Issues with trust on the internet is such a big thing. People trust Google to provide their e-mail services, search engine optimization, applications, etc. People also trust Facebook, Twitter, YouTube enough to expose so many confidential information while using their services. However, there are "misunderstandings" in the norms, the relational expectations between users and administrators.
I have to mention that all of the services listed above have their own privacy act; however, it really takes a long time to go over those and identify whether one service is good or not in protecting users' privacy. Users nowadays always want everything NOW, therefore, barely ever look through those acts. They set huge trust into the services.
There is a story I want to share with everyone that I've found online searching for "social media ethics".
From Social Media Ethics WordPress Page:
Unthink to Rethink Social Media Ethics?
Audacious Florida startup Unthink unveiled its beta version to testers today, overtly declaring its plans to take down social media giants, Facebook and Google+. Hinging on a bold social media philosophy–to let users control their personal information, instead of corporations–Unthink quickly reached overcapacity earlier today, prompting heightened interest from activists, and heightened disdain from critics.
Four years in the making, Unthink drew considerable attention in the past few weeks with an abrasive youtube video aimed directly at social media kings, Facebook and Google+. “The gig is up,” the actress in the video declares (more or less directly at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), “You broke my trust.” What began as a fun social activity has degenerated, so Unthink thinks, into an “arrogant,” “lame,” “greedy,” “spying” game. And Unthink’s founders hope to sever Facebook from the user information that has maintained its dynamic ascendancy.
CEO and founder Natasha Dedis recalls reading Facebook’s terms of use four years ago in 2007 when her son wanted to join the site. The frustrated mom was faced with two options: allow her son to sign away his personal information to generic terms that give full license to Facebook’s creative (and ever-expanding) tyranny, or prevent her son from interacting with his friends. Not options she wanted to choose from.
Since then, she and a 100 or so driven techies have been working diligently to create a platform that would counter the limitations of the biggest social media sites, while anticipating their next moves. This, Dedis writes on the company website, is to “emancipate social media and unleash people’s extraordinary potential.”
How Unthink hopes to do this is unclear. The media network, according to TechCrunch, is backed by $2.5 million in venture capitalist funding. According to the site, all information is, by default, private; the user is left to choose what of his personal items may be shared, and with whom. Yet oddly enough, each user is to choose a corporation to sponsor their page (or pay a $2 annual fee). How this remedies the ethical qualms of big-business access to little-person information is presumably based on the user’s input. If you get to choose your sponsor, where’s the harm?
Seems a bit fishy nonetheless.
I hope this story will leave great discussion in class today!
Some questions to think about:
- Is there one social media channel better than the others?
- How is it better?
- What should social media channels do for us as individual users, and as business people later on?
Thank you for reading my blog post. I hope you enjoy it.
- Hien
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