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SNS (Social network sites) such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have rapidly grown in recent years as the development of Web 2.0. These SNSs have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily life, especially young people. SNS provide a platform for users to publish personal information, including text, photographs, videos and etc. Many people feel free to participate in the social network. But is the virtual world really free? The answer is no! The real world principles should be obeyed in SNSs as well. For example, images, video, music, and text uploaded to SNS are the subject matter of copyright, if someone uses the resource without the copyright owner’s permission, which will be an infringement act.
For the organisation, social media policy seems to be very important as employees using SNSs can bring some risks to the organisation such as:
Confidential information risks Wrongful dismissal Technology risk Copyright infringement Statutory risk Defamation Occupation and industry specific risks Reputation risksI think the most important thing is the confidential information for an organisation because it is directly associated with the profit and foundation of the organisation. Every organisation should explicitly stipulate it. There is an example of this rule which made by Cisco:
“Your Internet postings should not disclose any information that is confidential or proprietary to the company or to any third party that has disclosed information to Cisco.”
When an employee want to post something involves the subject of the organisation, (s) he should clearly the identity and a disclaimer to demonstrate it is only personal view.
One person’s professional integrity can be judged by whether (s) he respect other’s copyright or privacy. Using a network resource without permission is the same as stealing. Meanwhile, one’s wording can reflect one’s character. On one would like to engage a dishonest or a rude man. Defamation is an illegal conduct. So the policy about copyright and language network are very necessary.
To sum up, in the era of the rapid development of the Web 2.0, every organisation and individual should be mindful of the legal risks of the Social Media. Therefore, a full-scale Social Media Policy is essential to an organisation.
Jane.Zhang 
Are there any ways to reduce the risks being mention above?
Yes, to aviod these risks, the orgnisation should make a reasonable social media policy according its own situation to restrain employees’ words and deeds to some extent. The employee who broke the rule should be held responsible.
The reason for asking you is that your blog is very good. Do you know how to submit our first assignment because i changed to this unit on the third week. As a result i missed some information about this unit,so can you give me some help? thank you.
Hi, Julie!
The blackboard has been updated and there is a link named “P1” under the Learning Resources. Submit your doc of this assignment as an attach file.
Cheers!
Hi, thank you so much for your help. i think your blog give me some information that can be used to improve my knowledges of web2.0. Hope you post more useful messages.
I’m glad can help you. And I will keep up my work!
great post! Confidentiality is a major risk for all companies, it can cause defamation and a serious loss of client and customer information. This will lead to lawsuits and a lot of time and money fixing the problem.
please read my post 🙂
I agree there are many risks to may organisations and individuals, its so difficult to measure.
to begin with, You really have a catering tittle “Is social network a double-edged sword?”
I instantly want to read it all 🙂
I totally agree with you that the most important thing is the confidential information for an organisation because as you said it is directly associated with the profit and foundation of the organisation
a very well structured blog .. good luck 🙂