Ethical Implications of Social Media: The Christchurch Video Case

This report delves into the ethical implications of social media, particularly focusing on the Christchurch video case. It begins with an introduction to the topic, highlighting the role of social media in information sharing and its potential for promoting unethical values. The report then examines the ethical issues through the lens of several ethical theories, including utilitarianism, deontology, virtue theory, and contract theory, analyzing how these theories apply to the actions of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in spreading the Christchurch video. It argues that these platforms failed to uphold ethical standards by disseminating content that caused harm, fear, and potentially promoted violence. The report concludes with recommendations for government action and social media companies to prevent similar incidents, advocating for stricter content moderation and the implementation of technologies to automatically remove harmful videos. The report emphasizes the need to foster a positive online environment and mitigate the negative impacts of cyber-technology.

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Ethical theories......................................................................................................................................2
Recommendation...................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................4
References.............................................................................................................................................5

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“Social media deserves blame for spreading the Christchurch video, but so do we”
Introduction
Social Media is a computer based technology which offers the different services for
the entertainment of users such as sharing information, ideas and thoughts with large number
of people. It is the best source and platform of interaction with the people across the world.
The people can share the pictures, videos, and documents to each other with the single click.
It is an easy way to connect with the people and enhance the knowledge of users related to
the world. But social media is also promotes the unethical values to earns the money due to
which many issues arises such as conflicts, immoral values and many others. Like in the case
of Christchurch video, Facebook viral the Christchurch video of showing attack.In this report,
the discussion is made on the unethical behaviour of social media. The Christchurch video
case will be discussed in this report in order to analyse the ethical issues.
Ethical theories
Utilitarianism theory
It defines the actions that provide the happiness to the people in the society. It is the
responsibility of an organisation is to provide the services to consumer as per the requirement
and needs with the purpose of happiness (Mill, 2016). It is observed that the Facebook
perform its responsibility by spreading the video as the people also have curiosity to watch
this video (Bogle, 2019). But it does not bring the happiness because it people scared with the
action of shooters. It scared the people instead of bring happiness. Social media is failed to
bring the happiness that is why; it can be said that the step taken by the companies is states
their unethical behaviour.
Deontology Theory

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It defines the actions those are beneficial for the society. It is necessary for the
organisation to provide the services carefully in order to provide the beneficial services to
users (Meyers, 2018). It has been seen that the users of social media are always use the
application in order to explore and learn the new things from interaction with large number of
people and watching videos. The spreading video of Christchurch shooting attack is
beneficial for the people in terms of enhancing knowledge (Bogle, 2019). But it observed that
the video inspires the more people to show their aggression towards any religion. The video
spread the unethical value that is not beneficial for the society.
Virtue Theory
It defines the behaviour of a leader who brings the happiness by performing the
actions in the other lives (Wedgwood, 2018). The owners of every organisation have the
responsibility to provide the happiness by providing the quality of services to them. In the
case of Christchurch video, Facebook spread the video that was watched by millions of
people. The family members are dies in this attack due to which the users are not happy to
saw the video again and again. It bring sadness in their life instead of bring happiness. The
CEO of Facebook and Twitter control this issue by adopted the technique of hash tag to
remove this video from social media application in order to reduce the unethical values
(Bogle, 2019).
Contract theory
It defines the contract between the people who lives together at a same place. The
contract between the people means the mutual understanding of people for each other. It is
the responsibility of the organisation to provide the effective services to consumers in the
terms of exchanging money. It is the responsibility of CEO of Facebook and Twitter to
provide the services that create the positive environment. In the case of Christchurch video,

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the negativity is spread with the spreading videos in the users mind. The perception of users
is also change regarding the religions and the country due to which many issues are arises
such as conflicts and many others. Social media promotes the unethical values by promoting
or spreading this video for their own benefits (Fried, 2015).
Recommendation
 It is recommended that the government has to take action against the social media
application regarding this case so that the companies take it as serious issue.
 The social media companies like Facebook and Twitter also has to ban these types of
videos.
 The social media applications have to install the software’s to automatically removed
this type of videos from the sites so that the users does not share with each other.
Conclusion
As per the limelight discussion, it is concluded that the social media is beneficial in
many areas but the unethical way of doing the business by these sites is considered as
dangerous for the society. The case of Christchurch video is an appropriate example of cyber-
crime and the disadvantage of cyber-technology. It has been recommended that the
government and the social media companies have to take action in order to develop positive
environment.

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References
Bogle, A. (2019) Social media deserves blame for spreading the Christchurch video, but so
do we. Retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-03-19/facebook-to-
blame-for-christchurch-live-video-but-so-are-we/10911238
Fried, C. (2015). Contract as promise: A theory of contractual obligation. Oxford University
Press, USA.
Meyers, C. (2018). 8 Deontology. Communication and Media Ethics, 26, 139.
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 337-383).
Routledge.
Wedgwood, R. (2018). The internalist virtue theory of knowledge. Synthese, 1-22.