Category: ethics

Cookies Can Be Ethical

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The day after a session in my Advertising and Public Relations Ethics and Law class in which we discussed digital media, one student emailed me a link to a web site. She said it was an unusual example of a company showing an ethical respect for customers by allowing customers and other site visitors to customize their cookies, or the way in which they are tracked.

It wasn’t a major brand that I was aware of before my student shared it with me. It’s Levoit Air Purifiers, and they allow people to accept all, reject all, or select to turn on or off six categories of cookies, from necessary to functional, analytics to performance and more. I’d encourage you to go to the site and see for yourself.

in class we had talked about legal changes with regard to cookies and other aspects of online privacy. But there are still annoying pop-ups that you must disable to see content, and some still only give you the option to accept, not reject. Certainly very few offer this level of customization and control for the user.

Here are just a few reasons why this extreme number of options is ethical:

  • it is a demonstration of a relationship metric called “control mutuality,” in which all parties in a relationship have equal control of topics, opportunity to speak, and in this case digital tracking settings;
  • it demonstrates good discourse ethics, similar to above, meaning that the user is not at the mercy of an organization;
  • it demonstrates a unique form of utilitarianism, not in the classic sense of “greatest good for the greatest number,” but it explains cookies to the user in terms of how they might benefit them and not just the organization;
  • it’s the old fashioned “golden rule”–follks at the air purifier company have considered how they would like to be treated when a customer on someone else’s website.

For these and other reasons, respecting the rights of others and giving them agency over how they are tracked and communicated to is good ethics. It’s also smart for the company in terms of building positive, long-term relationships and reputation.

In other words, as I tell my students all the time: ethics = strategy.

The Virtue of PR Pros Asserting Neutrality

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I was part of a webinar a few weeks ago on the topic of universities taking a public stand on social issues. I took a stand for not always taking a stand.

The individuals on the call were mostly other college professors, a representative of an academic publisher, and one college president. But what we talked about could broadly apply to all organizations when it comes to the popular current dilemma of whether or not to advocate a particular point of view on social issues.

I maintained that, in higher education in particular, universities should be what they were established to be—places of free expression on multiple issues and various perspectives on those issues. This is important to me because, as a conservative and a Christian, I am in the minority about many social issues on a college campus. I don’t expect endorsement or agreement, just mutual understanding. And I expect this for all—from each classroom to presidential proclamations.

I was pleased last year when several students—at both the undergraduate and graduate level—told me that my classes of all the ones they had taken were where they felt most able to express themselves. This is because I always look at every angle of a discussion, every side of an issue, with a goal of understanding it—not to elevate or rule out particular views. 

That’s what I was taught college should be. But we are in an era where people think the role of college is persuasion toward single viewpoints, versus a forum for all.

In fact, one person on the call asserted there is no neutrality. “Silence enables the oppressor,” she said. 

True to my point, I understand this notion, but I disagree with this over-generalized mantra that frames every issue as victim-oppressor. Only rarely is that true. Foucault reduced everything to power, Marx said everything requires revolution. I take a stand against extreme conclusions without empirical basis.

Yes, on some issues, it is important and there may be an obvious need to take a stand. If it is to articulate a mission, to be accountable to an action, or it is about something that can be seen as a universal normative value. But otherwise, leaders should resist the social pressure by a self-proclaimed morally-superior vocal group to choose sides.

That’s because most social issues are not reduced to fact vs misinformation. Most social issues have various opinions that are values based. People often marshal facts to support opinions, but both sides can produce consonant facts. The rub comes down to values, beliefs, and resulting principles.

Also, there is often nuance on issues that are too often framed as black and white. As one example, I have spoken with many Hispanics that abhor the term “Latinx,” preferring Latino or Latina. One woman on the call had a Black Lives Matter poster in her office and she was shocked when she was told to take it down. But of course, I told her, there are many Blacks who are critical of Black Lives Matter as an organization, even though they have obvious concerns about racism. But there is a diversity of opinion about racism’s scope and causes. And then there are people of all three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—whose opinion of sexual identity and behavior is guided by God in the Torah, Bible or Koran and not secular laws or cultural popularity. The Pew Research Center reported that 66% of Black Democrats believe whether someone is a man or woman is determined by their sex at birth. These are but a few examples of foregone conclusions being confronted with some alternative views and nuance.

Leaders of universities as well as organizations of any kind have some important things to think about when it comes to taking sides. 

Is it really the popular opinion?  A danger of taking a side is the perceived lack of authenticity, that it is being done as a virtue signal or responding to perceived public opinion and trying to appear current. Two recent articles point out the danger of this. Barton Swaim wrote an opinion in The Wall Street Journal about how the leftward tilt of business, entertainment media, tech companies, government, and news creates the “misinformation” of agreed-upon truth when there is actual variance. Meanwhile, PR Week recently had an article noting that only 7% of PR professionals identify as conservative and asked “Is PR too liberal for its own good?”

What is the objective? PR pros know that all communications should have some objective behind it. So, when taking a public stand, it would be good practice to ask why and toward what outcome. Do you seek to educate, or persuade, students, faculty, the community or others on an issue? They are all adults, capable of making up their own minds. A university should educate on the issue broadly to allow informed decisions, not make decisions proactively for people. Or do you seek to affirm some group or cause? It would be enough, and more appropriate, to declare non-discrimination. Is a public stand to provide comfort? Sometimes this is an act of good empathic leadership, but it should be done judiciously so it does not appear to coddle or pander. 

Consider the difference between Individual vs institutional neutrality. I don’t know if my colleague on the call was against individuals or organizations remaining silent. I understand the point that on really important issues it is hard to imagine persons having no opinion. But whether they personally articulate it is up to them. Compelled speech is as much a violation of free speech as denying it. A person may have good—i.e. civil—reasons to remain silent to maintain relationships. Institutions can think about this too. But that leads to the next point.

Responsibility and accountability. Ethicists make a distinction between responsibility, which is a duty to do or say something, and accountability is after the fact accepting blame or credit. Organizations should ask if they have a duty to choose a side on a public issue. But they should also consider consequences, unintended or not, of doing so. 

Discourse ethics. Discourse ethics would have us consider whether as an organization we are unfairly wielding power when taking a stand. Advocating one side of an issue may delight some students, faculty, donors and other publics of any organization. But the result would also be to implicitly discredit alternative points of view among those same constituent groups. This yields a spiral of silence, lack of dialogue, and resentment by those who do not think the public stance represents them but delegitimizes them

Tolerance vs endorsement. Organizations can note the difference between making a statement and taking a stand. The former could be an expression of tolerance, which welcomes all views without judgment and is virtuously neutral. Taking a stance is a judgment, and often crosses a line and subjectively chooses whom to support and whom to offend, who is included and who is not.

Mutual understanding vs. compliance. When universities and other organizations take public positions, it should be done to ensure open dialogue and mutual understanding. But too often these days, “diversity” has become an Orwellian leviathan. In the name of diversity, a monoculture of predetermined opinion is enforced. Woe to those who disagree. Talk about giving power to the oppressor. 

So yes, when it comes to maintaining neutrality, I’ll take that stand. These days, neutrality takes more courage.

PR needs to push CSR over CSA

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Let me start by apologizing for the acronym soup in the headline. Let me explain. Public relations as a profession needs to stress Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and resist the increasing push toward Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA).

So now, let me explain my explanation. I have been thinking a lot about the role of public relations in social responsibility and social advocacy in recent months. I’ve read books and attended webinars and talked to lots of people. What follows is a condensed summary of how I came to my own opinion articulated in the first paragraph.

CSR Appropriately Stresses Responsibility to All

CSR has a long history and has been discussed much in trade publications and academic literature. A brief and accessible history of CSR traces the concept back to the 1800s. Mean while, academics have often cited the more formalized Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR, which states that businesses have four responsibilities–economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic. Today, companies are so engaged in CSR that news of it is aggregated on CSR Wire. The evolution of CSR has blossomed today to include formal and transparent attempts to measure and verify CSR efforts (to avoid greenwashing and image over reputation) such as the B-Corporation movement.

Tangled into all of this is the notion of stakeholders. This means that it is an imperative that businesses not think only about profit, but consider all of the people who could be affected by their success or failure. Here too,. Stakeholder Theory is not new, dating to 1984, and asserts that organizations need to understand and respond to the interconnected relationships between and among various publics. I’ve always considered this fundamental public relations, but it has gained currency and attention in recent years.

At several recent conference sessions, webinars and blog posts of the Arthur W. Page Society, there has been a healthy debate about the very term stakeholder. Judy Samuelson, executive director and founder of the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, and author of “The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World,” spoke at a Page conference and webinar and wrote a blog post about her objection to the term stakeholder. Essentially, she views the term as too generic and says employees are the company and more than a stakeholder.

Page President Roger Bolton wrote a blog post in response, asserting that all stakeholders, including employees but also customers, investors, communities, need to receive value from companies and their interests heard and balanced with those of others.

Outside of this intelligent debate on stakeholders and the meaning of CSR, others have been striving to give a more clear and universal understanding of what it means for a company to be socially responsible. Some, like Christopher Marquis in his book “Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism,” assert that the old economic “externalities” isn’t enough. In other words, businesses often say they avoid negative externalities or generate positive externalities–meaning harm or benefit to publics or stakeholders beyond the company itself. But a better concept is “interdependencies,” which removes the focus from positive or negative consequences of an organization working autonomously and stresses that corporations need to work collaboratively with stakeholders.

All of the above is good and interesting, but what happens when a company takes a specific position on a controversial issue?

CSA Dangerously Takes the Side of Some Over Others

A more recent trend of discussion in the field of public relations and among chief communications officers (CCOs) has been the notion of corporate purpose, and the extension of that is corporate advocacy (CSA) or even activism.

The Institute for Public Relations recently hosted Fred Cook of Golin and the USC Annenberg School of Communications to present their report on the Future of Corporate Activism. In the report, research shows that 77% of PR professionals say polarization is a problem for them doing their job, more think corporate activism is good for the brand. But the professionals also think three issues is a maximum number of social causes with which to associate, and that there is a risk so any activism has to be done in a way that is “unifying and humanizing,” in Cook’s words.

Meanwhile, another Page Society webinar was with Fortune Magazine’s Alan Murray, on the occasion of the release of his new book “Tomorrow’s Capitalist.” Murray interviews many CEOs and concludes they think very differently about their jobs now than 10 years ago. He points out that there is no tradeoff between purpose and profits, and that it took 100 years to come up with metrics for shareholder value so we will arrive at good metrics for stakeholder value.

Murray also said that thinking long-term is key. While there might be loss in profit in the short term over taking a stand on an issue, that trade-off is diminished over time. Part of the reason for this may be that 85% of the value of a Fortune 500 company today is in intangibles as opposed to physical product and property.

There is also a significant pushback against the whole wave of corporate activity in the social justice sphere. Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and CEO himself, argues forcefully that many corporations’ actions in response to social issues are insincere, a cow-towing to “woke’ pressure and constitutes a “scam.’ Those are strong words, but you should consider his argument in his book “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.”

Coming to Consensus

Having considered all of the above, and the decision on whether a CEO or company should take a stand on an issue or become a corporate activist on the social cause du jour, I have a measured response. I don’t think any company should jump on every issue or come to a judgment too quickly. Consider the mess Disney got itself in. Or consider the recent Supreme Court leak of documents regarding abortion law. Many PR firms and CCOs are counseling CEOs to say nothing on that issue. Sometimes polarization is a lose-lose proposition. We need to consider that stakeholder groups can be at odds with each other–eg. employees having differences with customers–but also there can be division within groups–such as some employees being pro-life and others being pro-choice.

I asked Murray if tolerance and respect for diversity of opinion and nuanced corporate statements would be acceptable these days. He said, “good question, it’s hard, and requires thought and strategy.”

This is why I like Paul Argenti’s view of corporate activism and speaking out on issues. It is more rational than emotional, and thus strategic. His article in Harvard Business Review offers a good framework for taking each issue, one at a time, and seeing if it aligns with corporate values, purpose and most importantly practice before jumping into the fray.

My bottom line? Responsibility means listening to and considering all stakeholders and balancing their interests. It is fundamental public relations, consistent with stakeholder theory.. Advocacy means choosing some stakeholders over and against others. The question isn’t just what stance to take, but whose? Strategy and ethics both require considering the difference carefully. CCOs should always counsel for social responsibility, but be very judicious about counseling for corporate advocacy or activism.

A PR Role in Trust and Information

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Two significant reports have come out in recent weeks about the growing and related problems of declining trust and increasing misinformation and disinformation–the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer and the Aspen Institute Commission on Information Disorder.

I have blogged previously about the related topics of civility and polarization and the efforts of the public relations industry to address these societal problems.

The annual Edelman Trust Barometer is titled this year ‘The Cycle of Distrust.” The broad global survey notes not only a decline in trust of government and media, but that these two institutions fuel the mistrust by a failure of leadership and effort to address problems of their own making. Business is the most trusted institution at 61%, followed by NGOs at 59%. Only 52% of respondents trust government with the media the least trusted at 50%.

Meanwhile, the Aspen Institute report addresses the related problem of misinformation (uncareful sharing of inaccurate information) and disinformation (intentional deception). The report gives a list of recommendations across three categories:

To increase transparency:

  • invest in public interest research
  • force social media platforms to disclose information about content sources, reach and impressions
  • require social media platforms to disclose their content moderation practices and policies
  • disclose information about digital ads and paid posts

To build trust:

  • expose origins of power imbalances and promote community solutions to social bonds
  • Develop and scale communication tools, networks, and platforms that are designed to bridge divides, build empathy, and strengthen trust among communities
  • promote diversity at tech platform companies
  • invest in local journalism
  • promote accountability standards that have consequences for those who willfully violate public trust
  • improve election security and voter confidence

Reduce harms:

  • a coordinated federal approach to countering disinformation
  • create an independent organization for engage in research, education and other misinformation countermeasures
  • develop platform features to raise user awareness of and resilience to misinformation
  • develop clear policies and penalties to swiftly hold misinformation “supferspreaders” accountable and prevent bad actors

Finally, the commission recommended revisions to Section 230 of the 1996 Communication Decency Act. Specifically they call for withdrawal of platform immunity for content that is promoted through paid advertising and post promotion, and the removal of immunity as it relates to the implementation of product features, recommendation engines, and design.

Some of the above strike me as sound ideas. But I also worry about the interpretation and implementation of some of them. For example, who and by what metric will “misinformation” be determined? And, will an already divisive public respond well to content hewing to uniform opinion as determined by elites?

All of this reminds me of the book “How to Lose the Information War,’ in which Nina Jankowicz makes the case that there has been “Russian collusion” or meddling in Eastern Europe long before it became the obsession in the United States in 2016. She would concur with the Edelman report that the media are complicit in exacerbating our divisions in the US. She says any antidote to misinformation, such as those proposed by Aspen, need to be bipartisan. I agree.

I would also say public relations professionals can contribute to rebuilding trust both in institutions and in truthful information in how they do their jobs. I advise three things to keep in mind in this regard:

  1. separate opinion from fact. Facts should be truthful, opinions should be identified as such and all opinion allowed.
  2. remember the public is best served with more, not less, information. Be mindful that our communication exists among a plurality of voices, in what has been called a “marketplace of ideas. ” PR professionals have an ethical imperative to enable informed decision making. Resist the temptation to advance or be the one dominant view. Remember, E Pluribus Unum, out of many one, is a national value.
  3. Focus on mutual understanding, not ultimate persuasion. It is ok to win some to your side but unanimity of thought is unrealistic practically and dangerous societally.

In the end, being too quick to label an alternative opinion ‘misinformation’ only makes the problem worse. It is better to calmly state you disagree and then explain why.

The ethics of PR expertise

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The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) had an interesting webinar recently as part of a series on ethical values. The series is hosted by the organization’s Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS).

Each webinar in the series involves a panel discussion about the importance of a particular value in the PRSA Code of Ethics. There are six such values, which form the foundation for the six provisions of the code. The session I attended recently was focused on the ethical value of “expertise.”

The panelists, including two professionals and one educator, made some excellent points about the importance of the value of expertise in ethical practice of PR. Some stressed that a commitment to life-long learning is shown by valuing expertise, since the field is constantly evolving. Others brought up the importance of Accreditation in Public Relations (APR), because the process of earning accreditation helps a professional develop and prove and ethical mindset. Panelists also stressed that having both ethical and practical expertise enables professionals to counsel the C-suite.

As I listened, I had some of my own thoughts about expertise in public relations, and why it is an ethical concern:

  • It is important to know what public relations is. I have heard more than a few times someone claim to be a PR expert when they lack a fundamental understanding of what it is. Such people claim that PR is about image, or “getting the word out,” or the most cringe-inducing from an ethical standpoint–“putting an organization in a positive light.” This is unethical because it misrepresents the field and other professionals, and it provides a disservice to clients or organizations being served.
  • You can’t extend expertise in one area of public relations to the entire profession. I have heard people say marketing and public relations are all the same. Or they state that they will impose their corporate experience onto a nonprofit. Or they assume their years in media relations qualify them immediately for investor relations. The field of public relations is vast. Some core principles extend across the profession, but one should be hesitant to claim specific expertise in an area where they lack specific knowledge and experience.
  • Expertise requires knowing the context of the business or industry in which you work. You can’t be a good PR expert for a company or nonprofit or government entity if you don’t know intimately what they do and how they do it, their sources of revenue, their competitive landscape and history.

In a nutshell, pretending to have expertise when one does not is unethical, because it lacks transparency and honesty and does not have the best interest of others in mind.

But, all this means is that to truly be an ethical public relations professional, one must have the humility and integrity to admit a lack of expertise and then gain it. Becoming expert can involve asking good questions, doing robust research, attending a PRSA seminar, or reading good books and articles on the subject at hand.

A professional will be better for developing and maintaining true expertise. Even more so, so will the organizations served and the profession at large.