish we were more understanding of young folks making stupid mistakes online, and not assume it defines their character forever.

      But I guessing asking people to not instantly judge other is a tall ask, heh.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Having a conversation with someone about a huge misstep they made (which is the advice being given) isn’t assuming it defines their character forever, it’s giving them a chance to clarify and show their character.

        But I guessing asking people to not instantly judge other is a tall ask, heh.

        You mean like instantly judging the other volunteer for bringing valid information about Jane to the LW?

        1. Academic Physics.*

          True, CrazyCatDude is coming down very hard [in a strange way] on the other reasonable volunteer who brought this up with the letter writer.

  16. AnnaMaria Alberghetti Spaghetti*

    Let the past stay in the past. And honestly, I’d question the motives of the other volunteer that also “named and shamed”. What is the deal with that?

    1. mlem*

      Having dealt with Volunteer Drama, if I specifically recognized a potential new incoming volunteer as having Caused Drama at one of my prior organizations, I’d certainly want to make sure that potential volunteer wasn’t looking to start New Drama here. That can easily just be good citizenship.

      1. AnnaMaria Alberghetti Spaghetti*

        Sounds about as much fun as running for public office! lol :)

      2. MsM*

        Yeah, how many questions do people submit to the effect of “I know for a fact this person’s been a headache in the past; there’s a chance they’ve improved, but should I still say something before they’re hired?” The answer is almost always “yes.”

        1. Momma Bear*

          Exactly. There are people in my industry I would absolutely warn my coworkers about. I don’t think the other person did anything wrong by mentioning it.

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      Bringing up that someone who is interviewing for a position (even a volunteer one) previous did something pretty horrific is not only valid, but I would argue expected. This wasn’t someone saying, “This dumb coach tricked my sister into thinking she was accepted into college”, she literally tried to dox him and send a mob after him. That’s not something to brush off without asking more questions.

    3. CrazyCatDude*

      Yea I’d honestly be more concerned with the volunteer who ratted her out.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        You’d be concerned about a volunteer bringing you legitimate information about someone you’re considering hiring? And you consider bringing said information to be “ratting out” as though they have some unspoken agreement to not bring that information to light? Interesting.

        1. CrazyCatDude*

          I’d be concerned with a volunteer who is tattling on another adult for something they did in their personal life years ago, yes.

          1. Jennifer Strange*

            Your use of the word “tattling” here is pretty telling. Saying, “Hey, that person doxxed another human being and tried to whip a mob against him, so you might want to talk to her about it” isn’t tattling, it’s what reasonable adults do.

            1. CrazyCatDude*

              It’s not in any way the volunteer’s business what another volunteers did in their past personal life.

              1. Jennifer Strange*

                A) It’s not in their personal life. They decided to publicly post it on the internet.
                B) It is their business – as well as the company’s business – if this person might be hired.

                Don’t want something potentially brought up when applying for a position? Don’t post it online!

              2. Jennifer Strange*

                Oh, and C) Even if it was only done in their personal life (again, it wasn’t), when it’s something that society considers to be a shitty thing to do (and especially when it’s maliciously done to hurt another person) you get to consider it in determining whether or not you want to hire them into a position.

              3. Observer*

                It’s not in any way the volunteer’s business what another volunteers did in their past personal life.

                It is when it implicates the way they operate!

                If someone shop lifted “in their personal life”, should a company ignore that and hire them for a position handling money?

                This is not really different. How people handle conflict is a *huge* issue. That cannot be ignored.

              4. Phoenix Wright*

                It 100% becomes his business the very second he’s asked to work alongside Jane. If she hasn’t changed since then, he’s probably just a bad day away from becoming her next target. He’s well in his right to warn LW about that.

          3. Observer*

            I’d be concerned with a volunteer who is tattling on another adult for something they did in their personal life years ago,

            How does she handle conflict? How does she handle potentially sensitive information?

            Both are serious questions. deliberately ignoring relevant information is irresponsible.

            Valorizing failure to share important information on the one hand, and stigmatizing responsible behavior is repugnant and irresponsible.

          4. Workerbee*

            Tattling? This isn’t kindergarten. This is about someone’s deliberate choice to be a full-on asshat with concentrated vindictiveness only a handful of years ago, not “Teacher, Johnny took my ball!” at age 5.

            By all means, LW can suss out where Jane’s headspace is now and see if she’s learned not to be an asshat. But calling the other volunteer a tattler is not only egregious, but is focusing on entirely the wrong thing, and which is why asshats get to stay asshats with people falling over themselves protecting them.

  17. ICodeForFood*

    It’s an interesting situation. I, too, hope to see an update from the OP…

  18. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    Beware if this was a sustained campaign and not just several tweets smashed out in a temper one day.
    Being vindictive when thwarted is not a characteristic that changes much with time, imo; the person often becomes more effective at causing harm.

    If you part on bad terms with Jane, she may do this to her manager and your organisation too.

    If you are still considering her, ask if she would handle that situation differently now. If she does anything other than admit unequivocally she shouldn’t have done that, e.g. that the coach was in the wrong, she was sorely provoked, then don’t offer her a position. Also ask why she hasn’t since deleted the posts.

  19. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

    Perhaps Jane’s behavior was ‘combative’ but it seems very different from evidence of, say, bigotry or a tendency to violence. Jane felt that her sister had been wronged by someone she saw as having a position of power, and with the classic combination of youthful sensitivity to injustice and youthful lack of perspective, went on a tear about it. She probably hasn’t deleted this stuff because once she calmed down she just wanted to ignore that it ever happened.

    1. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      We don’t have Jane’s age so we don’t actually know whether she herself was youthful, only that she had a sister in high school. I’m in a family with a big age range–19 years top to bottom–so if my oldest brother had been the one who went on a tear, he would have been doing it at around age 37.

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      Can we please stop waving away doxxing just because it’s not as bad as bigotry? Bigotry doesn’t need to be the bar met to consider something a horrible action.

      1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        Yes, doxxing just because of a careless mistake was a disgusting thing to do. The OP needs to be sure this won’t be repeated especially if Jane falls out with the nonprofit, or simply doxxes someone else in anger again and then can be connected to the organisation

        Maybe if Jane was a teen / early 20s she developed into a different person, but the OP can only find out if she questions this doxxing and Jane admits she was wrong, without excuses of “but the coach” or “I was provoked”

      2. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

        I don’t really consider sharing someone’s phone number ‘doxxing’ in any meaningful sense. It might be encouraging harassment. But there’s no reason to think the coach was in any danger.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          I mean, posting his name, position, and phone number without his consent IS doxxing whether you consider it to be or not. Just because he wasn’t in danger doesn’t mean it wasn’t doxxing and wasn’t a shitty thing to do.

        2. Joron Twiner*

          It is the literal definition of doxxing. It gives people a way to harass the victim offline, and incites further harassment from others. Would you like to receive phone calls from strangers at all hours of the day or night? Do you know what other info about you can be traced from your phone number?

  20. How long is long enough?*

    It was SIX years ago. How long is enough time for people to stop bringing up things from the past?
    We all know that stuff on the internet is never truly gone, at what point do we say it’s been long enough?

    1. ecnaseener*

      More than 6 years for a complete moratorium on ever bringing it up! If she’s changed and would never do something like that now, great, that’s why you ask.

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      When you’re applying for a job people have a right to bring up egregious missteps from your past. If you’re able to prove you’ve matured since then, great! But they’re not out of line for asking.

    3. Editrix*

      One of the problems that comes with the internet (so many problems) is that people can easily be forever defined by the worst thing they ever did. No mitigation, no apology acceptable, no forgiveness.

      This person’s actions were in the context of trying to defend her sister, and years ago. It was found by accident — other candidates may have done as bad or worse, they just didn’t happen to be recognized.

      I would be inclined to make the decision just based on the interview. I doubt I’d even ask about it.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Defending one’s sister does not need to include doxing. And the idea that others could have done just as bad or worse really doesn’t matter – that’s always going to be the case. It is valid to ask her about this, not just because it’s the smart thing to do (and may help her realize how far reaching this was for any future employment opportunities) but because you don’t want to risk your organization’s reputation by potentially hiring someone with this sort of incident in her past. If she acknowledges her mistake and is apologetic that’s great, but asking is important.

      2. Two-Faced Big-Haired Food Critic*

        I don’t think the info was found by accident. It sounds like the doxxing incident was a Big Deal at this school, the volunteer was an alumnus and knew about it already, and she recognized the name.

    4. Constance Lloyd*

      She shared his personal phone number and encouraged other people to call him. If she had just complained about the situation I would let it go, but this? I have severe concerns about her judgment.

      1. Editrix*

        I wish she hadn’t done that part — doxxing was just as bad six years ago; that’s not new. If I were inclined to ask about it, that would be why.

        But I still hate defining a candidate by a non-work-related incident from long ago. People need to be allowed to change for the better and move on.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          No one is saying that she shouldn’t be allowed to change for the better, but asking her about the incident isn’t keeping her from changing, it’s holding her to having changed. The advice wasn’t immediately reject her, it was have a conversation with her about it. Why is that considered such a confrontational thing?

          1. Constance Lloyd*

            Exactly! The doxxing is why it’s worth asking about, her response will give LW a better idea of whether she’s worth bringing on. She isn’t being canceled, she’s being interviewed.

    5. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      Six years ago takes us back to the first Trump administration. It hasn’t been long enough to ignore what people did then.

    6. Kay*

      I’m pretty sure any employer is going to (and should!!) consider my work history from longer than 6 years ago – same for my personal conduct and any other related context.

      I think doxxing in the last 6 years fits the criteria for both serious enough and recent enough to cause concern and some deeper digging, and I would be concerned about anyone’s judgement who thought otherwise! We all make mistakes but we need to demonstrate we have learned from them and won’t continue making them – asking about that is how employers weed out the good employees from the problematic ones.

  21. CzechMate*

    When I first read this headline, I immediately thought, “Oh no–this person must have said something racist/homophobic/transphobic/xenophobic or provocatively political online.”

    So, I think this situation is a little different. It’s bad, sure, but she was defending *her little sister* from an *adult* that she felt had *caused her real emotional (and financial?) distress.* To me, that’s a little different than, say, calling out a complete stranger based on, say, their political affiliations, or tweeting a celebrity and making inappropriate comments about their body. I think it’s worth calling her up and asking about it, but I’d be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.

    1. Olivia Benson*

      I agree with this outlook. It’s bizarre to me that some commenters seem to be taking the tack of “she bullied this man” where it’s like … without further information I’m assuming this was a late teens/young 20s person who went too far in feeling righteously angry about something that, probably to her sister/family at the time really felt like a huge injustice? Not everything is “bullying,” especially when there’s power differential.

      Not saying I wouldn’t ask her about it, but a lot of these comments are head scratchers to me.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        I don’t see anyone saying she bullied him, just that she doxxed him, which she did. And that’s a really shitty thing to do.

  22. Insert Pun Here*

    I think it’s fine to ask her about it and consider her response (tone and content) when making your decision, but at some point we all just have to let the past be the past. There are very few mistakes that should follow someone for an entire lifetime, and this is not even close to meeting the bar.

  23. kpoptwitterrefugee*

    honestly, as someone who was harassed online multiple times between 2019 and 2021 (although i was never doxxed, thank god), i wouldn’t hold it against my harassers applying for a position–unless the position has to do with PR or handles a lot of conflict, in which case, sure, ask. but teens and early 20-somethings on twitter/etc are famously, uh, awful, and if we hold that against people for 6 years, that’s a lot of people who may have grown that we’re cutting off. i hate to say it, because of how angry i still am, but on an individual level, it’s not our job to hold it against a single person in an entirely unrelated context.

    again, my situation wasn’t as bad as this coach’s, but if i was them, i would be very taken aback that an incident 6 years ago stopped even my harasser’s life/growth. that’s not the kind of justice i’m looking for in my case.

    1. But what to call me?*

      I definitely would hold it against them, because it does reflect on their character that they chose to behave like that and character stays with you across multiple contexts. Many, many people manage to go through their whole lives without doxxing or harassing anyone, even the people they have legitimate reasons to be mad at. Should they be allowed to grow up and move past it? Sure. But it’s on them to show they’ve done that, not on the people who find out about it to pretend it never happened and hope for the best. I sure wouldn’t hire the one person who harassed me online if I knew who they were, however young they might have been, because they’ve shown that that is within the range of responses they consider acceptable when mad and I have no evidence that they’ve changed their mind about that. It’s not about justice, it’s about past behavior predicting future behavior unless there’s a good reason to believe it won’t (e.g., if talking to them convinces you they regret it and would behave differently now).

      1. Allonge*

        This – sure, some teenagers have awful judgment and we can only hope that they change (I really dislike the ‘oh, teens are stupid’ trope getting extended into early 20s by the way. It’s bad enough that we don’t expect better from teens, for actual adults it’s horrendous.) But a person who can vote and drive and is an adult can be held to adult standards when they intentionally harm and encourage others to harm someone else, even if emotions are at play. Which they always are.

        And yes, it sucks for the younger generations that their stupidity lasts longer, but this is cruelty and a different thing altogether. And getting asked about it in a job interview is not a huge imposition compared to that.

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      The coach who got doxed probably cares. The organization that is potentially risking their reputation by hiring her as a volunteer probably cares too.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          6 years isn’t that long ago. And, no, this is behavior that shouldn’t just be let go without talking with her.

        2. But what to call me?*

          6 years is really not that long. It’s long enough that someone can change but not nearly long enough to assume they must have changed.

          1. Dahlia*

            If someone is 24, it’s 25% of their life. Definitely can be a significant time period.

    3. Kay*

      I suppose anyone looking to hire a level headed professional that wouldn’t engage in doxxing or an internet harassment campaign?

    4. Paper Plate Demon*

      Real life example: I used to work for an organization that relied heavily on volunteers. One volunteer, Penny, would constantly smear our organization online, stir shit with other volunteers/child members, was horrible to staff, etc.

      She decided she wanted a paid job with us, and appealed to the CEO to create a new position for her. Several of us who had worked with her in the past said “this isn’t a good idea, giving her more power (and paying her) endorses her awful behavior and reflects badly on us”.

      The CEO said “let it go” and hired Penny.

      Wanna guess how that ended? Hint: severe misuse of funds, more social media screeds, damage to our reputation, and assorted other chaos. She was fired by the end of the year, and, as far as I know, has resumed the mantle of being a difficult volunteer (who did eventually get blocked from posting on the org’s social pages).

      The volunteer in the OP may be wonderfully mature, kind, and responsible now. But past behaviors can give a preview to future behaviors, and it’s foolish not to at least ask her how she reflects on the situation now.

  25. Sindy*

    It sounds like she posted the screenshots and such to tumblr, which is a very tumblr thing to do. Depending on what details are available I may have been active on the site at the time it happened. A few hundred comments on tumblr isn’t actually that many when posts like that have accumulated hundreds of thousands of notes on the website. Not that many people saw it and I’m surprised that someone on your team decided to be sneaky and say “hey you wouldn’t believe this tumblr drama I saw involving this person!”

    My questions for this would be:
    1) Is her blog still active or is it fallow? Lots of tumblr users kept their blogs up and just didn’t log in again because they wanted their blog to remain available but not use it. If she isn’t using it anymore then that’s a bit of an answer in of itself.
    2) If she is still using it what is her tone and pattern of usage?
    3) Does she post a lot about her job and/or activities? That’s the real tell IMO, if she doesn’t talk about her real life on there anymore than it’s probably not a big deal. But if she does, and you monitor it after hiring her (hypothetically) and she posts negative impressions of her work there…how do you plan to react? If she bitches about someone being a jerk to her at work, will you call her to the carpet and go “Hey your tumblr posts were completely out of line and you’re FIRED!” Every time that happens to someone being facebook stalked by their boss, it tends to go poorly for the boss and if it got picked up by the media, then you’ll become the organization that fires volunteers because they posted something critical of you to tumblr…regardless of the reality of the situation.

    Overall I am very leery of this situation considering you have a volunteer on staff that decided to resurrect some tumblr drama that apparently did not get anywhere; a few hundred replies is completely chump change on that website. Why is your volunteer ratting someone out for posting on her blog? I find that very sneaky, tumblr is Fight Club and you’re not supposed to talk about it. And now that your volunteer has talked about it, and now that you have sent it here, sleuths are going to try finding Jane’s posts and her blog and may even try to find her based off it.

    This stuff is better off lying fallow. You should ask Jane about it because it’s a legitimate security concern but I don’t like any bit of this. I don’t like a sneaky volunteer, I don’t like digging up someone’s blog and going “omg we can’t hire someone with tumblr drama!”, I don’t like the monitoring of volunteers off the clock, none of it.

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      Why is your volunteer ratting someone out for posting on her blog?

      Because that person is asking for a volunteer position at the organization and they did something pretty awful previously? The platform (which you’re guessing at) and reach don’t really matter. It was clearly enough to reach the volunteer (who knew about it because it was her alma mater, so it clearly reached the school), and not mentioning it would have been a lapse in judgement. It’s not “sneaky” to mention that this person doxxed (literally!) another person. If you think the other volunteer is in the wrong, I sincerely you’re never in charge of hiring someone else because that’s a concerning lack of judgement.

      1. Sindy*

        I would like to hear from the volunteer herself about it, not that we’ll get that. In my experience this kind of thing is never about nobility, it’s about User A having a beef with User B and hoping to embarrass them in public to get back at them for some sort of personal slight.

        I agree that Jane’s actions present a genuine security issue but I’m also concerned that the volunteer is bringing this up because it could also indicate that she’ll be surveilling other candidates in the future. Hire Jane or don’t, either way can be justified and it deserves to be discussed if the OP wants to do that instead of just sending a generic rejection letter. But I do not like that a volunteer is bringing this stuff into real life.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          In my experience this kind of thing is never about nobility, it’s about User A having a beef with User B and hoping to embarrass them in public to get back at them for some sort of personal slight.

          There is 0 indication of that here, so that’s just fanfic in your head. Also, it’s been reported that Jane posted this on a different site than Tumblr, so it’s not “Tumblr drama” as you put it.

          I’m also concerned that the volunteer is bringing this up because it could also indicate that she’ll be surveilling other candidates in the future

          Based on what? Presumably if the volunteer does this often the LW would have mentioned it. The volunteer has a legitimate connection to Jane, one that makes sense that she would know about this incident, so it’s not like she went looking for it.

          But I do not like that a volunteer is bringing this stuff into real life.

          It’s already in real life. When Jane doxxed the coach, that was real. Posting something on the internet doesn’t mean it doesn’t have real life consequences. This is the kind of stuff you WANT your employees to alert you about when you’re making a hiring decision.

          1. Sindy*

            > Based on what? Presumably if the volunteer does this often the LW would have mentioned it. The volunteer has a legitimate connection to Jane, one that makes sense that she would know about this incident, so it’s not like she went looking for it.

            Based on the fact that she showed a blog post to the OP regarding a candidate for a volunteer position. That makes me leery of her and Jane at the same time.

            Otoh this could be put to good use, the OP could put this volunteer to work doing background checks on other candidates. I’m not joking either, this could be the signs of a real skill that would come in handy during the background check process. It can be hard to track this stuff down so having someone who is familiar with modern platforms and can make these connections is an asset, no one knew about Jane making a post with a doxx in it until the volunteer brought it to the OP’s attention.

            > It’s already in real life. When Jane doxxed the coach, that was real. Posting something on the internet doesn’t mean it doesn’t have real life consequences. This is the kind of stuff you WANT your employees to alert you about when you’re making a hiring decision.

            It was also six years ago and Allison made the suggestion of asking Jane about it, if the OP wants to make that kind of investment. Expectations need to be made clear, if background checks now include social media activity then the OP needs to do a lot more than just looking at a single post from Jane. She needs to find out if doxxing is a hobby of Jane’s, there are people on the internet that make it their jobs to do that kind of thing. And then it would be a good idea to make that a policy for background checks and extend that to their employees and volunteers.

            However if social media is part of the expectations of a background check process then IMO there is a question of, did the volunteer overstep by doing this? Will this also become a pattern of behavior on her part? What kind of guidelines could and should be set up if this becomes policy? This is a weird area to be in because the internet and how people use it is normally considered a bit off limits.

            1. Jennifer Strange*

              Based on the fact that she showed a blog post to the OP regarding a candidate for a volunteer position.

              That’s…standard? People do that all the time, when they think they have information the person would want. There have been multiple letters about it in the past.

              Expectations need to be made clear, if background checks now include social media activity then the OP needs to do a lot more than just looking at a single post from Jane. She needs to find out if doxxing is a hobby of Jane’s, there are people on the internet that make it their jobs to do that kind of thing.

              No, she doesn’t. That is making it much more complicated than necessary. Have the conversation with Jane, see what she has to say about it, and determine if she’s a good fit to volunteer.

              did the volunteer overstep by doing this?

              No, they did not. Again, this is very standard behavior. If you have information (good or bad) about someone applying for a position (paid or not) bringing it to the person making that decision is 100% acceptable, especially when it’s based on fact as this is.

              This is a weird area to be in because the internet and how people use it is normally considered a bit off limits.

              It really isn’t, nor has it ever been, people just like to think that’s the case until it bites them in the butt.

              1. Sindy*

                > That’s…standard? People do that all the time, when they think they have information the person would want. There have been multiple letters about it in the past.

                I have been in the working world for a long time at this point, it is very much not standard. Ask A Manager is a good resource for people navigating surprising situations in the workplace but I do not take any of the letters that come in as representative of the work place. My workplace experience (which includes working with a few zoomers) indicates that this is not standard behavior.

                That does not necessarily mean that it is bad behavior but it is not standard.

                > No, she doesn’t. That is making it much more complicated than necessary. Have the conversation with Jane, see what she has to say about it, and determine if she’s a good fit to volunteer.

                Yes, she does. We are coming into a new age of the internet where people are saying these things with their names and faces attached instead of hiding behind anime avatars and VPNs. The OP’s letter is a one off but they are touching on an issue that will slowly loom larger and larger as social media histories become more relevant to our working lives. It is not good or bad, it simply is. And as we have seen here, someone’s social media history can be very relevant to their job search.

                > No, they did not. Again, this is very standard behavior. If you have information (good or bad) about someone applying for a position (paid or not) bringing it to the person making that decision is 100% acceptable, especially when it’s based on fact as this is.

                It is not standard behavior. Whether or not it was overstepping will be up to the OP and their organization and how they want to handle these cases coming forward. The value judgment of someone reporting on their potential co workers’ social media behavior is fully neutral, even if I personally am not a fan of it. It makes sense that the volunteer came forward with this stuff even if I’m not very fond of it.

                > It really isn’t, nor has it ever been, people just like to think that’s the case until it bites them in the butt.

                VPNs and anime avatars have mostly been a good enough shield to keep people covered. Jane is in a unique position because she identified herself with her posts.

                1. Jennifer Strange*

                  Bringing relevant information about a potential new hire to someone is standard. Not sure where you’ve worked or what you’ve experienced, but it IS standard. In fact, I’d find it odd if the volunteer DIDN’T mention this as it’s very relevant to the situation.

              2. Ask a Manager* Post author

                It’s very normal to share info that you think might be something your colleague would want to be aware of when they’re hiring!

            2. Two-Faced Big-Haired Food Critic*

              I don’t think the volunteer went looking for info on Jane. It sounds like the doxxing incident was a Big Deal at this school, the volunteer knew about it already, and she recognized the name.

        2. CrazyCatDude*

          Agreed, I’d be concerned that that volunteer feels it’s their place to report on another volunteer’s personal life to LW.

          1. Jennifer Strange*

            If it’s on the internet it’s not part of their personal life, it’s something they have chosen to make public. And this is very standard in the working world.

            1. CrazyCatDude*

              This is not normal anywhere I have worked, and reading above, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

              You are assuming your own experience is “standard” but it’s clearly not universal.

              1. Jennifer Strange*

                There have been plenty of letters written into this website about whether or not a person should bring relevant information about a potential hire to the hiring manager. It is pretty standard. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t.

              2. Academic Physics*

                Super interesting! Have you ever had a colleagues who have made the decision to target and harass someone publicly? How did that turn out?

          2. Wayward Sun*

            If someone with this kind of history was brought in to an organization I worked for, I’d worry I might be their next target. I might even stop volunteering just to be safe.

    2. Myrin*

      I assumed the “popular website” – which is not something tumblr was called even in its heyday ten years ago – was reddit, specifically AITA.

  26. HiddenT*

    I agree with everyone saying Jane’s age when she did it is relevant. As an elder millennial who was much more online than my peers at a young age, someone doing a deep dive could probably uncover some super embarrassing things about me, although nothing intentionally bullying or harassing, and definitely no doxxing. But everyone does stupid stuff when they’re in their 20s, and hopefully she learned from her mistake. If, instead, she’s significantly older than her sister and was in her late 20s or early 30s, that makes it potentially a bigger red flag.

    Asking her about it is the best way to know where she stands on the issue.

  27. Emily Byrd Starr*

    Once again, I’m so glad that I came of age in the pre-internet era and that I was 30 years old when social media first became popular.

  28. iglwif*

    What Jane did 6 years ago is definitely bad.

    I’m curious what the evidence brought by the other volunteer was: posts of Jane’s that she has left up and publicly accessible? Or screenshots / reblogs / whatever of posts of Jane’s, since taken down, that escaped containment?

    Both whether the posts are still up and public AND how she responds when asked about the incident would make a huge difference to me in terms of how to proceed.

  29. SofiaDeo*

    It’s interesting to me that many of the comments here seem to be more about “at what age should one’s youthful teenage bad acts be ignored/forgiven”, without taking much account of the act. There’s cringe, and there’s intent to cause harm. Doxxing is more the “intent to cause harm” group. One commenter raised the point, was it a one day tear, or a sustained campaign? Was Jane snapping back and trying to push her point/agitate people as a single instance when people disagreed on the platforms, or was this pushback sustained for days? Because to me it’s kind of like the difference as to why certain violent crimes can have kids being charged as adults. Someone over the age of 12 six years ago should be aware of the potentially horrible effects of doxxing. The first notable case around doxxing I just looked up, was 2008. In 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled on “intent” versus “free speech”. That was 9 years ago. I fail to see how any teen or young adult back then could rationalize doxxing. Look at the information noted here, that people *on the platforms involved* were telling Jane to shut it down, and Jane didn’t. I’d be hesitant to take Jane on as a volunteer if this position involved any kind of conflict resolution, especially public facing. Bullying/doxxing is not automatically a phase one grows out of, it’s a serious character trait that needs to be taken in to consideration.

    1. Hyaline*

      I mean, committing crimes is intent to do harm too, yet we typically try juveniles as juveniles and not as adults. I think the same concept applies here. I really don’t think that bullying/doxxing is necessarily a personality trait, and in this case it seems like a reaction (and complicated by the fact that any power dynamics absolutely went the other way). It can be a bad decision just like breaking into a house or stealing some crap could be a bad decision. If we aren’t going to let a juvenile offenders’s life be defined by that time that they stole stuff when they were 16 we probably shouldn’t let someone’s life be defined by bad online behavior when they were young, either.

    2. MrsThePlague*

      Yes – I agree with Allison’s advice, and I agree that if 6 years is the difference between child and adult in this case, there should be particular grace offered.

      However, I find it really curious when people’s response is: “Thank goodness the internet wasn’t around when I was a kid because I did some stupid things!” Which… I totally agree when it comes to things like writing cringe-y poetry or making a nasty comment once when you were angry or doubling down on some crazy cause.

      But a sustained campaign of harassment and doxxing are very different from your average teenage foolishness (unless I was a particularly sheltered teenager – very possible – and people were regularly engaged in this kind of behaviour online). Doxxing is very serious, a crime (?) and has been known as such for much longer than 6 years. It’s extremely dangerous and vindictive, and while, of course, people were dangerous and vindictive pre-social media, I feel like this level of behaviour, then and now, usually comes from a small group of people and not all teenagers as a matter of course.

      Absolutely, talk to her about it and have some grace – I guess I’m just saying that I understand why the OP wouldn’t want to just hand-wave this away as teenage shenanigans in the digital age.

  30. Not Tom, Just Petty*

    I know this is a weird, Devil’s Advocate take, but you will be doing Jane a favor if you ask her about this in a low(er) pressure situation.
    She will learn as much about herself from her reaction as you will.
    If you don’t move forward with her after speaking, she will at least have some data points for future interviews.
    (Or she may have answered this question fifteen times in the last six years. Also useful for her to know that it hasn’t gone away and maybe time to start cleaning up her online history.)

      1. JustKnope*

        This is the low pressure situation Not Tom, Just Petty is suggesting! Interviewing for a volunteer role.

  31. BlueCanoe*

    I’m wondering if OP is sure that someone else didn’t write these posts using Jane’s accounts?

    I know we are supposed to take letters at face value, but it seems like someone else (possibly the sister or their disgruntled parent) could have gotten into Jane’s accounts on a shared computer or pressured Jane to make the posts. This isn’t to excuse Jane, but “Jane voluntarily wrote nasty stuff about a coach” is a little different than “Jane’s family coerced a 19-year-old Jane into letting them post on her social media”.
    (Source: I’ve had at least one family member sign other people’s names to their writing)

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      If so, why hasn’t Jane deleted those posts during the last 6 years?
      In the unlikely event that her social media was and is still coerced, she is not safe to take on as a volunteer.

      1. SB*

        It’s not clear if she deleted it or not. People take screenshots and repost and once something is online, it often gets re-circulated even if the original post gets deleted.

        That may be what the OP saw. She mentions that there’s enough information to link it back to a Twitter account with her name. She doesn’t say it’s still up on her Twitter account.

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      All the more reason to bring it up to her. If someone else did that, she can clarify.

  32. Raida*

    I wouldn’t just ask “how would you handle conflict now?”
    I would ask “How are you *going* to handle being asked about this situation? You will, I have no doubt, have colleagues google you and they will find this and they will want to know.”

    I wanna know: Are you intending to tell everyone up front? Are you going to explain each time you had an opportunity to course correct *why* you didn’t? Are you, as part of maturing, aware of the internal processes and instincts that laid the foundations for this reaction? Has that learning process given you insight into empathetic de-escalation approaches and improved your client-account manager skills? Etc.
    Giving her an opportunity to say how these are work-related strengths, but specifically “How will you deal with a stranger knowing this about you?”, and “What, specifically, did you learn about yourself and how do you handle yourself with that knowledge and experience?”

    1. I see you Doris Burke*

      “I wanna know: Are you intending to tell everyone up front? Are you going to explain each time you had an opportunity to course correct *why* you didn’t? ”

      Are you saying you would expect the volunteer to tell everyone they meet about this incident? Why?

      1. UKDancer*

        Yeah that seems to be decidedly overkill I agree.

        I mean it’s good to ask about this at the interview, find out what she learnt and if she’s grown from it.

        But why you’d want her to proactively raise it with everyone she meets I don’t know. I mean also I wouldn’t assume that everyone would know about it if she didn’t. Not everyone hangs out on social media or reads or remembers threads. It would also have potential to make people uncomfortable if they didn’t know and had to listen to this being recounted to them.

        I think just use it to find out if you want to employ her, if you do then perhaps have a line in case people raise it. But i can’t see a single benefit to telling everyone about this.

        1. Strictrujes*

          I wasn’t that torn, but was sent me to the side of not choosing her as a volunteer was that someone recognized her from the events that happened six years ago. I’m assuming that the person who recognized her hasn’t been stalking her for six years so it’s something that’s famous enough That people she interacts with may want to ask her about it. I think that’s an awkward situation for a volunteer and an awkward situation for your organization.

          Additionally, even if people change that is so beyond the pale of what Eavan young people do to docs others that I would just write her off.

          1. metadata minion*

            I got the impression from the letter that the other volunteer went to the school the coach was at. Unless that’s the local college that tons of people in the area went to, it could easily be an extremely memorable incident to the university community but not something anyone else will have heard about.

            1. Grimalkin*

              I do think it might be worth taking into account how likely it is that others will come across this information–and, given that it sounds like it’s well-known in the school community but not elsewhere, that depends on the school’s relationship to the area.
              One extreme would be that this is a college town and the school in question is THAT school, which would mean a good chunk of the people around would probably be familiar with the whole story already. The other extreme would be the other volunteer just happening to go to the small, obscure school several states away that most people in the area have never even heard of, and the odds of another volunteer recognizing the story is roughly nil. Most likely, the reality is somewhere in between.

  33. New Fed*

    In addition to the good advice here, I’d encourage the letter writer to look at their own social media/confidentiality/press/grievance policies, as relevant, if they don’t have them already.
    Having a really clear policy, for everyone, can head off unneeded conflict.
    ‘Dont post on social media about our clients/students.’
    ‘Escalate concerns through this chain of command.’
    ‘Refer press inquiries to the Comms Officer.’

    You very well may have other future volunteers who would like to manage their conflicts on social media and that could end up being really damaging. Clear policies and expectations can help mitigate this risk.

  34. Sparrow*

    I would definitely encourage you to not just write Jane off entirely because of this—there’s a certain kind of toxicity and tendency towards resolving all problems with public callouts that gets extremely normalized in a lot of online spaces, particularly ones where young people without much real-world conflict resolution experience tend to congregate (like Twitter, as mentioned, but also Tumblr, TikTok, etc). I’m speaking here as someone who spent my teens and early twenties enmeshed in these spaces, and who is now absolutely mortified by some of the things I did back then that I felt 100% in the right for at the time!

    Even if Jane was firmly an adult when this happened… well, I can certainly see the argument that she should have known better, and I don’t even entirely disagree with it—but also, I believe that everyone deserves a chance to change, and that plenty of people do shitty, mean, awful things in their 30s/40s/50s/beyond that they later recognize as wrong and would not repeat. I think that Jane deserves a chance to prove that she’s grown from that—even if she does not take that chance, even if she just doubles down and insists she was in the right, she deserves to have it.

    So, I am very much in favor of just openly talking to her about this, and about being open to hearing something that convinces you that this will be a non-issue. People (whatever their age) can change a lot in six years! And maybe she hasn’t, and maybe she still thinks she did nothing wrong—but talking to her about that should make it pretty clear if that’s the case, and if it is, then there’s your answer.

  35. Ann On A Moose*

    I’ve always wondered how the comment sections decides to ally with and who they hate so much they dig for and discuss the post in question. What if Jane has an impulse control disorder that makes her doxx people???

    Also, and this is not the point, but I feel really bad for the six-years-ago sister who thought she had achieved something she’d wanted since she was probably five and had in fact not achieved that thing. College athletics are a trip.

    1. nnn*

      “What if Jane has an impulse control disorder that makes her doxx people???”

      I’m sorry, what? If that were true then I guess that’s something they’d need to decide if they can accommodate in this volunteer job or not, but this kind of wild speculation is against the commenting rules.

      1. Wayward Sun*

        The devil is actually quite famous for advocating for his positions. Trying to do it for him is just insulting. ;)

      2. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

        The purpose of a devil’s advocate is to avoid groupthink, in which case it’s a valuable role. It’s not to just be annoying, as it often ends up online.

    3. Observer*

      What if Jane has an impulse control disorder that makes her doxx people???

      Then the LW needs to think *very* carefully before taking her on in any position. And should absolutely *not* take her on in any sort of public facing / client contact role.

    4. Eldritch Office Worker*

      There can be reasons for behavior, and the behavior can still be unacceptable.

  36. kanomi*

    Wow, that’s a lot of comments! FWIW, that’s a hard pass for me, even for a basic volunteer. Let’s just say there are certain personality types that interview great but show their true selves later.

    You have one extremely large red flag, more than enough to simply decline to proceed and consider someone else.

  37. Kt*

    IMO that’s worth a name-and-shame of the university. When dealing with kids futures and dreams the level of carelessness that allowed the ‘recently applied’ kids to be welcomed to the university by an adult in charge is absolutely ridiculous.

    I think doxxing the individual went too far, but pressing the university to deal with the root case was well in bounds.

    1. Olivia Benson*

      100%. I think a lot of these comments are being way too dismissive of that.

Comments are closed.