#UOSM2008 - Topic 4 Summary

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This week topics of ethical issues raised by social media with regards to educational and business use has been extremely interesting.

For me the most exciting part was trying to distinguish between these two lines. Business often want to educate their customers in a business environment too try and encourage users to buy their products. In some cases they need to educate the user in order to increase the chance of a purchase of a product or service.

For the first time in this module I struggled to think of an ethical issue of social media within education. Thank you for the comments which kindly gave me some guidance of the sort of examples required.

As always, different members of the module each took a different approach on the title. The general feel that I got from reading others blog posts. Is that it is becoming increasingly apparent that some sort of guidelines/laws need to be put in place for both business and educational communities with regards to social media. By having these it will hopefully reduce the number of ethically unacceptable incidences. For example it is not acceptable, as discussed in depth, for a head of PR to tweet racist comments, but nor is it acceptable to tweet savage unnecessary abuse in response. As discussed in a previous blog post just because you’re on twitter doesn’t mean you can say what you want.

On the other hand many people discussed whether a one size fits all policy will work or not, the chances are that it will not, mainly due to the variety of users/points of views on social networks.

In my opinion there is always going to be a divide on what is considered a joke and what is abuse. This is more or less dependent on who is involved, any negative feedback I receive is always taken with a pinch of salt, and I never take it personally. But other people/organisations have global reputations to maintain and so taking abusive comments on the chin isn’t always an option.

#uosm2008 - Topic 4 -Discuss the ethical issues raised by educational and business uses of social media

Definition:

“Social media is the interaction among people in which they create, share, or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.” [1]

Ethical issues with social media:

From researching the #hasjustinelandedyet [3] it shows that ethical issues such as racist comments can be easily spread to a global audience. This is an issue because it is the twitter platform that allows the spread of this non-ethical content. This article [4] looks at how twitter is stuck in the middle between freedom of speech and slander laws.

Ethical issues with Educational Use:

For me educational use includes learning about someone. This is what businesses often do while screening candidates online. Is it fair that information intended for social interaction, e.g. Facebook profile pictures, can then be used to asses if your are an appropriate candidate for a job?

Ethical issues with Business use:

From reading an by the Institute of Business Ethics [5], the main issue to be considered is Integrity of the businesses brand image and ethics. This is often compromised by an employee using social media in an irresponsible way, this is sometimes done through a company account and other times done through a personal account, but mentioning the company in question. Various examples can be seen here http://www.smartplanet.com/photos/10-brands-damaged-by-social-media-disasters/ [6].

On the other hand -> Positive Aspects of Social Media:

Social media services such as twitter give a voice to people who have often felt excluded and powerless [2]. Every tweet is public and every #hashtag is valid and so it is easy to get views across and into the public eye. #freedomOfSpeech

Personal Experience:

For me the worrying part is when brands pages apear up on my newsfeed saying that one particular friend and 24 of your other friends like the particular brand. An example from my phone can be seen below.

I worry that many of the pages that I’ve liked may be used as an endorsement to my friends too. The way in that Facebook defend this point of view is that it is like walking out of a shop with a branded bag. By carrying it you tell other people that you like it, and almost that you endorse it.

But shouldn’t consumers who click the like button have a choice about whether their name is used to promote a brand or not?

Just because I’m carrying a bag from Primark doesn’t mean I have to carry it in Primark bag?!

The majority of my Facebook group likes are down to people hijacking my account anyway, with multiple pages including Justin Bieber and One Direction, this could mislead people to thinking I like these bands.

References:

[1] Ahlqvist, Toni; Bäck, A., Halonen, M., Heinonen, S (2008). "Social media road maps exploring the futures triggered by social media". VTT Tiedotteita – Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus (2454): 13.

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/24/twitter-abuse-abusive-tweets-editorial?CMP=twt_gu

[3] http://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonvingiano/this-is-how-a-womans-offensive-tweet-became-the-worlds-top-s

[4] http://gigaom.com/2013/07/30/when-it-comes-to-free-speech-twitter-is-caught-between-a-rock-and-a-very-hard-place/

[5]https://www.ibe.org.uk/userassets/briefings/ibe_briefing_22_the_ethical_challenges_of_social_media.pdf

[6] http://www.smartplanet.com/photos/10-brands-damaged-by-social-media-disasters/