Ethics & Etiquette

Overview
• Transparency
• Fake Blogs & Ghost Blogging
• Astroturfing
• Netiquette

What Do You Need to Know?
• Transparency/Disclosure
• Be honest
• Get permission
• Think before you speak
• If someone shares your content, thank them

Ghost Blogging
• Paying someone to write blog posts
• Violation of transparency
• Once someone finds out, it shows that you (the company)
are disingenuous and makes people think you have
something to hide
• Example: Kanye West
• Blog posts kept getting published under his name when
he was in jail
• Difference between this and character blogs (Captain
Morgan)

Lying/Misrepresentation
• Lying
• Just because people may not be able to see who is on
the other side, social media has also been able to reveal
liars
• Misrepresentation
• Do not pretend to be someone you are not
• But does virtual reality sites like Second Life promote
this?

Scenario
Boss comes to you, the intern, and asks you to tweet for
him. Your boss is well-known in the industry with a
huge following. While at a large conference, he
wants to appear to be active, but doesn’t have time to
tweet himself. What do you do?

Scenario Solutions
• Multi-author
• Set reminder that team members may be tweeting
• Every so many number posts, reminder of team tweets
• If characters permit, add a hash tag to denote team post
• Learn his/her voice

Examples

Examples

Examples

Astroturfing
• Political, advertising, or public relations campaigns
that are formally planned by an organization, but
designed to mask its origins to create the impression
of being spontaneous, popular "grassroots" behavior.

Astroturfing: Example
• 2006
• Wal-Marting Across
America
• Jim & Laura
• Stories about their trips
around the U.S. in the RV
and staying in Wal-Mart
parking lots

Astroturfing: Example
• Turns out to be a fabrication/distorted view
• Funded by Wal-Mart & Edelman, public relations advisor
• Some form/sum of money was being sent to Jim & Laura to
say nice things
• Relevant info
• Same time controversies about low wages at Wal-Mart
• Wal-Mart accused of altering its Wikipedia entry in 2005 by
removing its wages being lower than min. wage (replace it
with they paid double min. wage)

Netiquette
• E-mail
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Be brief
Clear subject line
Appropriate language
Proper signature
Ask permission to forward
Do not spam
Copyright laws
• Respect others Privacy

Best Practices: Twitter
•
Pick an appropriate photo of yourself
•
Private and company account? Be careful which you tweet too
•
Do not tweet during meetings or special events (unless asked or
encouraged too)
•
Do not overuse hash tags
•
Attempt to use proper grammar and avoid abbreviations
•
Use direct messages for private conversations
•
Use it for conversation, not venting (or when you are drunk)

Best Practices: How often?
• Some Guidelines
• Blog everyday or once per week – but remember, its not
all about selling, but providing valuable content
• Tweet as often as you want, but don’t get carried away
• Facebook status updates can be daily or a few times per
day
• If you are inspired by someone’s post, give them credit
by linking text or placing it at the end of the text

Future
• See a lot of employee handbooks that cover social
media
• Disclosure forms/interviews

References
• Tweeting Under False Circumstances

Legal Issues
“Internet today resembles the Old West of American history”
(Fertik and Thompson, 2010)

The Transparent Society
• David Brin book (1998)
• “Light is going to shine into nearly every corner of
our lives.”
• Brin’s focus was on surveillance technologies and his
call for a “reciprocal transparency” where
government was “Big Brother”

A Transparent Society
• Tapscott and Williams (2011) focus on social
media’s effect on privacy laws and regulations.
• “Privacy and data protection laws ensure that
organizations collect, use, retain and disclose our
personal information in a confidential manner. But
today the biggest threat is not other organizations, it’s
us.”
• Tapscott and Williams’ statement carried great
validity especially with the emergence of the Web
2.0 era.

YouTube
• To date, most legal issues revolve around YouTube
violating:
• defamation,
• privacy, or
• copyright law and the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act
• “strengthened the legal protection of intellectual property
rights in the wake of emerging new information
communication technologies, i.e., the Internet” (Indiana
University, 2009).

Comm Law Review (or Intro)
• Defamation
• Any intentional false communication, either written or
spoken, that harms a person's reputation; decreases the
respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held;
or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions
or feelings against a person.
• Libel – written
• Slander – spoken
Legal Dictionary Online

Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA)
• Signed into law on October 28, 1998 by President
Clinton
• Made changes to US Copyright Act
• Penalizes copyright infringement on the Internet
• Criminalizes production and dissemination of
technology, devices, or services intended to
circumvent measures that control access to
copyrighted works
Wikipedia

Voluntary v. Involuntary
• Paradigm of openness
• Voluntary – providing information and participating
• Domino’s Case Study
• Involuntary – information becoming public, but not
by one’s choice
• Rathergate

So what happens when someone
discloses information or private
documents not intended to go public?

Wikileaks
•
Julian Assange, a transparency advocate, releasing confidential U.S.
foreign policy documents (involuntary transparency)
•
“Whether we like it or not, the new, involuntary transparency calls for
a new code of behavior, on dictated by the reality that we can never
assume we are alone or unwatched” (Bennis, Goleman, & O’Toole,
2008, p. 17-18).
•
An attempt to create a more open and transparent society in an effort
to drive greater ethical behavior among companies and government
with the belief that their efforts will bring more good than harm
•
These types of situations will force government and companies to
reassess their crisis communication plan to adopt policies and
strategies for dealing with instances where information about their
company may be leaked, and how they will respond to it in a timely
manner.

Legal Cases
• Dominick v. MySpace
• Corbett v. Twitter, Inc.
• La Russa v. Twitter, Inc.
• ONEOK v. Twitter, Inc.

Dominick v. MySpace
• May 12, 2008
• Location: Illinois
• Legal Claims: Defamation
• Larry Dominick, Town President of Cicero Illinois
• Filed a “Petition of Discovery” seeking the identity
of the MySpace user who had created two false
profiles of Dominick

Dominick v. MySpace
• Claiming “defamation, invasion of privacy, and related
torts arising from various statements on a social
networking website known as MySpace.”
• The petition continued: “These profiles falsely state that
they are profiles of the petitioner, falsely state that they
were created, posted, and published by the petitioner, and
include defamatory matter concerning the petitioner”
(Petition, 2008, 1).
• Although he provided no details to support his claim that
the statements about him were false, MySpace removed
the pages in question.

Dominick v. MySpace
• On June 4, 2008, the Electronic Freedom
Foundation (EFF) responded, arguing in an amicus
brief that the First Amendment protects anonymous
speech unless Dominick could demonstrate a viable
defamation claim
• Dominick withdrew his petition on June 13th without
stating his reasons for doing so
• EFF stated publically that Dominick failed to provide
specific allegations of defamation, or any proof that the
allegedly defamatory statements were false.

Corbett v. Twitter
• May 6, 2010
• Location: Pennsylvania
• Legal Claims: Other
• Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania Attorney General
• Requested an investigative grand jury to issue a subpoena
requesting Twitter respond by providing the identities of
two anonymous Twitter account users that had criticized
the Attorney General as he competed in the Republican
Primary for that party’s gubernatorial nomination
(Subpoena)

Corbett v. Twitter
• News reports indicated that the subpoenas may in
part be an attempt to unmask the authors of a blog
critical of Corbett (Citizen Media Law Project)
• Free speech advocates criticized Corbett as an abuse
of his official powers as attorney general to silence
critics through political retaliation

Corbett v. Twitter
• “Anonymous speech is a longstanding American right”
• Paul Alan Levy of the Public Citizen Litigation Group, a
Washington organization that has defended anonymous
commenters who have been sued by companies and
politicians
• “…any subpoena seeking to unmask the identity of
anonymous critics raises the specter of political
retaliation.”
• Witold Walczak, legal director for the A.C.L.U. of
Pennsylvania

Corbett v. Twitter
• The Attorney General withdrew the subpoena on
May 19, 2010
• Corbett offered no comment as to why the order had
withdrawn, responding only that the subpoena had
been part of a grand jury investigation and that he
could not offer comment beyond that

La Russa v. Twitter, Inc.
•
May 5, 2009
•
Location: California
•
Legal Claims: Cybersquatting; Right of Publicity; Trademark
Infringement; Trademark Dilution
•
Anthony (Tony) La Russa, manager of St. Louis Cardinals
•
Filed a complaint in the Superior Court of California against
Twitter, Inc., alleging that the defendant maintains a site
allegedly be owned by La Russa, containing his photograph
and written statements implied to have been made by the
plaintiff

La Russa v. Twitter, Inc.
• The statements are claimed to be highly derogatory,
suggesting alcohol abuse, and damaging to La
Russa’s reputation and his trademark rights
• The complaint contended that the domain name of
the site, and the use of the plaintiff ’s name dilute the
plaintiff ’s trademark, his name
• Creates the misleading impression that La Russa
authors the site

La Russa v. Twitter, Inc.
• In October 2009, the case was removed from the
Superior Court’s calendar, the media reporting
various conflicting terms of settlement
• PCWorld offered the following insights into the
weaknesses:
• First, La Russa should know that celebrity is going to
generate parody through imitation (similar to SNL)
• Twitter has an anti-imitation process for reporting and
removing attempts at impersonation, which La Russa did
not pursue

La Russa v. Twitter, Inc.
• Second, the same policy states that parody
impersonations are permissible if clearly labeled as
parody
• Third, online service providers are shielded from
responsibility for third-party expression
• Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996
prohibits a claim such as La Russas

ONEOK, Inc. v. Twitter
• September 15, 2009
• Location: Oklahoma
• Legal Claims: Trademark Infringement
• ONEOK Inc., a natural gas company in Oklahoma
• Filed suit against Twitter on counts of trademark
infringement and contributory infringement, alleging that
an anonymous user had created and employed an
imposter Twitter account using the name ONEOK and
the corporate trademark

ONEOK, Inc. v. Twitter
• Their complaint alleges that the imposter account had
tweeted corporate related information, which they held to
be potentially damaging to ONEOK’s public image in the
investor community and energy industry, and negatively
impact the company’s shareholders
• ONEOK sought to obtain the imposter’s identity and
contact information, and to have the ONEOK account
assigned to them
• Twitter refused to do so in both instances, at point which
ONEOK filed suit, seeking a permanent injunction
against further use of this account

ONEOK, Inc. v. Twitter
• The case was dropped by ONEOK, Inc., perhaps
following the removal of the site by Twitter.
• Issues such as this may be the motivation behind
Twitter’s decision to introduce “Verified Accounts”
• Celebrities, athletes, public officials, etc., can display
“verified account” status on their Twitter pages
• Allows those notables to distinguish their legitimate
sites from impersonators

What Do We Need to Know?
• Global computer-based technologies now ignore
traditional territorial boundaries and new boundaries
separated by usernames and passwords create the
boundaries of Cyberspace (Post & Johnson, 2006)
• New boundaries now threaten traditional laws

“There is no sheriff in town, and Internet
users have been left with rough frontier
justice” (Fertik & Johnson, 2010)

Online Regulation Today
• September 2009
• Texas enacted H.B. No. 2003, making it a third-degree
felony to impersonate individuals on social networking
websites “relating to the creation of the offense of online
harassment” (HB2003 Act)
• Also includes text messages:
• Section 33.07 states:
• “A person commits an offense if the person uses the name or
persona of another person to create a webpage on or to post
on or more messages on a commercial social networking site:
(1) without obtaining the other person’s consent; and (2) with
the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate, or threaten any
person”

Online Regulation Today
• January 1, 2011
• The state of California passed State Bill 1411, making it a
misdemeanor to impersonate another individual online
• “This bill would provide that any person who knowingly and
without consent credibly impersonates another actual person
through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic
means, as specified, for purposes of harming, intimidating,
threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a
misdemeanor. The bill would, in addition to the specified
criminal penalties, authorize a person who suffers damage or
loss to bring a civil action against any person who violates
that provision, as specified.”

Online Regulation Raises
Questions
• Anonymous speech
• Parody and satire
• Commercial speech and trademark dilution
• Back to boarders, what happens when the violator is
not from the state of Texas or California?

Want to Learn More?
• Larry Lessig, Harvard Law Professor
• Code as Law
• American Bar Association Convention Keynote

References
Amicus Brief, Larry Dominick v. MySpace, Inc., Electronic Freedom Foundation, Circuit Court of Cook County,
Illinois County Department Law Division. June 4, 2008.
Bennis, W., Goleman, D., & O’Toole, J. (2008). Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Brin, D. (1998). The transparent society: will technology force us to choose between privacy and freedom. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley.
Fertik, M., & Thompson, D. (2010). Wild west 2.0: how to protect and restore your online reputation on the untamed social
frontier. New York, NY: American Management Association.
Indiana University. (2009, July 20). What is the digital millennium copyright act?. Retrieved from
http://kb.iu.edu/data/alik.html
Johnson, D. & Post, D. (1996). Law and borders--The rise of law in cyberspace. Stanford Law Review, May, pp. 1-20.
Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2011, January 1). Social media's unexpected threat [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/don-tapscott/social-medias-unexpectedthreat/article1854656/