Browsing by Author "Hanlon, Annmarie"
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Item Open Access Chapter 31: Ethics in digital marketing and social media(SAGE, 2020-10-05) Hanlon, AnnmarieChapter 31 considers ethics in digital marketing and social media. Whilst digital marketing and social media have disrupted traditional communications, the notion of ethics has been less considered. This chapter presents the emerging ethical issues within this domain, at individual, organisational and societal levels. The chapter starts with an introduction to the data that consumers are willing to share in order to gain access to platforms and explores how ethics has been managed in this domain, highlighting societal approaches to managing the data. It then provides the background to customer data deception and behavioural microtargeting and presents the notion of blurred boundaries, with its potential consequences such as online shaming. Subsequently this chapter looks at harmful online behaviour from trolls to sockpuppets, cyber-bullying to dying for selfies. Moving from risky individual behaviour to that of organisations and the ethical issues of seeking user-generated content, along with the role of influencers. The chapter concludes with a review of the policies and codes of conduct and discusses the future directions of digital and social media marketing ethics as we move towards an open ethics standard.Item Open Access Ethical concerns about social media privacy policies: do users have the ability to comprehend their consent actions?(Taylor and Francis, 2023-08-30) Hanlon, Annmarie; Jones, KarenSocial media platforms capture and trade consumer data for analysis, user profiling and for sale to interested parties and is used extensively in marketing. To collect, store, process and resell this data, they are legally required to obtain informed consent. However, users may agree to consent without the ability to comprehend the consequences of what that consent means. In this article we examine the complexity of privacy policies and raise ethical concerns about the ability of users to comprehend their consent actions. Using readability scores and reading fluency instruments, we analyzed the accessibility of privacy policies from a major social media platform (Meta) and a smaller platform (Twitter). Findings indicate that due to reading fluency and document length it is unlikely all users, especially minors, can authorize the consent actions which raises ethical concerns. Practical implications for managers and policy makers are also discussed and regulators may need to review users’ access to platforms where they lack the ability to comprehend their consent actions.