“Publicity”, privacy and social media. The role of ethics above and beyond the law.

Nowadays social media play an increasingly important role in the relationship between ethics and the law. They have raised new issues regarding the concepts of both “publicity” (in the etymological sense of “making public”), and privacy. The limits of both the law and of deontology are becoming more and more evident, in this arena of the relations which are established through the social media. This aspect implies the need for ethical reflection, focusing on the motivation that leads users to convey certain information –in primis the desire for a spectacularization of one’s life – as well as on the possible principles that may help guide informed choices. Among these would appear fundamental a reference to the concept of ‘responsible freedom’, and hence to the possible consequences which may arise as a result of certain choices, consequences both for oneself and other individuals, on social media as well as in our off-line day-to-day lives.