Top Things NOT To Do on Social Media

Social media is composed of websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. It’s a powerful outlet wherein a lot of people converse with or interact to each other everyday. Why is it powerful? A lot of people around the world can access it for free, therefore, the audience that it caters to is over a billion number of people. It’s also kinda scary because once you post something in social media, it may remain there forever even though you deleted it. There’s a high chance that before you delete a post or a photo, someone else might have saved it to their computer or mobile phone.

 

Due to the popularity of social media outlets, a lot of things are considered ‘unethical’; the top 10 of my lists are:

1. Bullying Someone for their Physical Appearance – this may sound like a rule from middle school but it’s also applicable to everyone since cyber bullying is a common thing all over the world. A lot of people are traumatized or even commit suicide attempts due to cyber bullying. This may seem like a small thing but for some people it can be mean so much.
2. Death Threats – this may seem funny but this has been a common thing lately. Please keep in mind that it’s illegal to make serious, repeated threats to hurt someone online. You may be charged and be put to jail, even though you meant it as a bad joke and the other people took it seriously.
3. Posting Someone Else’s Picture Without Permission – this is automatically considered as theft; but surprisingly, a lot of people are doing this. Posting something that is not yours is never a good move in social media; aside from getting sued for plagiarism or photo theft, the embarrassment on social media is worse too. You must always remember to give credits where credit is due to avoid getting in trouble for “stealing” something in social media.
4. Racial Discrimination – this is plainly wrong in every aspects; be it a racial joke or slurs to your office mate or to an old friend. This not only embarrass the person that you’re referring to but also lessen the people’s respect to you. Always remember that respect begets respect.
5. Complaining About a Specific Person – calling someone out in social media will not only make you look mean but also a very insensitive person. Be more professional and do it privately and in the real world.
6. Making Any Sexual References – if getting catcalled in public is not rude enough; making sexual jokes or references in social media is even worse. If you think that sexual jokes are funny in social media, well think again. Keep in mind that you are in a public forum and it will be easy to misconstrue a crude joke.
7. Harassment – Whenever someone comments rude to things to everything you post or do on social media, that’s harassment and this is the main reason why the term “troll” came into existence.
8. Hiring or Firing an Employee – this shouldn’t be seen in social media as it exposes the private life of that person without even asking for their permission to share something about their private life. Let’s do the honor of practicing this method in private and in person.
9. Tagging Someone in an Embarrassing Photo – this is also considered  as “harassing”.
10. Swearing – Let’s save the profanity to where is not held in perpetuity for any reader. This is also considered a form of social cruelty.