Question

Find an article within the last six months in a business periodical (Some examples of business periodicals include The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Business Week, Harvard Business Review, Advertising Age) that provides an example of an ethical problem that a primary stakeholder group had with an organization.   Identify the stakeholder group, the organization, and the specific ethical problem/issue. What is the ethical or socially responsible position of the organization in the article?   Discussion post length: 150-200 words. Remember to use correct citation format at the end of your posting.

-Business Ethics & Social Responsibility-

Answer 1

Introduction

Social Media has gained much importance, because of how users have rapidly accepted it as the medium to communicate with one another in the form of views, opinions and sharing of content on the internet. Be it verbal, photographic or both at times.

Most companies have over the years begun advertising on the platform to take use of the widespread user base and availability of data which is rapidly changing how business is conducted and how advertisement works respectively.

That said, it has also posted a major challenge, to user security with privacy concerns arising with the giant Facebook and it having to come clean on this by representing in the Congress as a result of privacy issues and concerns by user groups that have advocated that the company is misusing its content to sell data to companies which in turn manipulate with people and their ideas respectively.

Case Specifics:-

The stakeholder group involved in this discussion are consumer groups that have used Facebook as a platform and have complained over the years over privacy concerns which have risen many folds since the reveals by WikiLeaks cofounder Julianne Assange who revealed how Facebook is being used by government and private agencies alike into digging information about people without their explicit consent.

This has resulted in big problems for the company which has had to defend itself and change its policies on data sharing with hacking and privacy concerns being top of the debate for Facebook users.

The company in itself is trying to address these issues by changing its rules for the users and altering business activities and ethics.

Conclusion:-

Over the years, companies which operate digitally have had stakeholders such as consumer groups and interest ones, alter its actions and they are rightly realizing the fact that privacy of each and every individual is equally important if the company wants to succeed in the long term respectively.

Please feel free to ask your doubts in the comments section