I imagine there’s a decent chance you’ve seen the reports of corporations using interns or other young employees positions in social networks like facebook as well as looking for myspace accounts and other information that might come up on you in major search engines. Some support this, some are pissed, some shrug their shoulders, some debate the ethics of this, but there’s an underlying issue here.
 

It’s no secret that many a corporation is into more socially questionable activities than any given person, but how many people have you heard say, “There’s no way I’m working for corporation_x because they’re socially irresponsible”? Or better yet–”I’m not going to BUY anything from corporation_x because they’re socially irresponsible” ?
 

Don’t get me wrong (either way)–there are definitely people out there using their convictions to hold companies responsible, but it isn’t a common practice of the majority yet. I’m still a proponent of capitalism (well, somewhere between extreme capitalism and extreme socialism,) and am an aspiring entrepreneur myself–this isn’t some anti-business crusade
 

Joe citizen is being held fiscally responsible for his actions online by the corporate world and yet, “we the people” do little to hold corporations responsible for their actions on the local, national and global stages. Of course–they’re getting away with this because we “need” products, and we “need” corporate jobs but there’s a profound underlying hypocrisy when a company that isn’t responsible on the whole decides it wants to be picky about the actions of its employees.
 

I’m not sure it helps much for me to encourage you to boycott the social irresponsible company–to refuse to work for them, buy their stock, their products and services and encourage those you know to do so, because there’s still a void of information here–a lack of compiled information on what your favorite, or least favorite, corporations are up to in the world. “But abathur,” you say, “couldn’t you be incredibly awesome enough to compile such a list?!”
 

Yes, yes I could, but I won’t. I wasn’t planning for this to be my first article, but I stumbled onto this site: http://www.buyblue.org which is already making an effort at a community-driven listing. I’ve seen some other listings of sites but most of those are driven by one person and are going to be, of course, less inclusive and more biased by one persons’s opinions. Likewise, on here, it wouldn’t surprise me (being a public relations major myself) if companies on this site have people with accounts posting positive articles about their corporations to spin things up a bit.
 

I don’t think their site is “there” yet, but with participation, I think it could be a valuable resource. So, I’d encourage you to dig up some (legitimate) dirt and praise for your favorite and least favorite companies and tack it on.