Global Business Environment: Impact of Social Media & Policies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the global business environment, focusing on two key areas: the impact of social media and the influence of political and economic factors. The first part examines the rising risks to social media platforms from existing and prospective laws, particularly concerning data security and privacy. It discusses the implications of new online safety laws, such as mandatory duties of care, on global businesses and their social media strategies. The second part analyzes the impact of US President Trump's economic policies on foreign economies, including China, the UK, and the EU. It explores the effects of the US-China trade war, the challenges and opportunities for the UK in the context of Brexit, and the potential benefits for the EU. The report concludes by emphasizing the interconnectedness of the global business environment and the ripple effects of major policy changes.

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.

References
Woollacott, E. (2019) UK Proposes Sweeping New Social Media Laws [online] Available
from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2019/04/08/uk-proposes-sweeping-new-
social-media-laws/#7ab283054944 [Accessed on: 20 January 2020].
UK Government (2019) UK to introduce world first online safety laws [online] Available
from: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-introduce-world-first-online-safety-laws
[Accessed on: 20 January 2020].

Answer b)
Political and the economic factors in the external business environment are one of the most
significant factors that affect the conduct of the business. One of the prime political factor
that has significantly affected the global business conduct in various economies is the United
States’ President Trump’s approach to economic policy. The following work is aimed at
shedding light on the impact of the President Trump’s approach to economic policy on the
foreign economies like that of the UK or EU or China.
One of the significant thing to be noted of the Economic Policy of the president Donald
Trump is that the same is focussed on the “nationalism.” Thus, the focus is on the well-being
and the success of the hone country rather than the improvement of the global business,
political and the economic relations. One of the significant impacts of the same on the
economy of China is that the Chinese goods are facing heavy fines and tax impositions in the
light of reduction of the trade deficit between the countries (The Guardian, 2019). The said
phenomena has been popularly referred to as the US China Trade War. It is known that the
demand of the Chinese goods is significant in the global markets including in the US. Thus,
the economic policy has significantly affected the demands of the Chinese goods in the US as
well as the global level, because of the high cost of the manufacturing and the imports. The
US China Trade War has also significantly affected the global business rate and there has
been an overall stalling of the international trade growth, because of the uncertainty over the
trade.
In context of the UK, the US economic policy would lead to the mixed impacts on the
business and the economic activity. As the new economic policy is aimed at making the
United States stronger on the lines of the economic independence, the trade negotiations for
the export of the goods from UK to US have become slightly tougher. A considerable stress
has been put on the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on the lines of the global trade
governance. In addition, as the Britain is already on the verge of the Brexit, there is a great
deal of uncertainty of the impacts of the US economic policy on the UK. Thus, the weakening
of the WTO rules together with the Brexit is not estimated to be much fruitful for the UK
(Ojo, 2016). Though, the UK has also an opportunity to act as an intermediary between the
US and China and can benefit from the supply chain intermediation. In addition, there are
heightened tensions in context of the security risks as posed by the Chinese business
organisations like Huawei to negatively affect the UK trade organisations.

In context of the EU, it has been stated that the new opportunities have been created for the
said region. This is because the countries like China would need the regions of the EU as the
target market for the export of the goods. Thus, the countries in the EU regions have an
opportunity to set themselves as the intermediary between US and China, also because of the
physical location. As per the estimates of the UNCTAD the EU exports would significantly
be benefitted from the heightened US-China trade war in light of the new economic policy of
Trump, and EU can capture $70 billion trade (Plummer, 2019). In addition, the loss of the
Britain as a significant trade partner for the EU would open avenues for trade from US as
well. This is also an opportunity to strengthen the position of EU on the face of the world
politics which would indirectly yield positive effects on the business organisations of the EU.
The discussions conducted in the previous parts aid to conclude that the global business
environment of the present times is so interlinked that the major change in one of the
developed economies leads to the trickle down of the said effect in various ways in various
regions. The work elaborated the effects of the changed economic policy of US to be negative
for the China, mixed for UK and mostly positive for the EU.

References
Ojo, M. (2016) Free Trade and Trade Protectionism: US-China Relations and Post Brexit
Impact on UK-China Relations [online] Available from:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2846955 [Accessed on: 20 January
2020].
Plummer, M. (2019) The US-China Trade War and Its Implications for Europe [online]
Available from: https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2019/number/3/story/the-us-
china-trade-war-and-its-implications-for-europe.html [Accessed on: 20 January 2020].
The Guardian (2019) Why is Trump imposing tariffs on China and how could it affect global
economy? [online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/02/why-
is-trump-imposing-tariffs-on-china-and-how-could-it-affect-global-economy [Accessed on:
20 January 2020].