REFLECTION ON TOPIC 4 – ETHICAL ISSUES

The term Astroturfing is definitely new to me as I have never heard any mentions on it despite on the contrary, it’s happening around us daily through various forms of advertisement.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guro-Dmiia8&app=desktop)

(Source: http://ww.stocklayouts.com/images/superviews/MD0290701-S.jpg)

QUESTION: ARE THE PRODUCTS/SERVICES REALLY AS GOOD AS WHAT THEY CLAIM TO BE?

Astroturfing is an ongoing ethical issue where it is cheating users who are influenced by social media celebrities to purchase a recommended product.

After reading my peer’s blog that discussed many different kinds of ethical issues, I would like to highlight JiaJun’s blog on how social media could be of educational benefits to student but, potentially a disadvantage as a distraction and surfacing as a platform where cyberbullying and plagiarism issues could occur.

The video below shows why cyberbullying occurs and ways to prevent it.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmQ8nM7b6XQ)

Moreover, I questioned Jiajun with the pros and cons of having anti-plagiarism website such as “turnitin” as I believe that having an anti-plagiarism website may help reduce plagiarism rate but it could lead to conflicts when there are common coincidental phrases.

On the other hand, I would like to highlight YY’s post on privacy issues where he shared a video on how Facebook abuses our information. However our privacy can be protected with measures such as revealing lesser personal information like our phone number and address on our social media and also deleting “cookies” from browser.

Credit: Russell Watkins Shutterstock

Nevertheless, I still think that astroturfing is a potentially harmful issue. It shocked me how social media could impact our daily purchase decision. Surely we wouldn’t want to feel cheated, especially by the influencer that we trust when buying certain product(s).

Thus it ponders me if this issue could be prevented. Is it necessary to add the numbers of disbelievers in social advertising in this digital age like the photo shown below?