Social Media Code of Ethics

Maire Simpson | ms316416@ohio.edu

Most journalistic organizations have a code of ethics to maintain order, guide journalists to the best ethical decision and to show to the public that they have a foundation of ethical principles for their reporting. In the past, these codes have been heavily enforced to ensure the companies and organizations maintain a good rapport with the public. But in more recent years, refocusing the importance of freedom of speech and removing as many barriers as possible that could prohibit that right has been reinforced. Of course, there is still an emphasis on the importance of good reporting and continuing to be ethical, but the refocus aims to support journalists and their search for the truth.

According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the possible legal enforcement of the code of ethics would then translate to government intervention that would place the freedom of speech and freedom of the press behind bars, prohibiting reporters and journalists from doing their job.

While obviously there is importance surrounding both the freedom of speech/press and the code of ethics, I had to stop for a second and consider the society we live in today. There are so many 'self-proclaimed journalists' and boatloads of misinformation floating around on the internet because of social media. Twitter has become the epicenter of news sharing. Speech has not only been more free, but also the ability to voice your opinion has never been more accessible.

Cartoon by Lewis Rossignol

Due to the amount of deceptive information being shared, countries such as India have implemented a code of ethics for social media during the 2019 elections held at the beginning of the year. This voluntary code will force companies to be held accountable for their social media postings, particularly surrounding political campaigns. The code will also push for transparency in the paid media advertisements so that the consumers can become aware of the political push. Even though this code is voluntary, there are legal repercussions if the organizations, political campaigns, or companies who participate do not follow the code.

India and other countries are trying to better the political campaigns for the consumers by creating the social media code of ethics. But there are ethical battles involving journalists who take content from social media and profit off of it but do not give proper credit for the content they take. Also known as the Buzzfeed model of articles, which take tweets and memes and publishes them without giving proper compensation. In the United States, it has become the norm for most online articles.

So while SPJ and PRSA are worried about the limitation of freedom of speech due to enforcement of a code of ethics, there are situations in which I personally believe that legal action should be taken, especially surrounding social media. In the age of social media takeover, you cannot dismiss the fact that there is going to be copious amounts of ethical issues in reporting. So why not follow India and create a baseline and foundation for journalists, organizations, and companies to create a code of ethics for social media reporting and content sharing so that there can be more transparency and credit given to social media content. Social media is different than other forms of publishing. So, this, in fact, would not limit the speech, but rather show consumers that even on social media, the companies and organizations have applied certain ethically standards for the type of content they are creating.