Ethics Topics: Social Networking


Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other social networking sites bring up lots of ethical questions. Here are a few to consider:

Time Theft: Is it wrong to check Facebook from work? Is that actually stealing time from employers? Or does feeling connected to friends help to facilitate focus and productivity?

Privacy: Where do you cross the line on violating the privacy of a friend when posting information about that friend online? You wouldn't spill a potentially life-altering secret told in confidence, but would you post a picture without permission? Would you repeat something learned on that friend's Facebook wall to someone outside the Facebook list that friend chose to share it with? Would you tell something embarrassing about the friend in a semi-anonymous manner (without using the name but in a way others might guess)?

Intellectual Property: Are you posting items on your social networks without acknowledging how you found them? Are you stealing clever status updates from others? Are you retweeting without including the original tweeter's identity in the post?

An ethical study of social networking would ask that we consider our answers to questions like this in light of whether we believe the behaviors to be right or wrong. It also asks of us that we examine how we arrive at our conclusions of right and wrong. By what basis do we determine our ethics, especially in situations that may be new to us and new enough to society at large that we don't have a strong tradition to tell us how others have judged right and wrong?

These are just a few of the ways you might begin research a paper on social networking and ethics. You'll probably want to brainstorm more ideas before you begin.

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