Topic 4 2017, Page 3

Promoting What?!

Commercials are everywhere on the Web and the use of social media as an advertising platform has become an integral to marketing strategies. However, late last week Google has seen a boycott by some of the largest corporations and governmental organizations as they pull their ads off of its networks in response to association with controversial content. Continue reading →

Topic 4: Social Media Ethics – The Power of Online Endorsements

The term ethics refers to moral principles that govern behaviour (Oxford Dictionary, 2017). In the context of social media and business, ethics can refer to a company’s duty to engage with online consumers in a way that is appropriate, honest and morally sound (Drushal & German, 2011). Due to my interest marketing, I have chosen to focus on the ethics of social media endorsements. Figure 1. Continue reading →

Topic 4: Social Media Ethics

Created using Canva The advent of social networking sites has made all of us more connected and by doing so has allowed others to more easily contact each other. Some of those connections are positive but some are not. The format of social networking we see today began in the late 90s with ‘Six Degrees’, a social networking site that allowed users to create profiles and connect with others through existing relationships or through mutual interests (Boyd et al. 2007). Continue reading →

The Dark Side of the Sharing Economy

Nowadays, ethics is one of the major concerns regarding social media. Continue reading →

Ethical issues of social media

Social media and having a social media account has become the norm in society today, this norm has been reproduced so that school children will now likely have an account of their own on a form of social media. I remember begging my mum to let me have a Facebook account when I was 12, even though the age requirement was 16 at the time. This leads me on to the topic of this week’s blog post, the  issues of social media, and I will be looking particularly at school children. Continue reading →

Internet safety rules

As discussed in Topic 1 the use of the Internet in everyday life is becoming increasingly prevalent thus it was arguably only a matter of time before social media became a part of education (Lauby, 2012). The infographic I have created below using Canva neatly encapsulates these rather pervasive statistics. Continue reading →

Topic 4: Ethics – Businesses & Social Media

As discussed in my comments and reflection for last weeks topic, the ethical implications of social media use within businesses are far-reaching (Gunkel, 2015), and as the web continues to evolve, so do the associated moral challenges. The line between personal and professional is becoming increasingly blurred, and alongside the many benefits, there are shortcomings associated with the use of social media within businesses. Continue reading →

Why business use of social media can be problematic.

Business use of social media has been on the rise ever since marketers and recruiters realised just how useful it could be for them (Copp, 2016). There are a number of reasons why businesses choose to utilise social media, as demonstrated below. Figure 1: Why businesses use social media, self-produced. However, there are increasing problems arising from business use of social media. Continue reading →

Social Media Giants-How they deal with ethical issues online.

According to Reference, ethical issues bring morality and principles into conflict and are more subjective and open to opinions and interpretation. Social media brings to light numerous ethical issues for example the issue of anonymity and privacy, freedom of speech and fake news. Social media giants (Facebook, Twitter) are slowly being forced to deal with these issues and held liable, rightly or wrongly. (S. Continue reading →

Ethics and Social Media

In my posts for topic 2 and topic 3, I considered an aspect of the Justine Sacco incident from 2013 and the risks posed by being a personal presence on social media. In this post I intend to further delve into the ethical aspects of social media, both for individual professionals seeking to use it for business purposes and from the perspective of social media firms. Firstly, I would like to consider another incidence of public shaming which led to job losses. Continue reading →

Privacy – A luxury the Internet cannot provide

    Self-produced: Tagul I am going to start this blog with a daunting quote made by Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google: With your permission, you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches. We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about. Continue reading →

How ethical can children’s use of social media be if they don’t even understand the word ethics?

Social media can be great. However the majority of us were born before any platforms like Snapchat and Twitter, were invented. So how and at what age do we teach children the appropriate and ethical way to behave online? And do adults even understand these ideas  of privacy themselves? (Greenwald, 2014). This is a question troubling many educators as the age at which children have access to the online world is getting younger and younger (Mullen, et al., 2014). Continue reading →

Topic 3- Ethical Issues of Business’ Use of Social Media

Ethics relate to doing what is right, and in businesses using social media for numerous objectives many ethical reasons can arise. These include integrity risk, recruitment practices as well as unethical advertising through means such as spam. In this blog I will specifically target the issue of social media use damaging a firms integrity and reputation. Integrity by definition is being honest and having a strong moral principle. Continue reading →

Topic 4: The Ethics of Social Media in Business Companies.

Figure 1. Statistics of social media users in 2016. Infographic self-produced via Adobe Photoshop CS5. According to the Pew Research Center (2015), 76% of Internet users have at least one social media account. The continuing rise of social media has been adopted by many business institutions as it enables them the opportunity to examine the background of their employees and candidates (Hazelton & Terhorst, 2015). Continue reading →

When Privacy Becomes a Problem

Ethics are a system of moral principles; they affect how people make decisions and lead their lives. Therefore, ethical issues occur when a conflict between the languages of right and wrong are present. Following this, as social media creates a space to invade personal privacy, ethicality is becoming a greater concern within professional use of social media. Subsequently, the following paragraphs will address this further. Continue reading →

Topic 4 – The Ethical Issue that is Online Privacy in Business

In the video below I discuss Prof. Paula Swatman’s (n.d.) findings on ‘ethical issues in social networking research’. These include: Recruitment Privacy Consent Data Sharing Terms of Service https://app.biteable.com/watch/embed/explainer-1-1320043 Explainer 1 on Biteable. During Topic 2 I highlighted privacy as a driver for multiple identities. Due to its significance, I will evaluate it once again in this post. Continue reading →

A non-idealistic view created by social media

On average we spend 118 minutes per day on social media ; this is good news for businesses practising digital marketing but bad news for us who naturally compare ourselves with those around us (hence Festinger’s theory below). Figure 1 Why? Social media provides us with a platform to raise questions about our lives, relationships and body image by comparing ourselves to other users. Continue reading →

The digital divide and social media – An ethical discussion

The proliferation of social media has brought with it an influx of ethical challenges but what exactly does ethics mean? Sources: Ethics definition, cyberethics definition, computer ethics definition Whilst not exclusive to social media, one particular ethical issue emphasised through its use is the ‘Digital Divide’. This is widely accepted to denote the division between those with access to cyber technologies such as the internet and those without. Continue reading →

Topic 4- Ethical issues for business social media use

Ethical issues concern the conduct of moral principles developed by behaving in a correct and honest way. This week, I will discuss the ways in which unethical misuse of social media by business employees may negatively damage business reputation, while also addressing how misinterpretation of social media content by such employees may lead to unjustified job losses. Image 1 On one hand, it appears that employees exposing business confidentially on social media is entirely unethical. Continue reading →

Topic 4: Ethical Issues of Social Media- Confidentiality and Professionals

For Topic 4 I have decided to focus my post on the ideas of confidentiality when professionals use social media. Perhaps they may be posting about their day or something that they experienced, and this may consequently break confidentiality. Key professions where this is likely to be an issue include healthcare professionals, the police and those in law professions, who have access to personal information that could help to identify individuals. Continue reading →