Is bending the truth online ok?

Branding is a tricky business to say the least. Advertising, at least in the world I live in, is notorious for its ability to manipulate words and visuals to better suit the needs of big business. Whether or not these needs are relative (and beneficial) to the general populous is case-dependent.

It’s only natural for people to want the best deal out there:

In order for businesses to function they need to first attract clientele, and so, with a multitude of competitors jockeying for the same market, it is inevitable that people will bend the truth to sell their product.

In many cases it can be particularly hard to differentiate between gifted copyright or a ‘what you see is what you get’ scenario, and it’s for this very reason that the ethics involved in advertising cannot be understated.

Is spin ethical?

Of course not. Even when someone feels like what they’re spinning is right, there is an assumption on behalf of the ‘spinster’ that the right direction is in fact ‘right.’ In most cases, people know what they’re saying is slightly off kilter, nevertheless, they believe in the product and need to bend the truth in order to get you to look at it. Of course what’s being pushed is a slight fabrication, but it’s a two-way street, after all.

Take real estate as a prime example:

There’s a commonly circulated assumption that real estate agents are ‘out to get you;’ (actually, there’s a not too dissimilar conjecture about car salesman) after all, the larger the price of the property sold, the larger the commission, right?

Real estate agents have a bad rep for over-pricing houses in order to reap the benefits of their commissions; the beautiful house will inevitably need repairs. The reality here though is that behind that Colgate smile, the agent is there for the seller of the property, and if prices seem inflated, it’s because the agent is trying to do the best possible job they can for the person who’s selling the house. While it may be frustrating as a buyer, you’re going to be really grateful the day that agent gets a good price for the house you bought twenty years ago.

Conclusion

Whether or not you believe in the validity of online advertising is beside the point. If we use Facebook as our queue – possibly the most ‘accessible’ platform out there – what we find is a space in which people continuously bend the truth in order to project the selves we want to be. On an ethical level, the question here is what you do with that projection, and how you make it work for yourself and society as a whole.

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