#UOSM2008 Topic 4: Ethical issues raised by educational and business uses of social media

You would think a PR executive would know better than to tweet a racist “joke” on Twitter and not think of the consequences. The Twitter storm that Justine Sacco created on her tweet “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” will be a testament to how social media can destroy a career and the ethics of using social media (Independent, 2013).

What we must realise in society is that social media is a platform in which to voice opinions and share information which can be accessed by millions. Therefore practices in businesses and educational institutes may already be unethical but with the power of social media it is amplified and can be heard by many (Lauby, 2012).

Cain & Fink (2010) summarise the questions related to ethics superbly, and is shown in the below infographic.

Considering the above points, business ethics have to consider all the questions above. For example the News of the World phone hacking scandal, although it is not social media shows all these questions which need to be considered. Employees hacked phone calls which were meant to be private between a few parties, this in itself is already unethical. This confidential information was then broadcast worldwide. This shows that the media industry as a whole needs to put in place proper ethical practices and procedures. This will include ethical practices on social media platforms too.

Personal & Professional Profile

Perhaps the most common ethical issue is with regards to personal and professional social media profiles. Increasingly there is a blurred line between personal and professional social media profiles, hence it is important that employees of both business and educational institutions understand the boundaries that the individual business or educational institution have set out. For instance, ethical issues would be raised if a teacher were to take a picture of students and upload it onto Twitter. This divide between using social media for personal and professional use is closing and there is a seemingly grey area, which is where ethical issues are raised.

Another issue linked to the personal – professional debate raised by ethical issues is integrity risk. Where employees either post on behalf of the company or on their personal social media accounts which will affect both the company’s image and commitment to ethical practice. (Business Ethics Briefing, 2011). An example of this is Justine Sacco’s Tweet which is mentioned above.

This YouTube video touches on the topic of confidential information on social media platforms and how to act professionally.

Social media platform offers many-to-many communication, and thus it is important to put in place clear cut guidelines within industries and within institutions to ensure ethical standards are met. However, I propose that we should tackle business and personal ethics first. Once this is tackled we would not have to tackle social media ethics as individuals would not act unethically in the first place, and therefore would not be seen or heard by millions on social media.

References

Business Ethics Briefing (2011) The Ethical Challenges of Social Media. Institute of Business Ethics (Online) Available at: https://www.ibe.org.uk/userassets/briefings/ibe_briefing_22_the_ethical_challenges_of_social_media.pdf (Accessed 22nd March 2014)

Cain, J. & Fink, J. (2010) Legal and Ethical Issues Regarding Social Media and Pharmacy Education. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 74(10): 184 [Online] Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058471/ (Accessed 22nd March 2014)

Independent (2013) PR executive Justine Sacco apologises after losing job over racist Aids ‘joke’ provoked #HasJustineLandedYet Twitter storm. [Online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pr-executive-justine-sacco-apologises-after-losing-job-over-racist-aids-joke-provoked-hasjustinelandedyet-twitter-storm-9020809.html (Accessed 21st March 2014)

Lauby, S. (2012) Ethics and Social Media: Where Should You Draw The Line? . Mashable. [Online] Available at: http://mashable.com/2012/03/17/social-media-ethics/ (Accessed 21st March 2014)

Filed under: Topic 4 Tagged: business ethics, Ethics, Social Media, UOSM2008