social media and ethics
TRANSCRIPT
Social media and ethics
Making decisions in the cloud
Yvette Walker, E.K. Gaylord Media Ethics Chair, UCO
Night News Director at The Oklahoman
The Oklahoman, Nov. 4 talk to college professors
Mobile: The fastest growing way to access
social media
This is me, taken with
my new iPhone 4s
(darn those overhead
lights!) I shot it and
tweeted it in about a minute.
Half of Mobile users Access Sites Daily
According to a 2011Comscore study on mobile social media usage:
August 2011 — more than 72.2 million people accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device, an increase of 37 % from the previous year.
Nearly 40 million U.S. mobile users — more than half of the mobile social media audience — access these sites almost daily.
Research shows that although more people accessed these sites via their mobile browser, the social networking app audience grew five times faster in the past year.
– Mobile browsing social networking audience grew 24 % to 42.3 million users– the mobile social networking app audience surged 126 % to 38.5
million.
2011 Comscore study on mobile social media usage. http://bit.ly/nc7XxH
It’s also the fastest and easiest way to
post to social networking websites,
especially photos.
Who needs permission?
At a recent talk to college professors, I casually took a photo of one table of profs.
I did not ask their permission.
I uploaded the photo to Twitter and Facebook and then told them during the talk. Their faces showed surprise.
Did I need permission to do this? Is that a question of ethics or just a social nicety?
Ethical questions• From a Utilitarian Perspective• From a Rights Perspective• From a Fairness Perspective• From a Common Good Perspective• From a Virtue Perspective
Thanks to the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University
Ethical questionsUtilitarian: The 2007 hacking of Petaluma High School student
MySpace accounts and the posting of threatening messages highlight some possible harms of social networking.
• Social media sites the scene of cyberbullying. However, same technology allows people to connect. Balance?
Rights: Do social networkers have a right to privacy?
• Employers are looking. Does a person have a right to control the images and information about them available on line?
• David Weisbrot, president of the Australia Law Reform Commission: “Laws designed to protect privacy in the outside world struggle to cope with the issues raised by online communities. For example, online publication of photo-graphs, which may be sensitive and revealing, raises new challenges in relation to consent.”
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University
Ethical questionsFairness: Can social media be egalitarian?
• When we interact with others online, we have no real way of knowing whether they are white or black, male or female, fat or thin, young or old.
• Will this disembodied quality of the online world lead to greater fairness, or will we lose the ability to engage concretely with others, and therefore truly overcome differences?
Common Good: Pope Paul IV described the common good:• “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social
groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.”
• Many turn to social networking sites to connect with social groups that share their interests and values. Does fulfillment have the same meaning online as it does in the “real world?”
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University
Ethical questionsFinally, Virtue: Many of the interpersonal virtues we value
evolved in the context of face-to-face communication.
• Honesty, openness, and patience, for example, are honed in the negotiations we must manage when we meet people in person.
• What impact will digital media have on these virtues?
• What, for example, would honesty mean in the context of a world where people are represented by avatars? Will other virtues emerge as more important in social networking, where we can be constantly connected to a large reservoir of others and can shut off communications easily when we are bored or encounter difficulties?
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University
Know your friends• Steve Buttry’s blog (Director of Community Engagement &
Social Media, Journal Register Co.): http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/
• Prof KRG website (Kenna Griffin, Oklahoma City University professor): http://www.profkrg.com/ethics
• Poynter Institute on ethics: http://www.poynter.org
• Yvette Walker’s blogs (Edith Kinney Gaylord Media Ethics Chair):
• Blogging: The Dilemma http://blogs.uco.edu/thedilemma/
• NewsTeach http://ywalker.tumblr.com/
News media companies• Many companies have created
social media guidelines for employees.
• The Oklahoman has one, as do many other newspapers.
• SPJ Code of Ethics applies• AP recently updated theirs:
AP on retweetingFrom the AP’s guidelines on using social media:
• Retweets, like tweets, should not be written in a way that looks like you’re expressing a personal opinion ... A retweet with no comment of your own can easily be seen as a sign of approval of what you’re relaying. For instance: RT @jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools OR RT @dailyeuropean at last, a euro plan that works bit.ly/xxxxx. These kinds of unadorned retweets must be avoided.
• However, we can judiciously retweet opinionated material if we make clear we’re simply reporting it, much as we would quote it in a story. Colons and quote marks help make the distinction:
• RT Jones campaign now denouncing smith on education: @jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools
• RT big European paper praises euro plan: @dailyeuropean “at last, a euro plan that works” bit.ly/xxxxx.
• These cautions apply even if you say on your Twitter profile that retweets do not constitute endorsements.
Poynter.org
New kids on the block
• Storify – A way to aggregate tweets on a particular topic or hashtag #
• Pinterest – Perhaps the newest social media fad. Looks like a bulletin board.
Storify: I tweeted the Creativity Forum in Oklahoma City
Storify• I included my tweets, some
commentary (such as estimated head count) and photos.
• I could have pulled in others’ tweets from the same conference.
• I also tweeted from the Exhibitor Hall, where there were some interesting ideas.
• “It's kind of like online scrapbooking. It lets me organize the things I like online without a million bookmarks. I'd probably like it just the same if no one saw my boards, but it's fun to see what other people post.” — Senior news editor Amy Raymond
Social media pitfalls #FAILS
Examples and resources from the Public Relations Society of America:
• Facebook Fiasco: “Our industry is better than this” -- PR Week
• “FTC issues $250,000 fine for fake online reviews” -- Ragan’s PR Daily
• “Whole Foods CEO criticized rival in anonymous posts” -- Bloomberg News
• “Kenneth Cole’s Egypt Tweet offends just about everyone on Twitter” -- AOL News
PRSA.org
Thank you!
Yvette Walker• NewsTeach: ywalker.tumblr.com• The Dilemma:
blogs.uco.edu/thedilemma• [email protected]