Ethical or Unethical

Nowadays, the social medias have risen rapidly because technologies have improved much better compare to the old days. For example, in the year of 90’s, there are no Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook, or Twitter. Nowadays, social media is very important and efficient way to improve many businesses, but there are ethical issues to consider. It has become a place for hurting, lying, and performing unethical behaviors. Social media opens up a world of opportunities in marketing and advertising, but credibility, trust, and honesty must be considered when using social media as this type of tool.

Product reviews and comments are an easy way for consumers to rate a product, but they can also cause some ethical concerns in any business. I often find myself involved in this activity, and always check the seller’s ratings or product reviews. Having many reviews for certain brand or product is a really good marketing objective. It is no surprise for people like us see reviews play a crucial role in our buying process and decision. One perfect example to show that product reviews and comments carry ethical issue is through the New York Times article, “For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews.” It states that more people are depending on reviews for what the consumer buy and where they will go to buy the products. Thus, the incentives of faking will obviously become larger.

Writing fake reviews is obviously an unethical and wrong thing. But, from my perspectives, there is nothing wrong for writing an incentive review for your brand of the product as long as we do not manipulate what people say. As a seller, he or she definitely wants to deliver his or her products with a positive review in social media. Personally, I think writing good reviews to attract people through social media have become common strategy that most businesses have used.