Social Media
Legal 100
November 30, 2013

Social Media
If you were to ask this simple question “What does social media mean?” The reply will vary according to the social status of each individual. Some people have become so dependent on the social media of their choice, to the extreme that it has become addictive, while others may see that social media in today’s society is destroying our ability to communicate “the old fashion way” face to face. On the other hand, many businesses are finding that social media is an integral part of their operations in order to effectively reach consumers, launch new products, and generate large customer bases. It’s become a very sufficient, dependable, and effective way for them to reach their goals by utilizing it as a marketing tool. There are many social media outlets to talk about; I have chosen “YouTube” because of its ability for creativity that I feel is necessary when marketing your business. YouTube’s vision is, “A Daily Destination for Creativity, Learning and Free Expression” (YouTube, 2013). Anytime there is a use of social media when it relates to your business; there definitely must be management in place that can approve and monitor every legal aspect of the process with the ability to communicate with knowledge that will protect the company, and also provide solutions to any legal problems that may occur as result of the merge. According to Bagley (2013), “The Legally Astute Manager”, “At its core, legal astuteness is the ability of a manager to communicate effectively with counsel and to work together to solve complex problems” (p. 11). Every business should have a dependable person in a management position that not only looks out for the best interest of the company, but the consumer as well. Therefore, a legal astute social media manager plays a critical part of the company’s management team as it relates to the use of social media for their business, and there are four components that should be utilized and implemented by the legal astute social media manager in order to responsibly perform his or her duties; which I will be discussing in detail.
Bagley’s, (2013) study found that the four legal astuteness components are as follows:
A set of value-laden attitudes about the importance of law to the firm’s success.
A proactive approach to legal issues and regulation.
The ability to exercise informed judgment when managing the legal aspects of business.
Context-specific knowledge of the law and the appropriate use of legal tools.
If these components are properly implemented by the legal astute social media manager, it can mitigate the risk involved in doing business in cyberspace by: knowing the law, understanding what takes place, taking responsibility for legal disputes, and understanding what the contracts says concerning their company. The social media’s policies and procedures should be viewed from a business managers stand point in lieu of a consumer, for the simple fact that if there is a dispute by your customers, you will be in good legal standings according to the business side of YouTube’s social media laws because you abided by its rules and regulations.
There are three methods of alternative dispute resolutions, and they are: “Negotiation – the give and take people engage in when coming to terms with each other; Mediation – a form of dispute resolution whereby the parties agree to try to reach a solution themselves with the assistance of a neutral third party who help them find a mutually satisfactory solution; Arbitration - the resolution of a dispute by a neutral third party” (Bagley, 2013). If there is a dispute, and I am the consumer who made purchases from a business that provided a link through social media, I would choose Arbitration as my method for dispute resolution because it’s enforced by the courts and its binding. Also Arbitrators can subpoena documents, and third-party witnesses for a hearing which can be very helpful to a consumer who may not otherwise have access to certain documents in regards to the social media provider.
Furthermore, due to the fact that consumer transactions on YouTube and other social media can take place across state lines, the federal government has the power to tax, which is the best way to control these transactions. Taxes have an economic impact on businesses which can affect their behavior when it comes to utilizing social media to provide their services, or sell their products.
Upon examining the three branches of government as listed: The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States, who also acts as head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress and, to that end, appoints the heads of the federal agencies, including the Cabinet. The Vice President is also part of the Executive Branch, ready to assume the Presidency should the need arise (whitehouse.gov).
Established by Article I of the Constitution, the Legislative Branch consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which together form the United States Congress. The Constitution grants Congress the sole authority to enact legislation and declare war, the right to confirm or reject many Presidential appointments, and substantial investigative powers (whitehouse.gov).
Where the Executive and Legislative branches are elected by the people, members of the Judicial Branch are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Judicial Branch, leaves Congress significant discretion to determine the shape and structure of the federal judiciary. Even the number of Supreme Court Justices is left to Congress — at times there have been as few as six, while the current number (nine, with one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices) has only been in place since 1869. The Constitution also grants Congress the power to establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court, and to that end Congress has established the United States district courts, which most federal cases, and 13 United States courts of appeals, which review appealed district court cases (whitehouse.gov). I have concluded that the Judicial Branch would bring about the most significant impact on controlling consumer transactions via social media outlet because this branch is given the power to deal with more cases than the Executive and Legislative branches. They also review cases dealing with several states simultaneously, and because social media transactions may involve different states this is why I believe that they would have a greater impact.
Finally, the agency relationship between YouTube and Businesses would list YouTube as the social media provider, Businesses as independent contractors, and YouTube being listed as the principle. This is one reason as to why social media clearly indicate its policies and procedures on their sites so that once you create an account to utilize their service you have now entered into a contract, but because you are acting as an independent contractor they are not totally liable for your conduct or actions. They are obligated to monitor the usage of their social media customers to make sure that they are abiding by the rules set in place but if something “Slips through the Cracks”, they have already obtained your agreement to their regulations when you choose to create an account. Due to the wide spread in ages that have access to social media; YouTube listed as the principle still has a responsibility to monitor “Business Ethics”, in regards to their own business and their independent contractors, which benefits both parties in this matter. So therefore, if one of the businesses, be it the social media provider, or the business advertiser, should encounter some sort of hacking on their site that does not have good moral standard, and or experience something that’s connected to their advertisement that does not represent their company; it should be detected by the process of the social media and deactivated.
In closing, YouTube selects several different ways to allow advertisements to be viewed by its customers. According to YouTube (2013), “They want to make advertising on their site as useful and interesting to you as possible. For some pages, they choose ads that they think will reflect your interests, based on the types of videos you prefer to watch, as well as your site activity (uploading, for example).” I think that even the name YouTube speaks volume because it gives you that feeling of ownership, “Your Tube”. When you create your own YouTube channel; it becomes everything that you are, and expresses so much about you and who you are as an individual in society. On the other hand it does the same for businesses as they advertise their product and services to the consumer. So, therefore, as you create your video’s to upload on YouTube; they will monitor it to your creativity, and connect you with businesses who advertise things towards your likeness, and for this reason is why I think YouTube is a great social media outlet for the consumer and the business man. As technology increases with the speed of lightening, this is becoming the way that businesses and consumers are connecting. For example: it’s not strange for a company to ask about your social media status when filling out applications for their product or services; it’s been discovered that if you want to get the word out about anything; do it through social media and you’re guaranteed to reach the masses. Not only has social media been successful for Business Owner’s but for Law Enforcement as well. Social media’s tracking systems has allowed cases to be resolved simply because the person that committed the crime talked about it, posted pictures, or upload a YouTube video about their illegal activity. We as a society are relying more and more on social media to continue to advance us in our personal lives, and our businesses.

Reference
Bagley, C. E. (2013). Managers and the legal environment 7th edition.
(The White House, 2013)
(You Tube, 2013)
Walaski, P. (2013). Social Media Powerlul Tools for SH&E Professionals. Professional Safety, 58(4), 40-49.