Ethical issues on social networks

Résumé du document

For Business School's students such as we are, social networks seem to be a nice tool to boost our careers. In fact professional network like Linkedin appeared and permit to share a résumé on the web. The success of this network comes from the fact you can regroup your whole professional network in to a single place.
Then, when looking for a job, the information you share are directly targeted to professionals. Everything looks good from this point of view, but professionals have also access to other networks such as Facebook or Twitter, then social networks become a tool to ruin your career:

Here I want to use a personal example: few years ago I was looking for an internship as a sale's assistant, Hugo Boss finally hired me.
A week after I started working for the fashion company, my boss asked me about my music tastes. After my answer he replied that he already knew it because he saw my profile picture on Facebook when I was dj-ing in a nightclub. I'm glad he had only access to this single picture of me; otherwise he probably would had a different vision of my person and maybe even he would never hired me.

This situation shows us that even for a simple internship companies are checking candidate' profile to know with who they are dealing with.
It shows us that social medias became a tool for companies during recruitment process and any undesirable content (such as pictures, comments or political views) could impact on manager's hiring decision.

Extraits

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[...] They exist and success only thanks to people. Then if we consider the way a social network works, we can suppose that if there were no users, there would be no content and with no content there would be no social network. That is the reason why social media are so powerful and popular: User are creating the website and they are making it attractive. Goals in being a part of a social network: The reasons why people are using social media is much more complex than a simple share of information. [...]

[...] Companies may also be the targets of content shared by users: in December 2011 FedEx had to deal with a crisis situation when an employee threw a package above the fence instead of deliver it properly. By the merest chance a camera recorded the scene and the owner uploaded the video on a social network. It's useless to say that those pictures generated a buzz on the web, a bad buzz that impacted on company's reputation, customer's loyalty and of course on sales. [...]

[...] In my opinion, it shows us how a company's behavior may be influenced by its own employees. Business ethics: Even if employees determine companies' behavior, an ethical behavior doesn't come necessary from them. In fact, employees aren't powerful enough to influence corporate and strategic decisions. This is the reason why businesses are setting their own codes of ethics or policies and try to show the example to their employees. According to the code of ethics of international companies, five points have to be respected Employee's rights Human's rights Environmental concerns Preventing corruption Morality Conclusion: After an analysis of both aspects, we can conclude that as well individuals as businesses have to act ethically. [...]

[...] But their acts may end-up in a deep depression or even suicide like in the case of Amanda. This dramatic example raise the ethical issue of social networks and the way people are using them. Privacy Using social networks involves also some privacy issues, as we saw it, information shared on the private sphere may become public. What you shared and may consider it as private then belongs to the public sphere: people have access to your pictures, they see people you meet, what are your hobbies or even political views. [...]