AN ETHICAL ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Abstract

Social media, which has come into our lives while the development of Internet and Web 2.0 technology, has provided to its users the ability to create content, reach existing users and interact with other people. These social media opportunities have made people come to an important place in daily life. However, this situation has brought ethical problems such as privacy violation, sharing and spreading the wrong content, producing hate speech, using slang and blasphemy, creating false accounts. In this context, it is the subject of this research that university students who use social media intensively make these shares taking into consideration ethical values while making social media sharing. In this context, it is the subject of this research to determine whether university students, who use social media extensively, take ethical values into account while sharing social media. Research data were obtained through a questionnaire applied to a sample of 400 people in accordance with the quantitative analysis method. According to the study, it was found that university students committed ethical violations such as privacy violation, giving incomplete and incorrect information in their social media account profiles, using slang and blasphemy in their discussions with other users and their comments on their shares, and opening false social media accounts. It was found that female students committed these violations more than men.