Social Media Ethics on Privacy Issues

There is an article that I read earlier today entitled, "Ethics in the Age of Social Media: What Kind of Future Are We Building?" by Tonia Ries on The Real Time Report. It discussed about the ethical challenges that current social media is facing. You can read the article here.

Nowadays, concerning towards social media and privacy, there is no way people can express whatever they want online without consequences. So far I'm sure, most people already know that anything that you post online could be put against you in the future. It could possibly haunt you in the years to come, so be very careful of what you post online as it is being kept forever in the internet database. Even if you have deleted things, it is still possible to bring that information up. These days, more and more companies are screening employees through social media sites. And therefore, it is important to maintain a good profile and polite language, as if it's as important as your criminal record. The safest thing to do would be to not post anything that you wouldn't want your boss to see. Don't think that Facebook privacy is too secure and kept unseen, there are many people that are fired for their stupid mistakes, by posting in an inappropriately manner on someone's Facebook.

The thing that concerns me the most is how many platforms keep and manage our data. We, as consumers are signing up to multiple social media platforms these days and I believe that many still are not aware that they are giving the right to their ownership and their own data to the platforms. Although, many platforms are still pushing their limit of how they can use that data. But still, there are constant battles over privacy issues for most platforms. I like how the article mentioned that if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold. Most importantly, what do we think is the ethical thing that most platforms should do with our data? In that case, for people who blamed Facebook that they got fired, they should seriously reconsider whom should be blamed upon . They are given the pleasure of free service by Facebook, and by signing up for free, they should know better that they are automatically signed to the agreement with Facebook. In this case, they wouldn't be the customer after all.