Should Social Media Affect Your Creditworthiness? 344
theodp writes "Betabeat's Adrianne Jeffries takes a look at the questionable young science of using social media to evaluate creditworthiness. As banks start nosing around Facebook and Twitter, Jeffries explains, the wrong friends might just sink your credit. 'Let's take a trip with the Ghost of Christmas Future,' she suggests. 'The year is 2016, and George Bailey, a former banker, now a part-time consultant, is looking for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for a co-op in the super-hot neighborhood of Bedford Falls (BeFa). He has never missed a loan payment and has zero credit card debt. He submits his information to the online-only PotterBank.com, but halfway through the application process, the website asks for his Facebook login. Then his Twitter. Then LinkedIn. The cartoon loan officer avatar begins to frown as the algorithm discovers Mr. Bailey's taxi-driving buddy Ernie was once turned down by PotterBank for a loan; then it starts browsing his daughter Zuzu's photo album, 'Saturday Nite!' And what was this tweet from a few years back: "FML, about to jump off a goddamn bridge"?' So, could George piggyback his way to a better credit score by adding Larry and Sergey to his Google+ Circles?"
Not everyone is so lucky (Score:4, Funny)
At least George has Clarence as an angel investor.
Re:News for nerds, stuff that matters? (Score:1, Funny)
Slashdot is so lam, the site sole purpose has become to trick people to visit rogue sites. And lets mention those stupid polls; how they gather information for the police. "How many drives do you have?", "where is your favourite hiding spot?", "Do you ever write your password down?", "Do you encrypt your drive?". Welcome to the new world order, you are guilty and you will be punished.
As long as it's averaged with Slashdot karma (Score:5, Funny)
Please mod me up, I want to refinance!
Re:I Wonder (Score:4, Funny)
I would suspect that Facebook's sharing of information with legal authorities includes shadow accounts, and if banks or credit reporting agencies strike a deal with Facebook to get at "indicator" information about people, they'd be able to view shadow accounts as well.
Good point. In Soviet Russia, facebook account has you.
Re:News for nerds, stuff that matters? (Score:4, Funny)
Inorite?
I didn't think much of "What's your favorite color?" or even "What's your favorite brand of pop?".
But then, out of nowhere it was all "If you *did* have a dead body to hide... where would you put it?"
I probably should have lied on that one...
Oh no... (Score:4, Funny)