Privacy in social media

There are both ethical and legal dimensions to privacy in social media. There are key elements of privacy, confidentiality and data protection that all professional users of social media should understand. Legislation and legal actions protect both personal data and citizens’ rights against serious invasion of their personal privacy, but these vary across countries. Human rights play a part here but understanding how it all fits together is essential to effective social media use in a global context. This chapter establishes the discussion about privacy and anonymity both within professional work and with regard to audiences. At an organisational level there is significant risk of misinformation and disinformation when using social media professionally, particularly when dealing with anonymous commenters and posters.