Ethics with Social Media: Are there any?

Some of my previous posts have dipped into the area of ethics in digital media such as privacy. This post will detail the other key ethical issues that are present in specifically social media and the effect these issues can have on the users and abusers of social networking sites.

In order to understand the ethical issues of social media, we need to under the regulation of the media. The implementation and adherence to regulation is key in social media, as the vast expansion of surveillance and data mining technologies should be watched and regulated. surely? Without regulation, either externally or industry regulated, the privacy and security of users could be at stake.

EU Regulation:

Information Directives:

protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data (i.e. European Commission 2002/58/EC  recognition of spyware as an invasive practice).

UK regulation:

In the UK, there are various regulations that protect individuals, not just online but in all industries that hold information.

Below are these regulations:

Freedom of Information Act (2000)

Data protection Act (1998)

As of March 1^st, 2011, UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code) expanded to include online, including the rules relating to misleading advertising, social responsibility and the protection of children.

US Regulation:

As with many laws in the US, it varies in each state and sector. US industries have the tendency to lean towards self-regulation which focuses around the industry, norms, codes of conduct and the contracts between businesses and consumers.

As discussed by Andy McStay (2010), US sites are not required by law to tell users about Cookies unless there is personally identified information. [1]

Ethical Issues

So what exactly are the issues with ethics in social media? I’ll know examine these variety of ethical issues in the digital age.

Data Mining

Data mining focuses around extracting useful information from large data sets or databases, it entailed the extraction of “implicit, previous unknown and potentially use information from data”[2]

Data mining aims to predict certain characteristics of individuals through frequently occurring combinations in a database.

There are certain parameters that can be sorted through data mining.

• Association

Patterns where one event is connected to another event e.g– purchasing a pen and purchasing paper

• Sequence or path analysis 

Patterns where one event leads to another event, e.g. the birth of a child and purchasing nappies

• Classification

Identification of new patterns, e.g. coincidences between duct tape purchases & plastic sheeting purchases

• Clustering

Finding and visually documenting groups of previously unknown facts e.g geographic location/brand preferences

• Forecasting

Discovering patterns from which one can make reasonable predictions regarding future activities e.g people who join an athletic club may take exercise classes.

(Seifert 2004) [3]

Now what are the ethical issues about data mining?

The mining of data can uncover patterns and correlations but data mining does not tell the user the value or the importance of these patterns. The validity of these patterns becomes dependent of how they compare to ‘real world’ circumstances.

There is a case study of a large data mining project where privacy and ethics may have been breached.

The Terrorism Information Awareness

This project utilised the mining of data of ‘transaction space’, which consists of financial, educational, travel and medical industries etc. The aim was to uncover “connections between transactions for passports, visas, airline tickets, guns, chemical products and “events” such as arrests of suspicious activities.

Various privacy issues arose from this project:

Lack of legal protection against unlawful covert surveillance. This breach avoided the US Fourth Amendment safeguards. [4]

Furthermore, the usage of the data was invisible to the general public which is unlike traditional ‘search and seizure’ procedures. [4] This project also brought up a lot of inaccurate findings and the mining of the data brought up a lot of false positives leading to false arrests and investigations. All these issue arose from the real lack of clarity and understanding of the risks to privacy of data mining.

Dataveillance

Dataveillance is ‘the systematic monitoring of people’s actions or communications through the application of information technology’ (Clarke, 2003).

Below are some websites that use dataveillance to target adverts to specific users that fit their required parameters.

Google

Google can use email, searching, blogging, social network activities to target advertising (& may report to US government)

Amazon can use past activities to target adverts or improve web site. (Zimmer, 2008)[5]

The key issue with dataveillance is that in large scale research, the data obtained is from individuals who are unaware and the data is obtained without their approval and for purposes they may not agree with.

The argument and split in opinion and regulation is about people vs documents. Normally documents can be researched without prior approval but people cannot. Since web pages are documents, researching them is considered okay, but what about the users of websites? where do they fit into this?

Albrechtslund (2008) said ‘to participate in online social networking is also about the act of sharing yourself - or your constructed identity - with others’ [6]

But the argument stays at social media is all about sharing information about yourself, but the key is who you are sharing this information with.

[1]  McStay, A., 2010. Digital Advertising. Palgrave Macmillan. p.124

[2]http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Teaching/Resources/COMSM0204/handouts/privacy.ethics.pdf

[3] Seifert, 2004

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

[5] Zimmer, M, The Gaze of the Perfect Search Engine: Google as an Infrastructure of Dataveillance, 2008, Available at:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75829-7_6

[6]Albrechtslund A online social networking as participatory surveillance, first Monday (13:3) 2008, http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2142/1949.

Digital Activism

Activism consists of intentional action to bring about social  political, economic, or environmental change. Activism is usually in support of, or in opposition to, one side of an often controversial argument.

Digital Activism is the practice of using digital technology for political and social change [1]

Digital activism tends to follow a cycle known as the social media hype cycle that you can see below. [2]

The stages are as follows:

• Technology triggers a buzz
• Expectations inflated by marketers/media
• Expectations quickly dashed by reality
• Usage becomes enlightened
• Activism reaches a plateau of productivity

Gartner says that many technological advances follow this hype cycle, social media is just one example of a technology that follows this cycle.

There are a variety of tactics that can be adopted to engage digital activism that are detailed below:

Tactic 1 - The SmartMob

The term smartmob was coined by the author and futurist Howard Rheingold. The first real Smartmob was seen in Seattle in the US, where the paramilitary organisation, Delta Force were deployed to ease protests at the World Trade Organisation summit. The protesters, in what came to be known as the “Battle for Seattle”, were linked together using mobile technology using text messaging to display the uncanny ability to work as a group. The Seattle protestors in 1999 were among the world’s first smart mobs, so named because each person in the group uses technology to receive information on where to go and what to do. This ability to stay on top of current events makes smart mobs extremely effective. In Rheingold’s book, “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution,” the author concluded that the survival of protest in the 21st century depended on shrewdly employed technology. Fortunately for protestors, the 21st century has affordable consumer electronics in aces. Applications like Twitter and the social structure that’s given rise to Web 2.0 all aid in the quick disbursal of information from one source to many. Thanks to things like open source coding, net neutrality and hackers, technology has become “democratized” — the public constantly finds and shares new ways to use technology.

Tactic 2 - Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism is defined as when members of the public engage in journalism. Examples include providing pictures or film of events to news organisations or reporting events in blogs. The advantages of citizen journalism enables individuals to provide images and videos from places journalists cannot access, it also gives the citizen journalists the ability to lead the media agenda and in some cases leak information or evidence that contradicts the official line. Sousveillance is the term coined by Steve Mann, he defined it as to describe the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity, typically by way of small portable or wearable recording devices that often stream continuous live video to the Internet.

Tactics 3 - Overt Pressure

Overt pressure refers to the “publicly viewable weight of support or opposition”, the idea of overt pressure is to capture the attention of the media in order to provide a further driver and accessibility to others. It allows for a short-term movement to be build and further mobilises existing movements. 

How is digital activism started?

Digital activism is started by segments of communities forming within online networks such as MySpace, Twitter or Facebook. These segments group together to form Polycentric networks, this refers to networks having many centres or hubs, but unlike their predecessors, those hubs are less likely to be defined around prominent leaders. These polycentric networks are formed around shared ideals that then lead to integrated activism.

Why has activism gone digital?

The transformation of activism going digital are mainly down to speed and convenience. Digital activism allows for fast and accurate information to be discovered and disseminated. Furthermore, it allows for similar and like minded individuals to have access to each other and social networks allow for the communication of these like minded individuals. The communications on these social networks allow for the discussion of tactics and strategies which facilitates decision making and co-ordination of actions. Digital activism also allows for the building of solidarity and a feeling of shared identity. And lastly, but in some ways most importantly, the digital activism allows for the offline activism to be more effective and successful.

How to make digital activism successful?

In order for activism to be successful in the digital age, movements must be built and sustained using open narratives and inclusive stories. Regular discussions aswell as meetings and events need to be conducted through short-term and well-defined projects.

References

Mary Joyce (Meta-Activism Project), http://www.meta-activism.org/ [1]

Gartner’s Hype Cycle,2010 Hype Cycle, http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1447613 [2]

Howard Rheingold, SmartMobs, 2002  [3]

Smartmobs http://people.howstuffworks.com/smart-mob1.htm

Sousveillance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance

Digital Privacy: what are you hiding?

As the development of technology continues, people are sharing more and more information as a means of payment for products and services online than credit or debit card transactions. The number of free services and programmes that can be obtained purely by giving your name and email address is astounding.

But is “Free” really free? Or is your privacy online paying the price?

Privacy is described as “the claim of an individual to determine what information about himself or herself should be known to others….This, also, involves when such information will be obtained and what uses will be made of it by others” (Alan Westin, 2003)”[1]

The currency of the WWW appears to be information with Google offering you everything you could want to use on a laptop, mobile or tablet for nothing. You have to ask yourself the question, who is paying for this? You are paying for it, through the advertising directly targeted at you, through the information you provide Google with the countless searches of “cheap flights to Ibiza”, “creamfields early bird tickets”, “hideout festival”. Oh you’re a electronic dance music fan. Cue targeted adverts down the right hand side of my Facebook page. This is behavioural targeting.

The risks associated with lack of digital privacy are:

• Identity theft
• Online/physical stalking
• Embarrassment
• Blackmailing
• Reputational damage
• Phishing

A study recently suggested that Phishing attacks are 4 times more likely to be successful when using personal information easily accessed through your social networking profiles. Name, Date of Birth, Town, Job.

“The reality is, online life is a trade. You pay for the free web with the currency of information about who you are as a user and what your clicks across the web say you are interested in. Every day, in this way, we are handing over every minutiae of our lives for free and convenient online space”.  (Aleks Krotoski, 2010)

Above is my opinion as a person but as an Advertising student, I have to think about the way this data obtained through searches and social networking is aiding the work of the industry in providing accurately targeted advertising. This is beneficial to the consumer aswell…right?

This is an unregulated area of privacy. It is self-regulated by the industry itself.  

[2]

Above is the number of tracking files stored by just one visit to Dictionary.com, depending on what words you are looking to define will affect the behavioural targeted adverts you may view next time you are on the site or affilate sites. Each of these files is sending privacy data about you to different companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo.

The privacy debate is a fire that will continue to burn, digital privacy is something that is never going to be complete and all encompassing but you’re going to see adverts everywhere on the web, so at the expense giving a few online behavioural traits you’d prefer free software and adverts that are relevant to you…right?

[1]WESTIN, A. Consumer, Privacy and Survey Research. 2003. Retrieved Aug 17,  

2011, Available at: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/advantages/pubs/DNC_AlanWestinConsumersPri

vacyandSurveyResearch.pdf

[2]What They Know, Wall Street Journal Available at: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html

Is there a future for product placement?

As OFCOM regulations are relaxed to permit the “the inclusion of, or reference to, a product or service within a programme in return for payment or other valuable consideration to the programme maker or broadcaster.” (ITV, 2011) I will assess and evaluate the value of product placement to brands in an age where television advertising revenues are falling behind to digital. Is this a money making scheme for TV networks? or could product placement if implemented in a coherent and useful way can it be a success for brands?

Only three years ago, product placement was being branded as a way to ‘contaminate’ television and the reputation of British programming would be ‘up for sale’. These were the words of former culture secretary, Andy Burnham. According to Neilsen however, the UK audience is already exposed to thousands of product placement through US films and TV shows aired in the UK. They estimate the exposure to be 541 brands and 2,029 “unique product integrations” in US shows that aired in the UK on just three networks – Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky1 – in the past year.

The system, which is well-researched, used by media buying agencies provides a product with a score to represent the viability of the product placement. The score is based on various factors such as the quality of the placement, the integration of the product into the show, the length of its exposure to viewers and if the reference in a show is verbal or visual. 

The effective of product placement to brands is wholly reliant on the reception that product placement receives from consumers. This, in my view, will mean brands will tread a fine path before ploughing lots of money into product placement. Companies need to assess product placement as another channel to embed their brands into popular culture and the experiences of every day life, without ruining programmes that people love and look forward to, by turning it into a glorified advertising space.

In the US, NBC has been embarking on a new strategy called ‘behaviour placement’ where scripts are adjusted to allow for a particular message or behaviour in the show to attract advertisers.  This is something that is a far cry from the product placement that has just been introduced in the UK, but many advertisers will be foaming at the mouth at the prospect that behaviour placement could further widen the exposure of their brand or product. 

If product placement is used in a way that the viewers can see it as a believable product choice for that character or that situation, as seen in US shows. Rachel from Friends working at Ralph Lauren. Believable. So maybe, Jamie Oliver using Sainsbury’s branded product in his cookery shows. Believable. However, Janice Battersby coming down the Coronation Street cobblers with Waitrose bags doesn’t quite fit brand to character. Or Paddy McGuinness talking about how easy he found the self checkout at Asda whilst hosting Take Me Out. 

Lightspeed Research conducted a survey last January where 36% of respondents expressed concern that product placement could potentially affect their enjoyment of a programme. Thirty-one per cent said they had noticed product placement, while a profound 74% felt TV was already too commercial.

The crucial factor for product placement in TV shows is believability. The product has to fit perfectly with the situation and character or it is counter-productive for both brand and programme. There will be mixed approaches from some of the big brands, some will want to be first into this new world, whilst some will be reserved and will respond dependent on consumer attitudes. The future of product placement will be decided by the consumer.

Further Reading:

http://www.warc.com/Content/Documents/A81004_A_Managerial_Investigation_into_the_Product_Placement_Industry.content?CID=A81004&ID=8d774699-2aed-4f99-838c-6b0817c01845&q=&qr=

References

http://www.itvplc.com/glossaryterm/?selectedRange=2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/28/product-placement-british-

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/analysis/features/bond-style-marketing-receives-tv-makeover/3010350.article

Picking the seams in the seamless brand!

Seamless

• not having or joined by a seam or seams
• smooth, especially of skin; “his cheeks were unlined”; “his unseamed face”
• perfectly consistent and coherent; “the novel’s seamless plot

Brand

• trade name: a name given to a product or service
• a recognizable kind; “there’s a new brand of hero in the movies now”; “what make of car is that?”

So by definition a ‘seamless brand’ would be a smooth, consistent and coherent trade name. But we as advertisers and marketeers know a brand is alot more than just a trade name. And a seamless brand is alot more than just a consistent trade name.

“Let’s begin with defining how a “seamless” brand operates in the first place:

“To make and keep a promise that matters”.”

A seamless brand reflects on every action the brand and company make. Every sale, every advertising message, every customer interaction, every tweet, every update and every product.

The promise in these terms tends to be the key proposition, keeping to this proposition is what differentiates you from the competitors

The seamless brand is about creating expectations, exceeding these expectations and then encouraging people to continue experiencing the brand experience.

An example of seamless branding gone wrong is Starbucks. Starbucks is a brand that has been positioning itself as ethical, green and friendly. 

According to their mission statement, Starbucks is committed to “…apply[ing] the highest standards of excellence to the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffee.”

 Indeed, Starbucks does appear to apply the highest standards when roasting and delivering their coffee. Unfortunately for their farmers, and for any person with some sense of humanity, Starbucks does not apply these same standards to the purchasing of their coffee.

Of course, if one were to ask Starbucks, you would almost believe that they invented fair trade. According to a leaflet available on their website, Starbucks purchased approximately 11.5 million pounds of fair trade coffee, which accounts for 10 percent of all purchased fair-trade coffee.

This was not the case and virally the facts about the real source of Starbucks Coffee was spread around the internet and did not quite reflect their ‘ethos’.

It would seem to me that the epitome of a seamless brand would be Coca Cola. A brand that reflects fun in every message it portrays. Any events Coca Cola supports or any sponsorships it endorses perfect fit the image of the brand.

The seamless nature of the Coca Cola brand goes back to it’s roots, the first Coca Cola president traveled the US introducing pharmacists to the drink, which they sold from their counters. Candler also gave the pharmacists plenty of clocks, scales, calendars and other items laden with the Coca-Cola logo as well as coupons for customers to redeem a free glass of the drink.

This started Coca Cola the brand and propelled it from a soft, carbonated cola drink. Today Coca Cola spends more money on major sport sponsorships than any other company, with total worldwide expenditures in excess of US$ 1 billion a year. Coke sponsored the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, it has also been a sponsor of the Olympics since 1928.

With the name “Coke” practically synonymous with “cola drink,” one can’t imagine the brand’s name recognition going flat anytime soon. The cola wars will never end, but Coke is far too entrenched in the public’s consciousness to ever settle for less than number one in the market share battle.

If you can pick the seams in the Coca Cola brand, then you’ve beaten me!

 Links

http://seamlessbrand.blogspot.com/2010/09/seamless-brandings-golden-secret.html

Apps, Tweets and NFC

In the week it was announced that Google and Facebook had attempted a $1 billion dollar buy-out of Twitter, we also hear that Blackberry manufacturer, RIM will be installing near field communications into all it’s future handsets.

Near-field communications is the technology seen in Barclaycard contact-less swipe cards enabling the owner the ability to pay for low value items quick and easily without any security verification. NFC on Blackberry is proposed to run on a removable sim card to aid security and interoperability among the BlackBerry devices. The SIM card offers security because carriers can disable it in case a device is lost or stolen. Also, when a person upgrades to another phone, that SIM card can be removed and placed in a new phone. Reports last month indicated that Apple’s next generation iPhone 5 and iPad 2 devices could include NFC capabilities, though the phones likly won’t include removable SIM cards. “The iPhone 5 could have an embedded NFC cover” provided by network providers to get around the lack of a SIM card.  Orange and T Mobile will also be producing the infrastructure to enable payment services across Europe using NFC. 

The Google chairman has been linking the use of NFC to advertising and promotions of shops 

“I’m walking down the street and I need pants [trousers]. My phone has an NFC chip. It knows where I am.

“It tells me about two stores, one to the left with a 20% discount and one to the right with a 30% [discount].

“It is programmed to know I am a cheapskate so points me to the right and the store knows what pants I want,” he said.

Following on from this link to the practicality of NFC and mobile marketing to consumers, Twitter after reject speculation of selling to Google have said they plan to put emphasis on mobile platforms in 2011. Twitter chief executive Dick Costol annouced that 40% of tweets now come from mobile platforms. He said that the service needed “deeper integration” in smartphones as well as to extend how it was made available to more basic phones. He highlighted the use of being able to tweet from any app on your phone without having to open another app.

However, Costol left many people asking how Twitter could integrate further into mobiles. “We expected more; for example what Twitter is doing to build its application ecosystem given the importance of apps in adding value to the service and the fact that a growing number of Twitter users interact with the service via apps,”  said Eden Zoller, principal analyst at research firm Ovum.

Speaking at the same Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell said that apps and location-based marketing is the holy grail for advertisers. he said apps are a classic example of the shift from broadcast to “multifaceted engagement”, by enabling brands to connect with consumers at numerous touchpoints.

“Applications will be a significant opportunity for retailers to open another virtual shop, with the added benefit of it being in consumers’ pockets both when they’re out shopping and when they’re not at the shops, because impulse purchases can be made anywhere,” Sorrell said.