The Role of Ethics in Social Media Governance

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the role of ethics in social media. The broad influence of social media networks on society raises ethical questions in policies and practices of social media governance. Yet little attention has been paid to the principles that might shape ethical social media governance. An analysis of the kind of ethical considerations that will come into play in the societies where social media is flourishing would be a signal benefit for this field. The essay has shown how a range of ethical considerations might work to shape social media governance. It is the area of privacy, and, in particular, of personal information and transparency, that has been influential. It has been suggested that these questions be addressed in terms of a vibrant and meaningful public sphere of argumentation. This notion has been operationalized in light of the empirical themes of transparency, user control, and accountability. This aligns with the position that, in this area, some of the fundamental questions should turn on how well social media can support this kind of public discourse (Toledano & Fay Wolland, 2011). The ethical questions of censorship, largely from the American perspective on freedom of expression, are the least prominent in the field. In contrast, it has been suggested that ethical questions around social norms and fake identities remain crucial and unresolved. The broad framework that has been built seeks to explicate such dilemmas and allow for the comparative investigation across different legal and media cultures.

 Keywords ethics, social media, governance, privacy, transparency, user control, accountability, censorship