Ethical Communication and Fake News on Social Media

Introduction

"Almost a quarter of the world's population is now on Facebook. In the USA, nearly 80% of all internet users are on this platform. Because social networks feed off interactions among people, they become more powerful as they grow" (Gaitho, 2018). Social media has created a manifestation of a branch of society that human civilization has never had to deal with before. Because society is simultaneously experiencing and attempting to scrutinize the impacts of social media, it can be harder to pinpoint all the numerous ways it affects both the individual and the collective.

One phenomenon that has grown out of social media is that people don't only share information about themselves and their personal lives — they also share information, articles, and images about various aspects of the shared world. This can be problematic, as many people don't verify the factual accuracy of what they post, something that can lead to the widespread dissemination of untrue information accepted as fact. The negative impacts upon society are substantial.

This paper will explore the nuances inherent in ethical communication — such as how truth is foundational and how social media posts that portray negative or misleading suggestions about people and issues can have an adverse impact on society. Ultimately, it will argue that the individual has distinct ethical obligations when it comes to the information they share on social media, because the sharing of inaccurate information has real, negative consequences for the general public.

Ethical Theory and Implications

The main ethical theory to be applied to this topic is consequentialism. This ethical framework is the most appropriate for such a topic because it offers a practical and straightforward way to evaluate the ethical weight of an action. "Consequentialist normative principles require that we first tally both the good and bad consequences of an action. Second, we then determine whether the total good consequences outweigh the total bad consequences. If the good consequences are greater, then the action is morally proper. If the bad consequences are greater, then the action is morally improper" (utm.edu). This approach is particularly appealing for a subject as complex as social media because it does not require digging into intricate philosophical or intuitive connections to a principle. It simply asks the individual to determine the overall net-positive or net-negative result of an action.

When it comes to communication within social media, there needs to be greater thought and awareness given to ethical discernment. Ethical discernment means being able to recognize ethical issues and concepts and to apply these principles when making judgments and decisions about what to do (Tompkins, 2018). This needs to play a larger role in online communications and within the realm of social media. "Practicing communication ethics involves discernment and decision making about what is good, right, or virtuous to communicate. The failure of decision makers to communicate ethically is evident around us. Media reports of deceptive or false statements by people in business, relationships, and politics are all too common. Controversy over digital fake news has brought greater awareness of deception in communication" (Tompkins, 2018).

If recent events have proven anything, it is that false information spread online carries real power: the power to generate revenue for companies and the power to influence people's actions — how they spend their money, what they tell their friends, and how they vote. As Tompkins illuminates, ethical communication involves greater nuance than a simple honest-versus-deceptive binary, and the interests of the individual versus the collective must be carefully weighed (2018). Nevertheless, society would benefit enormously if more people committed to posting and sharing only things they know to be true. Asserting honesty and truth as basic standards of moral decency are strong starting points for ethical conduct on social media.

News and Social Media

A major ethical issue connected to this topic is how news is spread over social media. It is common for individuals to share a story from a major news outlet on their social media profiles without checking its veracity, assuming — usually correctly — that the story has been properly fact-checked and vetted. However, during the 2016 election, deliberately fabricated news stories emerged, designed to portray certain candidates in a negative light and to discourage votes for them. Research has since confirmed these patterns: "(i) 62 percent of U.S. adults get news on social media (Pew 2016a); (ii) the most popular fake news stories were more widely shared on Facebook than the most popular mainstream news stories (Silverman 2016); (iii) many people who see fake news stories report that they believe them (Silverman and Singer-Vine 2016); and (iv) the most discussed fake news stories tended to favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton (Silverman 2016)" (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017).

Numerous analysts and commentators have assembled these findings and concluded that Donald Trump may not have been elected president without the influence of fake news spread across social media platforms (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). This represents a very real and very distressing consequence of social media and demonstrates how what people post and share can have tangible effects on the real world. The ethical issue at stake is whether a candidate was wrongfully elevated to the presidency because that candidate gained momentum from lies circulated by others. Gaining a competitive advantage by deceiving the American public is unethical and may carry long-term negative effects that members of society have yet to fully recognize.

The websites that created fake news about 2016 presidential candidates, and the social media ads designed to drive traffic to those sites, represented a concerted effort to subvert ethical communication in order to achieve a particular political goal. Some have dismissed these claims as exaggeration, but the research confirms otherwise. "Social media plays a bigger role in bringing people to fake news sites than it plays in bringing them to real news sites. More than 40 percent of visits to 65 fake news sites come from social media, compared to around 10 percent of visits to 690 top U.S. news sites, according to a 2017 study by researchers from NYU and Stanford. And another study suggests Facebook was a major conduit for this news. The more people used Facebook, the more fake news they consumed, as Princeton's Andrew Guess, Dartmouth University's Brendan Nyhan, and the University of Exeter's Jason Reifler found" (Kurtzleben, 2018). One could argue that unethical actors who engage in deceptive practices will always exist — but this reality should not lead society to abandon its efforts to address and police such behavior.

Conclusion

2016 was an election year that demonstrated to individuals and to society far and wide that the things we post on social media do not exist in a vacuum — they can have very real, and very damaging, consequences in real life. This event illuminated the need for society to give greater attention to the fact that each individual carries an ethical responsibility to question and personally vet what they post on social media. There is a collective consciousness at stake.

While it is true that people of different genders, religious backgrounds, ethnicities, and nationalities may view this issue differently — some seeing it as the responsibility of the state or of large institutions — it remains fundamentally an individual issue. Involving the state in some manner could be beneficial, but carries a meaningful risk of censorship. The duty to stop the spread of fake news and damaging misinformation is primarily an individual one. This belief is directly supported by a personal code of ethics grounded in a sense of duty and integrity. Personal responsibility is at the core of justice and integrity — elements that must be embraced if society is to resist being manipulated by deception, online or otherwise.

References

Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. doi:10.3386/w23089

Drushel, B. E., & German, K. (2011). The ethics of emerging media: Information, social norms, and new media technology. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Gaitho, M. (2018, September 12). What is the real impact of social media? Retrieved from https://www.simplilearn.com/real-impact-social-media-article

Kurtzleben, D. (2018, April 11). Did fake news on Facebook help elect Trump? Here's what we know. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/04/11/601323233/6-facts-we-know-about-fake-news-in-the-2016-election

Tompkins, P. S. (2019). Practicing communication ethics: Development, discernment, and decision making.

utm.edu. (n.d.). Ethics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/#SH2c

West, D. M. (2017, December 18). How to combat fake news and disinformation. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-to-combat-fake-news-and-disinformation/