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Explore some of the ethical and legalimplications around social media

The Egyptian street protests of Israels attack on Hamos inGaza in late 2008 had become a standard sight for Egyptsgovernment, but discussions and anger spilled from the streetto another type of social venueFocebook.

Facebook has become wildly popular in mudi of the Arab world,typically ranking In the top ten of most-visited Internet sites in the region and rankingthird in Egypt, behind Google and Yahoo.

Parity because Egypts restrictive laws hinder the ability of journalists and citizensto criticize the government publicIc Focebook has become an important space fordissenters to gather and discuss As with mostsocial-networking sites, groups can wax andwane according to the whims of its users, butone group has attracted seventy thousandmembers In only about a yeac

The April 6 Youth Movement Is a groupcreatedinsprlng2008tohelporganizeana-tionwide strike. The groups members, mostlyyoung and educated Egyptians. now use thegroup to discuss ways to improve Egypt, rangi ng f rom freeing jailed joumalists to makingthe economy strongeL

Mother aspect of social media has become evident Members are not content simply talking about the issues online but haveorganized events and protests. (This use of so- -

,clal media and the interactions they encourage has also become evident in the UnitedStates and elsewhere, particularly in politicalcampaigns.) Furthermore, all the interactionoccurs without the need for any traditionalmedia channels, making Egypts government controls on the press and broadcast stations largely ineffectual for those with access to Facebook.

:ial MediaWeb 2O

Defining Social Media Media Quiz: How Connected AreYou?What Is Social About Social Media? International Perspectives: Lily Allen:MySpoce Star Reaches the Starslrjpes of Social MediaWhy Social Networks Matter Convergence Culture: Are We ReallySeparated by Six Degrees?CollaborativeMedia WorkEthical and Legal Issues with SocialMedia Convergence Context Web 3.0:The Semantic We bLooking Bock and Moving ForwardDiscussion QuestionsFurther ReadingMedia Quiz Answer

is ip; :(CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

In this chapter we will: Define what social media is. Explore the differences between sooal mediaand traditional media. List the main characteristics of social media. Explain the historical development of social

media within a larger mass-communicationscontext,

Understand how audiences are changing fromconsumers to produsers

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How Connected AxeYou?

he tools and capabilities of social media havebeen around in some form ever since the earliest days of theInternet, but not until the past few years has their true potential beenrealized in business and media companies. Many ofthe changes have been drivenf rom t he ground up, ra ther than by traditional media companies, a fact thatsimultaneously gives power to social media and often great ly threatens traditionalbusiness models. In some cases, the nature of certain professions is being calledinto question, due in part to a combination of economic forces and new ways ofproducing and sharing content,The term Web 2,o has become popular in describing various aspects of socialmedia. Coined at a 2004 conference by technology publisher OReilly, the term.despite its popularity, h as had questionable descriptive value. Although catchy inthat it mirrors the terminology used for new versions of software, it also to someextent misleads.There was no major technological shif t or improvement in the Web that woulddifferentiate Web to from Web 2.0. Rather, the term was meant to symbolizea few changing aspects of the Web. One was the sense of the Web being revivedafter the dot-corn collapse of 2000, when much of the hype surrounding the Webeconomy during the late 19905 turned out to be so much hot air. Another was thechanging uses of the Web, involving more people working with and talking to eachother than had been seen before. Wikipedia is a notable example of this kind of seachange in cooperation and content creation, but there a re many other examples,some ofwhich will be discussed in this chapter.Although Web 2.0 (along with the many variations it has spawned sincethenMe 2.0, etc.) will likely remain as a general term to describe the fundamental changes taking place in online media today, we will try to avoid the term anduse the more descriptive social media. As we will see, this term also needs to becarefully defined.

Defining Social MediaSocial media is still a new enough idea that it continues to be defined by scholars, professionals, and the press. It is hard to find a definition everyone agrees on,partly because the tools for social media change with advances in technologies, and

1. How do you definesoclal media?2. How many social-networking sites do you have profiles on?3. WhIch social-networking site do you use primarily?Why?4. How often do you add contenttoyour page on your ma in social networking site?5. (TIE) Web 2.0 refers to a radical technological updating of the Web in 2003 that allowed for thecreation of social-networking sites like Facebook.6 . H av e you ever contributed content to a wiki, such as Wikipedia?7 . H av e you ever tagged content?B. Do yousha re your bookmarks on si tes like Delicious?9. How would you feet if a total stranger approached you and started talking to you as if he knew you

because he saw yourprofilepage on a social-networking site?10. What is your Kevin Bacon number?

popular s i tes or trends seem to lose popularity almost as quickly as they came intothe limelight and were touted as The Next Big Thing.

We can look at some commonly used dehnitions and from these definitionsstart to parse underlying elements common to all of them, then apply these to therealm of mass communication.According to John Jantsch, author of the Duct Tape Marketing blog, socialmedia can be defined as the use of technology combined with social interactionto create or co-create value. He keeps the definition concise because his readersare busy marketing professionals.

PR professional and social-media expert Brian Solis defines social mediaas a shift in how people discover, read, and share news and information andcontent. Its a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue(one to many) into dialog (many to many.)Anvil Media, a search engine marketing firm, provides a definition derivedfrom sociology:

An umbrella term that defines the various activities thatintegrate technology, social interaction, a nd t he constructionof words and pictures. This interaction, and the mannvrin which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and buildingof shared meaning, as people share theirstories, and understandings.There are certain common aspects of these definitions. All mention the intersection of technology, social interaction, and information sharing. These mayseem like simple elements, but they have transformed many aspects ofmass communication and promise to disrupt them even more.Before looking at the elements in more detail and exploring how they are disrupting mass communication and media industries, it is necessary to see how

social media differ from traditional media.

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CREATIONThe digital media tools that make it easy for people to create Content have played amajor role in the rise ofuser-generated media content. The other important factor,as discussed in the previous chapter, is the low cost of distributing that contentthrough online networks. Without the ability to easily and cheaply disseminatecontent, the media landscape today would look vastly different. It could even besaid that social media as we know them now would not exist.Simply because the toots are readily available to create media doesnot ofcoursemean that everyone will start churning out great works of art. Most people in factwill be satisfied consuming media and not creating anything, and there will be farmore amateurish or poor-quality types of content online than there will be highart. Even with something like Twitter, in which messages are o characters or less,90 percent of the content is generated by only to percent of the users. However,even ifs small percentage of the people online create and shar e content, there willstill be a larger poe1 of media content than existed in the traditional media worldbecause of the sheer numbers of people online.Creating content is not without its challenges. As noted elsewhere in this book,intellectual property laws are being challenged by a digital culture that sees nothing wrong with borrowing freely f rom exis ti ng media to create something new.Furthermore, many people online have come to expect a variety of media contentfor free, Rather than encourage creativity, as intellectual property laws were meantto do, more restrictive laws may have the opposite effect in that they will removecreative material f rom the publ ic domain. Bus by t he same token, content creatorsshould be compensated for their work.

COLLABORATIONAlthough it may not seem like collaboration is an important element of social media, when reading s ome o f the vitriol, name-calling, and inane comments oftenfound on discussion groups, in fact collaboration underpins much of social media.The willingness of people to collaborate on a common good for no personalmonetary gain is perhaps one of the biggest surprises one encounters when firstexamining social media. It is one thing to spend hours creating a widget with thehopes of selling it or copyrighting it for licensing, but quite another to d o s o andprovide it to the Web community for free use, or to provide open access to yourprojectand invite others to work on it and improve on it, as L inus Torvalds did withwhat became the Linux operating system.There have been a number of cases of collaboration extending from the onlinerealm to offline, especially in organizing people around polit ics or social movements, In fact, the mos t successful uses ofonline tools in political campaigns haveincluded ample opportunities for people to socialize in real-world settings as well,This was the lesson learned by the Howard Dean campaign in 2004, from looking at Al Gores failed presidential campaign in 2000. Dean used online tools to

encourage supporters to get together in person and act, generating millions of dollars for his campaign in the process. Although Dean eventually dropped out of thepresidential race, the lessons learned from that campaign were applied to Obamaspresidential campaign in zooS.I n s ome ways, the realization that people need real-world socializing to Complement their online socializing harkens back to the earliest days of social media,long before that term was applied. In fact, the need to meet, interact, and discusswas an impetus for the earliest online communities, many of which are precursorsto todays social-media tools and still widely used today.

Lily Allen: MySpace Star Reaches the StarsA single by an up-and-coming artist is nothing new, butwhat makes Lily Allens rise to pop stardom in the musiccharts unique is her use of MySpace and the tote itplayed in getting her noticed by mainstream music media andlaunching her to fame.Allen was not a complete newbie t o t h e music andartsscene in the UK She already had some experience singingand performing in some films, and had a record contractwith Regal Records, but they were unable to support heralbum much due to their commitments with other recording artists.

So Allen used her MySpace page to release and promote demos of her songs, and her site started attractingthousands of listeners, When a music pubhcatron noted hergrowing popularity on MySpace that attracted even morepeople to her site to download her music. By early 2009,her songs had been downloaded from the site more than32 million times, and she had nearly five hundred thousandMySpace friendsAs a sign of the different dynamics of social media andthe complexities that come with stardom in the mainstream,Allen often used her MySpace page to discuss personalissues or criticize her press coverage and even her ownbehavior. Similarly, when she had a miscarriage in 2008,the page became the hub for countless condolences fromfans But by 2009 she slopped making pemonal posts, asshe felt her words were often getting twisted in the mainstream media.

In 2007 her second album, Its Not Me, Its You, debutedat number one on the charts in Australia and the UK. Herfirst album, Alrighf Still, has won her numerous awards andsold over 2.6 million copies worldwide.

%iicfous:Social booknrarkingwww.detiriouscom

The online environment lends itself so a curatorial mode of contributing tothe social-media space. It is much easierto tag something with terms, or to writea one-paragraph review of a book, or to write a few lines on a product recentlypurchased. Similarly, it is much easier to f ind fault with something. Online reviews have become increasingly important in consumers decisions ranging fromhousehold goods to media products.

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A battle continues between spammers and companies creating software toblock spam. Automated filtering software often removes m uc h o f the spam butmay also inadvertently remove desired messages.The problem with spam clogging the Internet and inboxes reflects the downside of easily being able to share content. Jus t as lowered costs of distribution onthe Internet have helped create online communities and give the public a chanceto distribute media content on a par with established media companies, it hasalso made it easier for individuals and companies to abuse that distribution syst em, making it less valuable for all. l.egislators are fighting back in several states,however, with increasingly stringent antispam laws that penalize spammers. Still,antispam laws are generally not effective i f t he spammers are based overseas, asmany are.

. . DISCUSSION BOARDS AND WEB FORUMSA discussion board is a type of online bulletin board where Internet users canpost messages that can be seen by others coming to the discussion board and inwhich they can post responses to previous messages, or posts , or create their owndiscussions on a new topic. Series of messages that reply to a certain post are organized by threads according to their subject headers, making it easier for userscoming to a discussion topic to follow the thread of the discussion back to earlierreplies and the original posting.Today, most discussions are on Web-based forums, which provide a variety ofuser-friendly tools so create and post discussions. The precursor to the web forumswas Usenet, created in 1979. which even today provides thousands of discussionboards, each separated by categories called newsgroups. Separating newsgroupsby general categories, as well as letting anyone create their own newsgroup on anytopic , helps make finding discussions of interest to users easier and facilitates users starting their own communities.The formation of newsgroups by users shows how firmly rooted certain aspects of social media a re in the Internet. Within general categories already created,users can create very specific subcategories, thus defining communities of interest.Until recently, most news organizations d id n ot permit or encourage discussionboards on their websites, in part because of their fear of being held liable for whatreaders might say o n t he boards and in part because they were worried that suchdiscussion boards would detract from the focus the news organization wanted theaudience to haveconsuming the news content created by the organization.However, now most news organizations have seen that providing a forum forreaders to discuss news stories or other topics of interest related to the news hasincreased readers engagement with the organization. At times, the conversationabout a single news article maytake on a life of its own, even perhaps outweighingthe original article in terms of the value of information provided.Partly because of theease of sending messages, discussion boards often sufferfrom a few individuals who either tend messages not related to the discussion-board topic or send numerous messages on variations of the same topic, effectivelymonopolizing the conversation space . Some discussion boards are moderated,

which means a moderator either approves all messages before they are posted orhas the ability to kick anyone offthe discussion hoard or to block his or her posts.Another weakness of discussion boards is the difficulty in fully exploring an issue,especially when many people are commenting on various aspects of a complextopic, and the ease in which members can go off.topic.

Discussion boards are a vital form of mass communication on the Internet.Their format and asynchronous nature (i.e., not requiring users to be online atthe tame time> allow for relatively lengthy expositions on topics written wheneveris convenient for the person sending the message. They also provide value evento members who do not post messages but simply read what others are writing, apractice called lurking. Some discussion-hoard creators encourage newcomers tolurk for a while so they can become familiar with the tone and type of topics beingdiscussed on the hoard before posting messages of their own.On e of the earliest online communities, crested through discussion groups,is still thriving today. The WELL (Whole Earth Lectronic Link) began in 1985 andcontinues t o d o w el l as a place of high-quality and interesting discussions amongits members, many of whom are noted intellectuals, artists, authors, and creativethinkers.The WELL has been likened to the Park Place of email addresses in a Wiredstory, and its unusual policy of demanding that users provide their real namesrather than user names is supposed to have both helped she quality of discussionand fostered the strong sense of community that has built up among its members.Now owned by the Salon Media Group, publisher of Salon magazine, it chargesits members fifteen dollars a month to belong (which, in Internet terms, may alsohelp distinguish i ta s a Park Place address). It is one of the few online communitiesthat have been successful in charging members to ge t in simply for discussions.

CHAT ROOMSA chat room is a virtual room in which a community of users can visit and talkwith each other through text messages, in real time. Like discussion groups, chatrooms are usuallydivided by topic, ranging from highly technical computer issuesto pop stars to sex. Chat rooms differ from instant messaging, which also takesp lace in rea l time, in that instant messaging usually involves an online conversat ion between two or at most a few people.Since chat rooms a re synchronous, or take place in real t ime, they can be effectively used by media organizations to promote special guests online and let theaudience speak to them, much like a radio station would have a musician visitthe station and talk to callers.Even without a star attraction, a chat room can often be chaotic and much liket rying to talk to someone across the room at a crowded, noisy party. It can be difficult to tell who is being addressed,although some chat rooms have general rulesand guidelines posted for proper behavior. Although messages may be sent in realt ime, the fact that they must be typed inevitably slows down the give-and-take thatoccurs during natural conversationswhich can lead to confusion, as one c ha troom member may be responding to something asked two o r more commentsago. Some chatters can monopolize the conversation as w el l o r repeatedly postthe same message, a practice called scrolling, which quickly draws the ire of otherchatters i n t he room.Chat rooms are perhaps best used when the topic of conversation is focusedand relat ively narrow. Viewers of a television show, for example, could be ina chat room during the show and discuss aspects of the stars, plot, or serieswith each other. This type of interactivity, although not directly part of the show,greatly empowers audience members as they establish connections between like-minded individuals in online communities and inform. educate, and entertaineach other.

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John would likely be the best pe rson to first introduce yourself to, as he couldmake the introduction or introduce y ou t o someone who considers the personyou want to meet a friend.This is how the no tion of six degrees of separation works, the idea that everyone in the world is connected by at most six other nodes in a social network.Generally we simply have nothad a way to know whatthose networks are, thus theamazing coincidences that occur when we learn about a mutual connection suchas attending the same school or having a common friend. Social-networking siteshave helped make our social networks visible.Our common sense tells us that a tight-knit group of friends like Peter has(called a small world, in social-network analysis) is important in social networks,but this is not the case. Far more important ar e weak ties, or the connections between various small worlds, This is partly because members in a small world tendto share the same resources, so ifsomeone in Peters small world is looking for ajob, i t i s likely all the members know of the same openings and may even be competing for the position.

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Let us say that John had to leave the party early for another engagement (he isa popular guy, after all) and see how the social-network diagram radically changes.Suddenly Josh, whose sole connection to the party was through John, becomes anisolate (assuming Josh didno t make any meaningful friendship connections whileJohn was still there). Either the party now looks a lot less interesting for Josh orthe snack table with thatstrange guy lurking around it looking lonely starts to lookmore inviting.Similar changes take place for Peter and his friends, the tight-knit groupwho go everywhere together. Now if any of them want to easily meet Lisa andher friends, Peter had best go through Fred and have him make the introduction.Although there is only one fewer member at the party, the dynamics shift dramatically from a communications and relationship standpoint, making some peoplehubs based on their relationships a nd t hu s elevating their status as connectorswhile isolating others. This is the power ofmapping out social structures as socialnetworks. If Fred leaves the party, friendship connections between the different

he notion that everyone inthe world is separated by nomore than six degrees, or sixlinks in a network, gained the attention of the public through anexperiment conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgrarn in the1950s.He sent copies of letters topeople In the Midwest andaskedthem to send the letter to theperson they thought would bemost likely t o b e able to forwardthat letter to a certain lawyer living in Bos ton. Out o f the forty-two letters that reached the lawyers home, the average number of links was nearlysix, although the range was quite large.Although Milgram never used the term six degrees of separation, it became popularized in a 1984play of that name in which his experiment was referenced, The notion has become even more widespread as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon; in which thedegrees of separation of various actors with Kevin

Bacon is calculated. This can easily be done throughthe Oracle ofKevin Bacon website, which usesthe Internet Movie Databaseas its source, It c an b e surprising to discover how connectedeven long dead actors are withKevin Bacon. This works so wel lbecause, if you consider the actors gathered on a movie set as asmall world of tight connectionsas they get t o know each otherwhile filming, they get t o knowa large number of other actorswho then goon to other moviesas well ,Although it is difficultto find an actor or actressseparated from Bacon bymore t han even five degrees, Kevin Bacon is actually not the most connectedHollywood actor. Both John Carradirte and Robert

Mitchum had far more connections than Bacon has.

sic degrees 55 separationThe idea that eeoyome in thnwor ld is sopara ted from eachothvr by at most six othern od es i n a social network.

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AreWe Really Separated by Six Degrees?

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small worlds quickly disintegrate, making the party a collection of small worldsunconnected to each other.The party example may seem mundane, and in this example one could legitimately ask, Why doesnt Peter just go over and talk to Lisa and her friends if hewants to meet her? Th is of course is exactly whathappens in parties as new linksare easily made. However, the prindples outlined here apply just as well if Peter isin the London office, John is in New York, Lisa is in Tokyo, and Fred in Singapore.It is the social-network structure, not the geography, that is relevant. John wouldbe just as important in this example as someone who can easily connect people.In fac t, because the people cannot easily meet face-to-face, his power to connectpeople through a network becomes even more important than at the party.

Now consider a social-networking site you belong to and see what it does froma social-networking perspective. The connections application that shows yournetwork and friends of friends is one important element, but the other activitiesand applications that have been developed are equally important. They allow youto s ee what activities others ar e doing, to talk directly with them, to ask them tojoin g roups you are interested in, to t ake qu izzes and share common knowledge,

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to laugh together at photosany number of activities that encourage social interaction and the making of new social ties, and all through a mediated environmentt hat does not necessarily rely on consuming traditional mass media fare (thoughthat does help with conversations and interaction as well).Social networks have been used in studying how boards ofdirectors in variouscompanies are interconnected, as the same principles regarding small worlds oftight Connections and weak links of looser ties apply. These networks can often beuseful for companies, in that a company board member may s it on other boards

as well and thus be linked to people who could help a business in any number ofways. The website They Rule is a visual database that shows the interconnectionsand social networks of boards of directors ofmajor companies.From this brief overview of basic social-network principles, it should be clearhow important it actually is when we say someone is well connected. Early sodalmedia such as email and discussion groups gave people the communicative toolsto connect but still did not allow people to visualize their social networks. Social-networking si tes added that last, powerful piece to the tools that already existed,and tha t helped spur on more development of social media, thanks in part to a cu lture of collaboration that had developed in parallel with the Internet over the years.

collaborative Media WorkCollaboration is one of the principal elements of social media, and it is importantto consider not only because of the media creation that comes out of it, as in thecase ofWikipedia, but because it threatens established media business models thathave been used throughout much of the twentieth century and into this one.Without the spirit of collaborat ion and free sharing the Internet would lookvery different, and it could be argued it might not even exi st as we know i t today. Remember t hat t he Internet was developed by computer programmert andengineers who had a commitment to sharing information and knowledge, f re eof the limitations the marketplace puts on such activity. Without the efforts of agood number of very smart people either working for free or paid by taxpayer dollars , the backbone of the Internet would not exist, as no company would have theresourcesor be willing to spend the resources if it didto create the structureneeded, especially when there was no clear way to profit from it.

ROOTS IN THE OPEN-SOURCE MOVEMENTCollaborative or participatory media trace their roots online to the open-sourcemovement, or free-software movement, in which programmers created softwarewhose source code could be improved upon by anyone. Although not always freein the sense of no cost. there was a strong spirit of keeping the information freelyavailable to anyone and lett ing everyone share in the benefits. Commonsense theories of human behavior indicated that nobody would work hard on a projectonlyto have others benefit greatly from it, but this tamed Out t o b e completely wrong.

A great number of software projects were developed on the open-source modeland have become powerful competitors to companies like Microsoft. The operatingsystem Linux is one example, at ix the Apache server or MySQL database. OpenOffice, a software suite similar to Microsoft Office, is free and deve loped on an open-source model. Mozillas Firefox browser has steadily been eating away at InternetExplorers stranglehold on t he browser market, now with nearly 23 percent of the

browser market share . For almost any software application one can imagine thereis likely an open-source equivalent to what the marke t offers, usually for free orfor substantially cheaper than what companies sell their proprietary products for.People looked at the open-source model of software and computer development and asked: If it works for software, then why cant it work for entertainment.journalism, advertising, public relationsor any kind of content and knowledgeproduction?S S CHANGING AUDIENCES: FROM CONSUMERS TO PRODUSERSThis is exactly what is happening as some audiences shift f rom be ing primarilyconsumers of media content to what media scholar Axel Bruns calls produsers,:though others u se t he term prosumrrs. or just usets. The fact that there isdebate about what term to use (and that we do not already have a readily availableterm to use( highlights howre l evant and new this phenomenon is.

It is widely accepted that traditional media audiences were largely seen asconsumers by the mass media companies that created content to sell to them.Whether they consumed media in the form of programs, books, or music , or prod.ucts advertised through various media channels, the relationship was very muchone of producers (media industries) creating material for the public to consume.Entire business models were built on t hi s industrial model of production withinthe media industries. Companies made our cars (or soap, or clothes, or books, ormovies), and we bought them.Of cour se peoplewe re not as passive as that relationship would indicate, butas discussed earlier in this chapter the chances for people to choose, create, andtalk b ack to producers were extremely limited prior to social media. Now, however, people have the tools to talk back and many are doing sowhats more, theyare not only talking back but often simply ignoring the traditional producers andtalking to each other.

The new dynamic is a comples one, thus the difficulty in coming up with anadequate term to define it. Prosumer still seems to emphasize the consumptionaspect of the relationship, almost like a professional consumer or kind of iiberconsumer, which misses out on the important change in the power balance thatis taking place today between audiences and producers. Similarly. user dos-s notcapture the sense of creation or production that is an important element of thesocial-media landscape.The fact is that consumption of one form or another still predominates. Not everyone is (or wants to be) a producer of media content. But to contribute to the largerconversations taking placeto add something. however small, that helps create agreater wholeis easier than ever before. Posting a l ink to a worthwhile website orblog that others on a discussion board may have never heard of is a form of media production, collaboration, and knowledge sharing that cannot be downplayed asnonproductive or unimportant, especially when looked at on a large scale,

S S REPUTATION, RATINGS, AND TRUSTThe change in audiences from consumers to produsers has had a powerful r ippleeffect, not only on business models, but on a number of social factors as well. Inthe traditional media world, we could rely on certain established brands to give uscertain things. The Wall Street Jaw-nat or New York Ttmes delivered a kind of content that the National Ertquirer did not. and we leamed what to expect.

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Today that has changed. Althosigh the traditional brands still (for the mostpart) retain thetr meanings for us, ills more difficult than e ve r f or u s to determinehow to trust information if it comes from unknown sources. How dow e know thatthe Amazon review ofa book we are considering was not written by someone paidto write a glowing review or by the authors mother? How do we know that a Wikipedta entry about a politician was not written by the politicians aides, highlightingonly positive tiformatiori and ignoring past scandals? How do we know that theblog about the problem of obesity in children is not created by a pharmaceuticalcotnpany trying to promote their dieting drug?These and other issues are all extremely important in todays media world,thus the importance of critical thinking a nd med ia literacy. Similarly, issues oftrust and reputation become vital in figuring out what information we can trust.Ratings systems. in which participants can rank how tiseful a review or commentis, help us in making that decisinin. But the question also arises whether the ratersare trustworthy or not.This is where social networks enter once again, as we generally trust friendsor people have let into our social itetworks and art inure likely to listen no whatiltey say or res,otnntend. TIns is otti reason word-of-mouth or buzz niiarkrting hasbecome so important for advertisers. Ratings systems as a measure of gaugingtrust will develop and lxcoinie more important itt our social-media landsm..ipi, butthere svill lie some thorny ethical and legal questions that arise as ssel l.

Ethical and Legal Issues with Social MediaThe legal world has not nearly lw-gun tnt catch tip with the utany issuss that onlinemedia have raised, let abut social uuisdia. Issuins of tradeiniark infriogettteutt sirother itutelbectual property issues have geiteralby beett dealt witlt using existing caselaws, but other issues will tied iti-w legal thinking to be dealt with propel ly.

One big issue arising in tIne legal arena is figs ring o ut who owns uisir.geilerated content on social.medna sites. If someone decides to write a hook based outdisi.nissiotis takeit from a site like The WElL. utsitig isteitdtd passages ol actualdiscussioi,s. is this a breach ofcopyriglit? How should thus postsr hi noinupemnsatnd,fat all? Is periulissiotn needed to use the post or an excerpt of ii? list,. how niinu.It isfair use and now intuit is nit infringeutneuut ofinitehlectiuah property? These are Listsotne of tin issues that sociul-ntedia sites will have to wrestle sithu itt thin hiituire,TIme ethical and legal boundaries lxtween privacY and traiusparnncv blur isiline, and it is especially trite with social media , The norms of acceptable hiiinits ofprivacy have mwses been fined, and the ease of social interactiiiii onhimit coitnbinnndwith the lack of face.to.face interaction often makes a volatile inns for itudisidualsas well a s f or compatnes.PRIVACY

The norms for privacy are also changing. For those older than Gen Y tile notionmof making so t immuch of ones life ptiblic throtigh posting photos, discussing onesthoughts or desires on a blog, or sharing otlter highly personal itiforination feelsstrange. There isa sense that much of that is nobody elses business o r tha t that information should only be shared with a select grotip of people one knows and trusts.This living publicly generally does not seem to bother Getm-Yers in the sameway, yet many are rudely awakened to a sense of having their privacy invaded when

they learn that an employer is raising questions about material f ound on a blogor information gleaned from a social-networking site. Most employers today doGoogle searches on bob applicants and examine social-networking profiles if theycan . Many also make decisions about who will be called for an interview in, portbased on these searches, The goofy profile picture of you half.naked at a collegeparty may be hilarious to your f ri ends on Facebook but not so amusing to a potential employer trying to gauge your value as an employee.Along similar Itnes, Facebook has gotten into trouble at least three t imes fromits misers for unannounced policy changes perceived to invade users privacy. Onenotable case was Facebooks Beacon, which tracked users activities even after theyhad left Facebookwithout informing them. To makematters worse, these off-siteactivitiessuch as purchasing a product or registering for a websitewere broad.cast to a users network of friends.There a re many temptations for companies such as Facel,ook to invade usersprivacy by tracking their online behavior, The data collected could be immenselyvaluable to marketers trying to figure omit how tin best tap certa ni marketsespe.cialhy the lucrattve eighteen-to-tlnirty.fourdemographik. It is especially problematicwhen companies still have not found sustainable business models to support hintactivities and a re looking for ways to cacti revenite.

Companies fiat are bought by other companies or that go out of busitness havedatabases of registered tisers and online activ ity that could provide very valuableinformatiout. However, wheit users registered to a site, they likely did not considerthat thetr personal data and search history night at sonic point suid up in tinehands ol a different company.

TRANSPARENCYEven supposedly tech-savvy companies leaditug the social-media revolution seemto regularly make lnlunders similar to traditional media companies when it coniesto understanding some of t he n ew dynamics with their audience, as th e Beaconexample shows.

Counpauuks trvunmg to create fauxviral videos or making fake grassroots Mugs.a practice called astroturfing, a re o f ten punished severely in tlte court of pitblin .nopinion oiice lu-jr nnian.buinuations are learned. Sudden shifts in things l ike privacypolicies. either unannounced or lot adequately announced. have produced similaraimdieitce backlashcs.

Facelnook unit agaimm learned this the hard way iii early zoos,> lien a change intheir privacy policy. wE ich had been made a few weeks earlier bitt wetit unnoticedby time general public, stated that Facebook would own the rights to tuser-generatedcontent Ott the site, inchudnmig posted photos. Found and public ized by a cotnsunnerinittrest group. lie chnantge elicited immense and immediate outrage, itncbuding atitreat by the Electroimic Privacy lutfornuationi Center (EPICI to file a complaint withthe Federal Trade Commission.Facebook quickly did an about.face on the policy and created a group of usersto discuss future privacy-policy changes . The act ions and react ions are emblematic of the shift ing power dynamic between companies a nd t he public and sonic-thing than other companies shoti ld note carefully. It would have been far betterif Facebook had created ssich a grovip in the first place, rather than only afterreceiving complaints. Further, Facebooks own c,mstomers were able to usethe very tools that helped make Facebook so popular to organize against thecompany.

Web Lfnk>>>Electronic Privacy lnlormaxoii Centerepnc.org

PART 3 / HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD ,, wwwnpcem//p.v1ik ,,. pp


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