A certain little scandal in the UK right now involving The News of the World has left the nation’s journalism reeling, and posed some serious questions for the industry. How was this level of unethical behaviour allowed to happen? How do we prevent it from happening again? What are the standards of journalism now that [...]
On a recent trip around the web last week, I came across this old post by one Steven Hodgson writing for WinExtra – He poses an interesting question: Why is it that what’s cool for Google is an ethical question for Microsoft? Quote: I remember when Google surprised everyone who was attending one of their [...]
How powerful is it really? My daughter has started a new school, and along with other pressures comes the need to be seen as ‘a good mum’. Last Friday she announced she needed a blue nose. A request like this usually implies an entire costume is required at breakneck speed for an assembly or charity [...]
You may have seen on the news that the government has commissioned Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of charity Mother’s Union, to chair an independent review into the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood in Britain. Part of the review will involve looking at the impact of social media, brand ambassadors and “online marketing to children” in accelerating [...]
The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) have been discussing extending the remit of the CAP code (UK Code of Non-Broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing) for several months now, and this week the extent of the new digital coverage was announced. Intended to prevent misleading marketing, ensure social responsibility and protect children, from next year [...]
Twitter is well-known for its ecosystem and large range of apps. OneForty.com, the Twitter app store founded by Laura Fitton, has listed more than 2600 apps so far. This morning I came across a Twitter tool called MyLikes while monitoring the latest tweets about word-of-mouth. The purpose of this service is to give cash to [...]
This morning I came across one of the best blog posts I have read in a long time. The brilliant writer Stan Cattermole’s blog Bête du Jour is always worth browsing for very funny prose with serious bite, but his tale of what happened when a promotional company asked him to write a positive post [...]
As the need for global companies to coordinate their social media engagement activity increases, the ethics debate on disclosure comes into shaper focus. Take a look at this snippet from the latest eMarketer study. It’s clear (from these results as well as through our own experience in markets like Russia and China) there are different attitudes [...]
Barcamp Transparency, organised by our very own Ethicist, Sylwia Presley and sponsored by Google, our good selves and a few others besides, took place this Sunday past at Oxford University Club. The attendees focussed their discussion on topics related to open government, social media ethics and cyber activism in the form of one hour long, [...]
