It's clearly a bad thing if one wasn't intending to be a ghost online.

I've run into this same issue as more and more internet interactions moved onto walled garden platforms, and an unfortunately-named programming language from the fruit company destroyed my previous decade of SEO...

> Why is this a bad thing?

It is not. :)

I kept myself out of the internet for most of my life. Once I reached my 40s, I decided that I was wise enough to share my experiences in a way that can enrich myself and others. And, I think that it was a good call of judgement. I have never hold extreme opinions (ok, I like Windows) but I didn't have enough knowledge to know how companies will value my writing.

Now that I have a career and a long life experience, I feel confident to publish online. I value young people writings, so being young should not be a stopper to have an online presence. But, you need to evaluate how you feel about it and how much you really know what are you doing.

So, maybe to be a complete ghost online can be a good sign that people are thoughtful or that they have a less extrovert character and none of them is a bad thing.

Because hiring people is risky and expensive, so (all other things being equal) companies prefer candidates they know more about.

I get that, but the context from the article is that of an interviewee looking up the interviewer and commenting that the interviewer was a "ghost" online. To me, that's somewhat bizarre. What bearing does your interviewer's hobbies have on your perception of whether the company and the role would be a good fit for you?

Where I live, it's expected from candidates to show they looked up the company and have prepared a question regarding a project the company is working on or something else about the company itself. So, you actually end up googling the thing.

That doesn't address the question at all.

I was actually saying the opposite: the candidate was telling me that they'd looked up the folks on their interview panel, including me.

It makes one an easy target for negative campaigning. If you have no "real" web pages showing your real self, the first hit will be someone else talking trash about you. Or worse, pretending to be you.

A vast and positive online presence is an insurance.

I am a ghost online, and nobody is talk-trashing me.

If someone tells me I am a ghost online, I'll smile and says "correct!!". And if the person is interested, I can explain why.

Questions are opportunities for meaningful conversation.

Why would anyone publicly trashtalk a ghost?