Strange Bedfellows: TheConflicting (and

Conflicted) RelationshipBetween Ethics and

Social Media

Dr. Thom FlamboeAssistant ProfessorPresentation College

It All Started When…

Top Three Social Media Sites(ebizmba.com, 10-2014)

900,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors |

310,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors

255,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors

Facebook

• Facebook (formerly [thefacebook]) is an online social networking service headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

• Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students, but later expanded it to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities and later to their high-school students. Facebook now allows anyone who claims to be at least 13 years old worldwide to become a registered user of the website, although proof is not required.

Privacy Concerns

• Since 2010 the National Security Agency has been taking Facebook profile information from users to discover who their allies, friends, and colleagues are.

• In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook for its own purposes. In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook)

Twitter

• Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets".

• Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS, or mobile device app. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has more than 25 offices around the world.

• Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass and by July 2006 the site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users who in 2012 posted 340 million tweets per day. The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day. In 2013 Twitter was one of the ten most-visited websites, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet.“

(Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter)

Linkedin

• LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking service. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. In 2006, LinkedIn increased to 20 million viewers. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 259 million acquired users in more than 200 countries and territories.

• As of 2 July 2013, Quantcast reports LinkedIn has 65.6 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 178.4 million globally, a number that as of 29 October 2013 has increased to 184 million.(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn)

What is Social Media?

• Social Media is the future of communication, a countless array of internet based tools and platforms that increase and enhance the sharing of information. This new form of media makes the transfer of text, photos, audio, video, and information in general increasingly fluid among internet users. Social Media has relevance not only for regular internet users, but business as well.

(Source: http://www.socialmediadefined.com/)

Ethics

• The basic concepts and fundamental principles of decent human conduct. It includes study of universal values such as the essential equality of all men and women, human or natural rights, obedience to the law of land, concern for health and safety and, increasingly, also for the natural environment. See also morality.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/ethics.html#ixzz3F0OJASI1

(Source: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/ethics.html)

The Law and Social Media

• Expect to receive the same consequences online as in real life. Freedom of speech is applicable to online communications, however you can still be fired for anything. Personal responsibility.

• There is a ton of gray area – it all comes down to the details of each case. It’s best to use your best judgment and common sense. If you have a doubt, don’t post it. Once you do, it’s out there for good. It’s all about risk assessment.

The Law

• Social networking users don't enjoy any of the immunities granted to social networking sites under the law, so they should be careful to always act appropriately when posting messages or files to the sites. The main areas where users can get themselves into trouble are through the posting of defamatory content or content that infringes on intellectual property rights. –

(See more at: http://technology.findlaw.com/modern-law-practice/understanding-the-legal-issues-for-social-networking-sites-and.html#sthash.ZbwGaGRz.dpuf)

Concerns

• Taking photos of people at an event and sharing the photo on social media sites is fairly low-risk. However, the more places you share the photo (i.e. in a blog post or in promotional material) the higher your risk becomes as more and more people view the image. There also tends to be more backlash when they are photos of children.

Gaffes

• An email sent by a juror during a recent rape trial in Brown County could lead to a request for guilty verdicts to be set aside or cited in a request for an appeal.

• The email was sent to a group of the juror’s friends. It says to one recipient in particular that, “with your quick mind and drive, you could out-lawyer at least 50 percent of the folks I am watching right now and would be a great match for the other 50 percent.”

• Aberdeen American News, April 14, 2014

Older Adolescents' Motivations for Social Network Site Use: The Influence of Gender, Group Identity, and Collective Self-Esteem

To cite this article:Valerie Barker. CyberPsychology & Behavior. April 2009, 12(2): 209-213. doi:10.1

• This study assessed motives for social network site (SNS) use, group belonging, collective self-esteem, and gender effects among older adolescents. Communication with peer group members was the most important motivation for SNS use. Participants high in positive collective self-esteem were strongly motivated to communicate with peer group via SNS. Females were more likely to report high positive collective self-esteem, greater overall use, and SNS use to communicate with peers. Females also posted higher means for group-in-self, passing time, and entertainment. Negative collective self-esteem correlated with social compensation, suggesting that those who felt negatively about their social group used SNS as an alternative to communicating with other group members. Males were more likely than females to report negative collective self-esteem and SNS use for social compensation and social identity gratifications.

Ethical factors to consider

• Internet Safety

• Privacy issues for educators and students

• Appropriate Use

Problems

• Cyberbullying

• Photos

• Comments – Slander?

• Despair texts

• Response to the Above

Basic Rules for Jurors

• • Do not discuss the case beyond telling others that you have been selected as a juror, whether it's a civil or criminal case and how long the trial might last. After a trial ends, jurors may speak freely about a case.

• • Do not discuss the case with other jurors until deliberations begin.

• • Do not try and gather information about the case aside from what's presented at trial.

• • Do not even casually visit with attorneys, the defendant, witnesses or others involved in the case. Even an innocent conversation can cause concerns.

• • Do not read or listen to media accounts of the case until it's over. Avoid social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Facebook Posts

Examples

Suggestions

• Use common sense. If you don’t want someone posting that about you, don’t post it about someone else. If you’re worried about clicking “send” or “post” there’s probably a reason, so don’t do it

• Know the rules. It’s easier to break them if you pretend they don’t exist, but doing so opens you up for litigation, and backlash in an arena where news travels fast.(Source: http://www.toprankblog.com/2013/10/social-media-law-smbmsp/)

Rules(from Intel)

10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy

• 1. Introduce the purpose of social media

• 2. Be responsible for what you write

• 3. Be authentic

• 4. Consider your audience

• 5. Exercise good judgment

10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy

• 6. Understand the concept of community

• 7. Respect copyrights and fair use

• 8. Remember to protect confidential & proprietary info

• 9. Bring value

• 10. Productivity matters(Source: http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/)

INTERNET SAFETY GUIDELINES(Boy Scouts of America)

• Keep online conversations with everyone in public places, not in email.

• Do not give anyone online your real last name, phone numbers at home or school, your parents’ workplaces, or the name or location of your school or home address unless you have your parents’ permission first. Never give your password to anyone but a parent or other adult in your family.

• If someone sends or shows you email or any type of direct message/wall post with sayings that make you feel uncomfortable, trust your instincts. You are probably right to be wary. Do not respond. Tell a parent or trusted adult what happened.

• If somebody tells you to keep what’s going on between the two of you secret, tell a parent or guardian.

• Be careful to whom you talk. Anyone who starts talking about subjects that make you feel uncomfortable is probably an adult posing as a kid.

INTERNET SAFETY GUIDELINES

• Pay attention if someone tells you things that don’t fit together. If one time an online “friend” says he or she is 12, and another time says he or she is 14. That is a warning that this person is lying and may be an adult posing as a kid.

• Unless you talk to a parent about it first, never talk to anybody by phone if you know that person only online. If someone asks you to call—even if it’s collect or a toll-free, 800 number—that’s a warning. That person can get your phone number this way, either from a phone bill or from caller ID.

• Never agree to meet someone you have met only online at any place off-line, in the real world.

• Watch out if someone online starts talking about hacking, or breaking into other people’s or companies’ computer systems; phreaking (the “ph” sounds like an “f”), the illegal use of long-distance services or cellular phones; or viruses (online programs that destroy or damage data when other people download these onto their computers).

• Promise your parent or an adult family member and yourself that you will honor any rules about how much time you are allowed to spend online and what you do and where you go while you are online.