The Assignment on Global Business Environment

GLOBAL BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT

Answer a)
Social Media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are indispensable part of the
global business environments of today. This is because more or less each of the business
organisation is making use of the social media to interact with the varied business
stakeholders. It is important to note that these platforms must work within the ambit of the
legal rules and regulations to ensure safety and security of the data and the stakeholders. The
following work is aimed to present the rising risks to the social media platforms from the
existing and the prospective laws and the impact of the same on a business firm.
There have been numerous instances of the privacy violations and the stealing of the
confidential information from the social media platforms. Thus, there are various laws
formulated for the security of the data of the social media users and the maintenance of the
privacy of the users. In the words of the Digital Secretary of the UK, Jeremy Wright the
existing laws on the lines of the voluntary compliance for the tacking of the online harms
have failed and the companies and the individuals have been making the reckless use of the
social media platforms for the business and other uses (UK Government, 2019). These
voluntary have not been applied on a consistent level, the result of the same is the loss of the
trust of the stakeholders
In a recent instance, UK regulators have proposed the new set of stringent social media laws
to combat the harmful content on the social media. It has been proposed that a mandatory
duty of care would be implemented on the social media platforms like the Instagram,
Facebook and others, and the heavy fines would follow the failure to abide by the same. As
per the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Home Office, an Online Harms
White Paper has been proposed which would be first ever kind of the online safety laws in
the global context. It is important to note that the chief focus of the proposed laws is the
existence of the inherent duty of the care on the part of the social media platforms. As a
result, the platforms are required to ensure that reasonable standards are taken for the tracking
the illegal and harmful activities on the platforms and take actions against such parties. The
proposed law would be a significant step to ensure that the companies abide by their
responsibility of an acceptable conduct on the social media. An independent regulator is
proposed to be established for the said overseeing. Some of the other important concepts that
are covered in the said proposal are that of the child sex abuse, hate crimes, terrorist content,
sale of illegal goods, and others (Woollacott, 2019). In addition, the important thing to be

noted here is the wide coverage of the companies irrespective of the size, which includes the
social media companies, public discussion forums, file hosting sites and others.
The impact of the above proposed online safety laws in the context of the global business
organisations would be that the organisations would have to be more careful while posting
the contents on the social media platforms for marketing and other activities. Thus, the
companies would not be able to sale something that does not matches with the online
specifications, else the penalties would follow. The social media departments of the global
companies would be required to provide training to the employees to interact with the
stakeholders. Thus, it would be right to state that the business activities would be conducted
in a more transparent manner and the interests of the consumers and other stakeholders would
be more secure than the previous times.
The discussions conducted in the previous parts aid to conclude that the legal use of the social
media is one significant component of the conduct of the business of the present times. While
the existing laws have not proved to be enough effective because of the continuing breaches
by the companies of the standard requirements and that has led to the leakages of the vital
private data of the users. New set of laws have been proposed on the lines of the mandatory
follow ups and the fines that would considerably affect the conduct of the business.