Social Media and Privacy

Today I attended a lecture by Dr. Paul Gates of Appalachian State University on the topic of social media and privacy. This is a very relevant topic that is constantly changing because of how new and evolving social media platforms are. As a result of this constant change, Dr. Gates pointed out a large issue being that there is very little written law on this topic.

One thing that Dr. Gates discussed regarding using social media as a source on the job is determining how legitimate that source is. Are you fact checking and reading the entire thing before you share it? This is something that is very important, as you want to make sure that everything you post and associate with yourself or your brand is legitimate and factually correct. Related to this issue is crediting the source. Should sources be credited when they are taken from social media or shared on social media and if so, how? This is a slippery slope and a difficult question that I do not have an answer for.

This is also a very relevant topic to the music and entertainment industries. From a public relations standpoint, artists want to be careful when sharing certain things to their websites or social media profiles. This is also relevant to you personally. When sharing music to your social media profiles, are you crediting the source or the artist from which you got it? These are all very important things to think about with relation to social media and privacy.