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

So, before we jump into Easter Holidays, it is time to summarise the fourth topic of the term: “Ethical issues raised by educational and business uses of social media”. I will be honest and say that at first read I didn’t understand what the topic was, however, further links had made it clear and in this summary, I will just mention in bullet points, as I did last time, the important points mentioned  by me and my classmates:

• Firstly, let’s start from the causes of this issue. More than 40% of the population were online by the end of the year 2013 (Kelion, 2013) and this number is just shocking. It is quite normal that this kind of issues arise as two out of five people worldwide are online (Also mentioned by Laura Jane Higgins).
• The examples of people behaving unacceptable online are endless. However, those which are related to the business and education world have much more impact, as I gave examples of Virgin Airlines crew (Steview, 2008) and a school teacher being fired (Reporter, 2011) for inappropriate posts. In the former customer service of the company was black marked and in the latter, the situation might shatter the confidence of parents in the school teachers.
• And as Kimberly Fenton have commented on my post, nowadays even CEOs of the companies are required to communicate using social media to “show innovation, build media relationships and provide the human face for the company” (Lipschultz, 2013).

To sum up, I totally agree with Alysia Wildman’s (our classmate) point of view that clear social media policies have to be established, because the grow of the Internet will just make this problem bigger and bigger. Articles number 18 and 29 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are very generic and I’m quite sure that in the year it was established, 1947, they didn’t consider the power of the Internet available nowadays. 

REFERENCES

Kelion, L., 2013. UK jumps up internet scoreboard as digital divide grows. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24426739 [Accessed 23 March 2014].

Lauterpacht, H., 1948. The British Year of Book International Law. Oxford: Oxford Press.

Lipschultz, J.H., 2013. Let's Debate Social Media Communication Ethics. [Online] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-harris-lipschultz/lets-debate-social-media-_b_4293629.html [Accessed 30 March 2014].

Reporter, D.M., 2011. Teacher sacked for posting picture of herself holding glass of wine and mug of beer on Facebook. [Online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354515/Teacher-sacked-posting-picture-holding-glass-wine-mug-beer-Facebook.html [Accessed 23 March 20114].

Steview, S., 2008. Virgin flight crew fired for insulting passengers via Facebook. [Online] Available at: http://www.thetechherald.com/articles/Virgin-flight-crew-fired-for-insulting-passengers-via-Facebook/3032/ [Accessed 23 March 2014].