Legal, Policies, and Ethics

    Immanuel Kant the great philosopher made many great additions to the world's dialogue related to ethics. The idea, "a means to an end" will be a reoccurring debate on every TV drama until the internet eventually destroys TV, sitcoms become a footnote in history and daytime dramas will be the future bedtime stories of Generation Z 2.0. But that isn't my subject today. This means to an end might be interweaved into TV but is also making its way into the conversation of how social media develops and grows.

    The power of social media especially related to an individual's ethics isn't just an idea of the past anymore. In Chicago where gang wars are a very real and very scary issue, there are many of these gangs and gang members that communicate through Twitter. In an article by Ben Austen the idea of gang gaining power and being fueled by social media is becoming very apparent and in the Twitter conversations every day. If there was ever a situation where someone's ethic would be change, challenged or questioned it would be in gang related event.

   I personally am not closely affiliated anything close to those type of situations but through my super reliable grapevine that reaches me here in Utah I will make several assumptions and if anyone would like to correct my statements or help me to understand the reality I would gladly listen. The first assumption is that many gang have an initiation process. Some examples might include, stealing, fight, violence of some kind and a number of other possibilities. Assumption number two would be that the individuals had to change their regular ethical pattern upon going through that initiation. And assumption number three would be that their ethics, if not change by initiation, would definitely change after time with the group because their bonds and loyalties would grow stronger with other members than they had before.

   These powerful social situations aren't just things that happen on streets in Chicago, New York or who knows where else, these are influences that can be scene in our online social circles. And don't believe that the only ones being affected are us as users, it will be another assumption to say I could see high up executives of these very same social media companies have their ethics changed or challenged as they make their transactions.

    So you will one day be faced with a social media related ethical dilemma and in the words of Immanuel Kant, "Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."