Watch Your Step With Social Media
by Ron Orozco / The Fresno Bee
February 5, 2010

Now that using social media has hit the mainstream, everyone from teens to grandmas are finding themselves faced with ethical dilemmas.

Take, for example, an estranged family member who decides it’s time to reconnect via a Facebook friends request. Should you accept or decline? Or, an old colleague reconnects through LinkedIn but then persistently tries to sell you something? Should you disconnect?

How do you handle these situations? It’s not as if we have a Miss Manners guide to online interaction to consult.

The Rev. Robert Barron, who founded the Chicago-based Word on Fire Catholic Ministries Web site wordonfire.org, says people have long asked for advice in making ethical decisions. It’s now expanding to cyberspace dilemmas.

“It’s such a new phenomena that etiquette isn’t as developed,” he says. “These questions are just now coming into people’s minds.”

In general, most experts say learning to use privacy controls — thus monitoring who sees what in your world — can help. Often, it’s leaving information wide open that creates the dilemmas.

But, what else can you do? In addition to Barron, The Bee turned to some local experts — Tamyra Pierce, an associate professor of mass communication and journalism at California State University, Fresno; Andrew Fiala, a Fresno State philosophy professor and director of university’s Ethics Center; and Ray O’Canto, president of NTD Media in Fresno — for tips.

Don’t communicate with someone you don’t know.

Pierce, who has done extensive social networking research, says some users are cautious about who they link up with, but not everyone. Many young teens add “friends” they don’t know and treat social media as a popularity contests.

“That could put them at-risk because they don’t know who they are inviting in,” she says. Some people are offended if you don’t add them as friends, Pierce says. But that’s OK, she says, be selective.

As to someone popping up from the past, Pierce advises you to ask yourself a couple questions: “Were we really friends 20 years ago? Do I really want to connect with them now?

Use caution for everyone.

Don’t be rude.

Fiala says he uses Blackboard at Fresno State, where people have virtual discussions online. Some people are pretty rude with their postings.

“I tell my students to be aware in how your posts are received by others,” he says. “There is a flippant attitude when online. It’s hurtful. When we’re not face to face, we feel we can get away with not being polite.”

He encourages that you treat everyone with respect.

Don’t mesh business with your personal life.

O’Canto, who recently gave a talk, “Using Social Media to Build Relationships and Market Your Business,” at a Christian Business Men’s Connection event, says blending business and personal lives in the virtual world sometimes can’t be avoided but people should do their best to separate them.

“You need to build separate pages for business — away from your personal stuff,” he says.

At stake, O’Canto says, is your credibility.

“The most important marketing tool is word of mouth — that’s credibility,” he says. “Unfortunately, word of mouth is limited. It has shifted from word of mouth to [virtual] world of mouth. So credibility, honesty and integrity are important.”

Don’t get too chummy.

Barron says the benefit to social media is people can communicate with more people. But he draws the line at some professionals interacting with individuals, such as priests on Facebook.

“In the wake of the scandals, if a priest has a Facebook page, people might wonder, ‘Oh, the priest is trying to make his way into the world of young people.’”

Barron says it’s OK for a parish or ministry to have an online ministry, where information is posted and managed by staff members. That’s the case with Barron’s wordonfire.org. He says, “It’s not me interjecting myself.”

Apply everyday-life ethics to your virtual world.

All the experts say ethical dilemmas are manageable if you apply the same standards of face-to-face communication to social media sites.

Don’t post a message if you wouldn’t make the comment to someone in person. Don’t post a photo you wouldn’t place on a public bulletin board.

Pierce likes to pose tough ethical questions to parents.

“I ask, ‘Would you want your child posting a photo of themselves on a telephone pole?’ ” she says. “Then, I say, ‘Why on earth would you want them to give it out to the world?’”

In making ethical decisions, Pierce says young teens need to ask, “Would I do this in front of people in real life?” If not, she says, don’t do it on Facebook.

THE REPORTER CAN BE REACHED AT ROROZCO@FRESNOBEE.COM OR (559) 441-6304.

From TheFresnoBee.com