http://www.ethikospublication.com/html/socialmediaethics.html
Think Before You Tweet: Social Media Codes of Conduct
By Alexandra Theodore
Best buy Co. Inc., electronics company, in previous years, created a new “social media policy”, which targets the actively developing online digital media domain. The company felt it needed a set of rules to govern its workers; the rules “moves and evolves” constantly. During this period, one of the employees was suspended after their creation of a viral cartoon video, degrading one of the retailer brands “the iPhone”
Suspending a worker that has defamed one of the company’s retailer products may seem correct under normal circumstances, but in this case is unethical without understandable clarifications. As stated by Kathleen Edmonds, social media policies need to be able to grow and adapt with the ever-advancing online world. The actions of the worker had not, at the time, broken the rules; thus it was unfair, and unethical for the company to instantly include potential policies. Suspending workers who breached the social media code is ethical, only if the code was clearly presented to the workers at each new revision.
Everyone has the freedom to express their thoughts, opinions or even art work. The creation of this cartoon has not made huge financial impact on the store. I do not see the reason for suspending the worker. It is quite unethical for businesses to limit ones freedom in order to maximize its profit.