Ethics and social media Business Ethics

Student Credentials
University
BUSINESS ETHICS AND
SOCIAL MEDIA

Business / Corporate Law 1
1. Introduction- Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you writing this essay? What will
you be basing your evidence on? What will you hope to find out?
Hi, I am Joao from the rich country of Brazil, specifically from the city Rio De Janeiro and I am
writing this essay because Social Media is a trend in modern times and is a major part of every
individual’s day to day activities.
2. Synopsis of the industry
Social Media refers to the social interaction of individual through certain websites and
applications making it easier for people to stay in touch or make contact. It is the technology that
mediates through computer which directly or indirectly helps in the sharing of information or
creation of information. It facilitates the communication between people so that individuals gain
information as per their requirements. Social Media came into existence with the purpose to
provide the users a kind of communication that is quick and convenient to pass on electronically.
The data that can be shared online refers to certain documents, photographs, videos, and also
personal information of an individual. In order to make it more approachable to regular people
and make it convenient to use, it is available for use on almost every tablet, smartphone or even
computers and not just these but users can also access certain web based applications or
softwares so as to communicate with the individuals and pass on information (Hjorth & Hinton,
2019).
3. Select one Industry (Advertising ,Fast food restaurants ,Social Media , Retail clothing).
Social media refers to user-created content which can be audio, text, video or multimedia that is
published and shared online. It is also the online technology that allows users to share content
and communicate with one another. Social media has changed every single human being live.
With that said social media has an impact on almost every other industry (Osterrieder, 2013).

Business / Corporate Law 2
Social media industry is enormous and because of that it can have an impact for the good and
bad in different ways. Social media has brought to my attention serious ethical issues. .“In social
media, the right ethic equals the right perspective and the right thinking on how to leverage
social media appropriately and how to engage people in the right manner.” (Cohn, 2019) .
Sadly not everyone knows how to engage properly on the social and some people end up
suffering from different issues.
4. Discuss the context of this industry and identify TWO ethical issues faced (Give examples of
companies to illustrate your point).
Social Media is facing numerous ethical issues; bullying and misrepresentation are the major
aspects that shall be discussed below.
Ethics is an important aspect in each and every industry. It does not just benefit a person or
individual alone but the whole economy relies upon ethics and each and every industry works
upon certain ethics that are applicable in that certain industry. Similarly there are a bunch of
ethical principles that need to be followed while communicating on social media. A few of the
ethical principles that revolve around the social media industry are, Transparency, not posting
political material or controversial material, similarly not harming an individual’s religious beliefs
is a big no and another important aspect that shall be followed is not being racist or not posting
information that promotes racism.
The major two ethical issues that almost everyone falls a prey for very easily over the social
media are the issues related to bullying and misrepresentation. In every industry there are people
or individuals who have a technique of using dirty tricks so as to benefit from them. It happens
often in scenarios that are concerned with the social media. Bullying is something that takes

Business / Corporate Law 3
place where a person either on the basis of physical attributes or anything as such is teased or
talked about by a certain individual or a community or a group of people. There are various
instances where people have faced bullying and it is not a nice sight to see when a person is
being commented upon their physical attributes or their background or anything for that matter
(Beckman, et al., 2019). Every individual is unique on their own and no one should be
compared to anyone else. There are certain instances where people who have fallen prey of
bullying resulting in fatal and very harmful reactions or outcomes. Harming someone mentally or
even physically is not a good way to lead life which people do not understand well. Women and
girls are quite prone to cyber bullying where people post certain messages and leave specific
comments based upon their gender, weight, background and what not. Cyber bullying is a
common practice throughout the world. Nor just women but Men and young boys are also a
victim of cyber bullying related to their looks, life or even background in various cases so it isn’t
just about gender and no one is hidden from cyber bullying.
Another ethical issue that can be discussed here is misrepresentation; this thing becomes an
ethical issue mostly in cases where e commerce is concerned. In cases where just individuals are
concerned and misrepresentation is done it does not tend to harm much until it’s a case where
misrepresentation is used for pretending to be someone else or for marriage related purposes,
where an individual portrays himself /herself as someone else that who they actually are. This is
one of the reasons why people do not have faith in online dating or marriages. They prefer
meeting and arrange certain meetings where they try to find out the actual picture of an
individual. These are the cases where an individual misrepresents themselves. When this
misrepresentation is done in commercial world, it leads to much harmful effects monetary as
well as physical. When a firm or a company portrays itself as something else or it’s products as