julianne-bergeron

[julianne-bergeron]

My View on Social Media Ethics: the Ethical and the Unethical

The following blog post is entirely pertaining to social media ethics and is in both list and paragraph format. 

The current state of social media ethics: what trends are happening in the industry? 

Some of the ethical trends happening in the social media industry currently are enforcing informed consent and enforcing age restrictions on platforms.  Currently, popular social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram will typically have warnings on videos containing graphic or sensitive content and the videos will only be played after confirming that you would like to proceed.  However, there are instances in which users can bypass this, such as censoring or changing certain words or posting the video on one's Instagram story.  As for age restrictions, most social media sites now will have a user confirm their date of birth – some may even ask for proof of ID or license – to finish creating an account.  In the case a child is proved to be under thirteen, then the content they consume will be limited, their account will be set to private, or they will be unable to create an account at all depending on the platform. 

What are two current cases related to social media ethics? 

Two current cases related to social media ethics are the Ruby Franke – Momfluencer from the now deleted 8 Passengers YouTube channel – and Jodi Hildebrant – creator of the ConneXions social media group – case during 2023 and 2024, as well as the Johnny Somali – aka Ramsey Khalid Ismael – which will take place during this year.  The Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrant case began in August of 2023 when both Franke and Hildebrant were charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse after Franke’s youngest children were found in malnourished, severely wounded, and severely traumatized states.  This happened three years after large amounts of the 8 Passangers’ audience were alarmed by the neglect and abuse found in Franke’s videos.  In the outbreak of information from the case and following the incarceration of both Franke and Hildebrant, two laws in the state of Utah – HB 456 and SB 194 – were passed to protect minors on social media and to hold social media companies accountable for mental health issues they cause. 

The second case is the upcoming case against American streamer Johnny Somali in which he must testify in South Korea due to disrespectful and unlawful actions he caused in the country. During and before 2024, Somali would travel to conservative foreign countries, such as Japan and South Korea, and would cause disturbances and havoc while streaming on Kick – he is now permanently banned.  One example recently was when he went to South Korea’s Statue of Peace – a memorial monument for comfort women during WWII – and both kissed and lap danced on top of it, earning the termination of his YouTube channel.  Somali had previously been charged for his actions in foreign countries, but his actions in South Korea have led to the streamer receiving a travel ban from leaving the country as he awaits trial. 

Outline the current code of ethics for social media by a professional organization you would be interested in joining as part of their social media staff. 

A professional organization I would be interested in joining as part of their social media staff would be Mila, a fitness app created by Camilla Lorentzen last year.  While I have not joined the app myself, I do follow Lorentzen and her wife on social media and find the way that they use social media to be very admirable and smart.  However, as the app is very new, there are things that could be put in place for both a clear and written code of ethics for its social media.  For one, the app should create a social media policy for itself.  While Lorentzen does seem to have full control of the brand’s accounts, there are people associated with the brand and a public social media policy could boost the app’s credibility and trustworthiness to know that Lorentzen is taking such steps.  Apart from this, many other ethical necessities – terms of service agreements, free speech, disclosure of consent, and right to privacy – are all upheld by the app, its socials, and Lorentzen’s personal socials. 

What brands are utilizing proper social media ethical practices? 

A brand that is utilizing proper social media ethical practices is The New York Times, as shown in their social media policy, the newspaper tells its journalists to avoid sharing any personal news related opinions – publicly or privately – on their personal accounts, to be respectful and avoid tense situations, and to maintain social media accounts and check sources before immediately providing live coverage.  Other brands practicing similar social media ethics are Best Buy and Edmunds. 

Are there any professionals that you feel practice strong ethical behavior on social media? 

I feel that Camilla Lorentzen – the creator of Mila – and her wife, Julie Lorentzen - both practice strong ethical behavior on social media.  Both influencers hide their son’s face in their videos to protect his identity as an unconsenting minor, a practice that has become more popular among influencers with children. Regarding Mila, both influencers are very honest about their practices and any advertising they do for Camilla’s app, allowing for their audience to make their own opinions without manipulation.  Additionally, Julie Lorentzen did take a several month break from social media due to stress and hate speech on her accounts, disengaging herself from the tension rather than fueling it further. 

What are some takeaways you can bring forth in your own practices? 

Some takeaways from the listed brands as well as Camilla and Julie Lorentzen that I can bring forth in my social media interactions going forward is to be outwardly honest with any audience I may amass.  This includes how I expect myself to be presented by anyone I will be tied to professionally and how I expect them to act themselves.  Some other takeaways would be to create a social media policy that is engaging – such as The New York Times formatting theirs as a news article or Edmunds formatting theirs like a ‘safe driving’ advertisement.  Additionally, I will conduct myself to step away from harmful and instigating conversations which I do not have to respond to, such as Julie Lorentzen taking a hiatus due to hate speech she received. 

What main concepts do you think are necessary to adhere to for your own personal conduct online? 

Some of the main concepts connected to ethics, as listed in the course textbook Social Media for Strategic Communication by Karen Freberg, that I think are necessary to adhere to in my personal conduct online are to cite sources and give credit, be tolerant and accepting of others, avoid spreading misinformation or disinformation, avoid starting a flame war or harmful gossip, and remain interact with the accounts yourself rather than leaving it up to automation.  My reasonings behind these specific choices is that I believe that these are the basics to simply treat other social media users with respect and decency and to keep myself and others safe in the process.  For example, the spread of misinformation starting from a large brand could cause serious harm to its followers, especially if the information is of a sensitive subject matter.  

What main concepts do you feel strongly against and want to make sure you avoid on social media? 

Some of the main concepts connected to ethics, as listed in the course textbook Social Media for Strategic Communication by Karen Freberg, that I feel strongly against and would greatly prefer to avoid on social media would be some of the ‘new deadly sins of social media’ listed in chapter two.  The specific ones that I feel the worst towards would be misappropriation – untimely using a situation to promote one’s own bran, manipulation – attempting to improve vanity metrics by putting on a facade, ignorance – being unaware of important social media policies or one’s own audience’s expectations, and narcissism – putting too much value into vanity metrics and resorting to bot followers.  While there are three other ‘sins’ listed, I am most cautious of brands and influencers guilty of these three in particular. 

However, I am weary of the other main concepts present being deemed on the same level as the previous three.  These three concepts are abandonment – leaving a platform while still building a following, monotony – posting content without variation, and uniformity – posting the same content on each platform.  While I do think that there is merit to saying that each one can cause issues for a brand image, I believe that placing it on the same level as manipulation and narcissism is unfair due to the latter two truly being unethical.  Additionally, I would argue that abandonment could be useful as a form of disengagement, as was the case with Julie Lorentzen. 

List 5-10 core concepts that you will follow as a practicing social media professional. Include citations that you used. 

Using all the sources and examples that I have linked and discussed in this blog, the core concepts that I will follow as a practicing social media professional are the following: 

Be mindful of informed consent; children cannot make an informed decision to be shown on social media  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ruby-franke-jodi-hildebrandt-sentenced-child-abuse-youtube-eight-passengers/  https://socialmedia.utah.gov/#:~:text=The%20Utah%20State%20Legislature%20passed%20HB%20465%20and,they%20cause%20through%20the%20design%20of%20their%20platforms.  https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/social-media-for-strategic-communication-2-270211  Be respectful to people both online and offline; do not instigate public or forum disruptions.  https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-11-29/national/socialAffairs/Johnny-Somali-in-Korea-A-complete-timeline-of-the-US-streamers-antics/2189231  https://www.newsweek.com/johnny-somali-south-korea-arrested-1995261  Hold both myself and any employees I have accountable for our actions  https://www.nytimes.com/editorial-standards/social-media-guidelines.html  https://corporate.bestbuy.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/SOCIAL-MEDIA-POLICY2010.pdf  https://www.edmunds.com/about/social-media-guidelines.html?msockid=1758342584416b9e0d78203a85bc6a9c  https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/social-media-for-strategic-communication-2-270211  Protect both myself and any employees I have from instigating and hateful conversations  https://www.nytimes.com/editorial-standards/social-media-guidelines.html  https://corporate.bestbuy.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/SOCIAL-MEDIA-POLICY2010.pdf  https://www.edmunds.com/about/social-media-guidelines.html?msockid=1758342584416b9e0d78203a85bc6a9c  https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/social-media-for-strategic-communication-2-270211  Place sensitivity warnings on any media that I post, such as discussions of meal prep that may be triggering to people with eating disorders  https://screenrant.com/tiktok-graphic-video-warnings-community-updates-explained/  https://gbtimes.com/how-to-make-youtube-videos-viewer-discretion-is-advised/  https://supliful.com/blog/how-to-put-sensitive-content-warning-on-instagram  Formulate a succinct, easily understandable, and engaging social media policy for those who want to know how I and any employees I have conduct ourselves on social media  https://www.nytimes.com/editorial-standards/social-media-guidelines.html  https://www.edmunds.com/about/social-media-guidelines.html?msockid=1758342584416b9e0d78203a85bc6a9c  https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/social-media-for-strategic-communication-2-270211 

[julianne-bergeron]

Improving the Reach of an Already Influential Non-Profit

As a non-profit organization, Special books by Special Kids – or SBSK – is quite successful as a charity and as a social media presence.  The organization is run solely by Chris Ulmer – the CEO of the non-profit – and his wife, Alyssa Porter, and their dog, as stated on their website’s team page.  Apart from their main website page, SBSK has only four social media accounts (other than Patreon), but they are largely successful on each.  They are most famous on Facebook, where they have 3.8 million subscribers, and their most recent post has received 4.4 thousand reactions in only six hours.  Similarly, their YouTube channel has 3.65 subscribers and 592 videos as of today.  Their most popular video titled Sweet Sofia (Never Underestimate Her) has 39.6 million views and over 790 thousand likes.  The only other account they run is their Instagram account, which has a much smaller audience, but is still quite popular with 605 thousand followers. SBSK’s CEO also has an X account – which Ulmer was only active from February of 2019 to April of 2021 – that has 29.2 thousand followers currently.  From these vanity metrics, it is clear that SBSK has quite a popular social media presence compared to many other non-profit organizations. 

However, some aspects of SBSK’s social media accounts seem to be lacking or in need of change.  For example, the likes on their Instagram posts are very inconsistent, with many having below ten thousand likes and some having anywhere between twenty and seventy thousand!  Additionally, the overall view count of their YouTube videos has dropped significantly over the past five years, as all ten of their most popular videos have come from over five years ago.  The most popular video that is under two years old – Conjoined Twins and Best Friends (The Story of Callie and Carter) with 6.6 million views – is listed 29th in popularity on their channel.  While this view count is by no means small, it does contrast to the consistent popularity that their videos in 2018-20 had gathered.  For this reason, I believe that there are some things that SBSK should adjust on their social media platforms to reach the same level of audience in which they had previously. 

The two platforms which I have chosen to analyze and advise on are their YouTube and Instagram accounts respectively, as they are the ones facing evident inconsistencies in viewership. In their last ten most recent videos, the view counts vary anywhere from thirty thousand to one million views.  When looking over each video, there are three characteristics apparent from the videos closest to one million views: each video has a unique title, each title invokes curiosity or empathy due to each person’s illness, and each thumbnail either involves a child or a previous interviewee on the channel.  For example, the title “Living with...” has become common on the channel and most recent videos titled this way do not have as many views.  To improve the viewership on YouTube, SBSK needs to improve their impressions – a channel metric – of their videos by leaning into more unique and emotional titles and thumbnails.  Additionally, they could improve on their content response – an advanced metric – and impact actions – a behavior metric – by posting YouTube shorts for their interviews before posting the actual interview so as to improve audience curiosity. 

When it comes to SBSK’s Instagram, their vanity metrics are far more varied, as stated earlier.  When comparing the likes between their posts versus their reels, their reels are more consistent in how many are on each video, with most having anywhere between twenty to 25 thousand likes.  However, the difference between the viewership and likes of the reels is stark, with many having close to 200 thousand views and only twenty thousand likes!  Again, this is by no means a bad metric, but it could be improved.  For one, all of the reels on SBSK’s Instagram are taken from moments in the interviews uploaded onto YouTube and Facebook.  Similarly to YouTube, these moments are posted after the interview has been uploaded.  For this reason, I would suggest for SBSK to take the same impact action of posting these reels before the full interview is released as well as improving their impressions by filming some reels on Instagram exclusively, such as short activities done with interviewees after the interview – so their YouTube subscribers will have to engage with Instagram as well.  As for their advanced metrics, it is most important for them to adjust their story completion rates, as the reels and posts on Instagram leave information out.  While not much can be done about time limits on reels, SBSK could add the interview names onto each reel so that viewers can find the YouTube interviews without any issues. 

[julianne-bergeron]

Blog #1 - My relationship with Social Media

I personally had not put much thought into how I would define social media until starting class this week.  I found it quite hard to conceptualize my perspective of social media, never mind put it into words.  However, after reading Chapter 1 of the textbook’s academic description of social media and its assertion that it is about people specifically, I found that my personal definition was much easier to narrow down.  In my perspective, social media is a tool in which people can communicate and convey meaning through specific mediums – photo sharing, video creation, private messaging – which allow them to create and maintain said communication with other users.  Due to this, people can use platforms which cater into their strengths and interests to create a reputation or allow them to engage with others with similar strengths and interests, such as Newgrounds for people who love to animate or Instagram (especially in the early 2010s) for people who love photography. 

As a person who grew up as Gen Z, much of my years in late elementary school to now have been spent on some form of social media.  I started off watching YouTube videos before I was ten; I began to read stories on Wattpad, Quotev, and Fanfiction.net when I was in middle school and made online friends; I would look at Tumblr accounts that posted information about my niche interests in high school; I joined Instagram to talk to my friends in my late teens and then moved our conversations onto Discord with them a few years later.  Due to the technological advancements going on while I grew up, I have spent more time engaging in social media than I have without it.  And yet, I rarely engage with it in the ways I admire others in doing. 

While I love consuming the media that I find on social media – whether it be Kierra Lewis’ recently finished first read through of the Harry Potter books journey on Instagram and TikTok or the theories people would share on the Jujutsufolk subreddit while the Jujutsu Kaisen manga was coming out – I always keep my thoughts to myself and have not commented on another person’s post or created my own for the last several years other than a few private Instagram posts.  There is an intense social anxiety that comes with being on social media and the poster being aware that I am there and seeing their content.  No matter how excited I am to share my thoughts on something, I will simply wait for another person to share a similar thought and breathe a sigh of relief that I did not have to say it. As of now, I am much more nervous of social media interaction than just a healthy dose of caution, which is holding me back from engaging with platforms and the people who use them as I wish to. Overall, I would characterize myself now as a 'fly on the wall' rather than an active participant.

While I do not engage in public conversations on platforms much, I believe that one of my strengths is knowing when to get off a platform.  There are a few reasons which I find to be reason enough to distance myself from social media for a few hours or a few days.  One such reason would be overconsumption or “doom-scrolling,” in which I will get off the platform and not use it until I am finished with whatever must or should be done at the time.  A more important reason in my opinion however would be finding myself engaging in media that is purely trying to cause division or anger, such as “hate-watching” or “rage-baiting.” During these times, I will typically not engage with that platform and potentially others as well until I feel that I can have a better emotional response and a better recognition of the toxic media as soon as it comes. 

Additionally, I believe that my caution, while it does hold me back, can be a strength as well in certain situations.  Due to the rising importance of social media in regular life, I understand that there is a real worry of doxxing or stalking people, no matter if they are a celebrity, an influencer, or a completely ‘normal’ person.  If someone were to have strong emotions about another person and had enough knowledge on how to find them, they could do so easily and share it just as easily as well.  A person could also become popular overnight for no reason other than coincidence and algorithms on an account in which they have more personal information available than they wish to be shared with the general public.  Because of this, I take many precautions now to ensure that anything found on my accounts and profiles will not let anyone know personal information I do not want to share.  For example, when I create a new social media account, I try to use my nickname – Julie – on my profiles instead of my full first name – Julianne – as Julie is a far more common name and I am less likely to be found from it (this blog is a different situation, however).  I also do not post anything about my zodiac sign, my state, or my age on any public accounts or any profile bios.  However, this caution, as stated above, becomes a weakness outside of personal information. 

While attempting to not share personal information about myself with others, I try not to engage with anyone outside of my private circle on private accounts in case I will say something too revealing in a stranger’s comment section.  In fact, I rarely use any social media features outside of direct messaging and scrolling through the For You or Home pages.  As a result, I know very little about the other features the platforms have to offer, such as the livestreams or goods they have to offer, video or photo uploading and editing, and searching through and following tags to curate my For You pages to my liking.  For example, it had taken me a very long time to understand how to create an Instagram story and post when I had already been using it as my default texting platform for over a year. 

This lack of engagement and abundance of overcautiousness which I have when it comes to any form of social media is something that I wish to tackle and face head on during this class.  I know that with a major like Communications and with the admiration I have towards people who create and share their artistic talents with the world through social media, I am only setting myself back by not understanding social media to a level that most other people do.  It is my goal that during this class, I will be able to aquaintance myself not only with social media platforms but with the way social media works as a whole and just how connected it is with my major.  Overall, I hope that during and after this class that I will be able to feel much more confident in not only understanding social media functions and how to use them to my advantage in my chosen field, but also in using those social media functions myself and connecting with the people who use them safely but self-assuredly.