Is it Ethical to be a Ghost?

Ghost tweeting is a hot topic in the social media world. For those who don't know what ghost tweeting is, you are not alone because I didn't know until I took J452 (i.e., my public relations class). For those who do not know, it's when someone (e.g., celebrities and politicians) hires a person to tweet for them .  Now that you know some background on what ghost tweeting is, let's get to the dilemma.

Why ghost tweeting?
- Celebrities, politicians and top executives don't have the time or the writing skills to tweet.
- They find that tweeting is beneficial to stay in communication with their fans, voters and customers.
- They want to participate in the benefits even though they don't have the time; therefore, they hire a team or a person to do the tweeting for them.

Politicians like  President Obama use ghost tweeters. When he was a candidate he hired a social networking team to do all of his tweets. He continues to use a social-networking team to keep up with his tweeting feed.

Is ghost tweeting ethical?
I believe it's fine to ghost tweet as long as you are following the PRSA rules of ethics. PRSA believes that honesty is one of the professional values, that states, "We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interest of those we represent and in communication with the public."
That being said, if a practitioner tweets for their client without the public or followers knowing then that would be unethical.
It is understandable that clients do not feel comfortable tweeting for themselves because of their writing skills. It makes sense that a politician wouldn't have the time to tweet 24 hours a day.

The article in the New York Times, by Noam Cohen, suggests that everyone has opinions whether ghost tweeting is ethical. According to Joseph Nejman, former consultant to Britney Spears, there are a lot of hypocrites on the issue. “It’s O.K. to tweet for a brand,” he said, remarking how common it is for companies to have Twitter accounts, “but not O.K. for a celebrity. But the truth is, they are a brand."

I agree with Joseph Nejman; if companies are able to tweet about their brand without being criticized, then celebrities should be able to too. There are many celebrities such as Kayne West, 50 cent and Ashton Kutcher who all use ghost tweeting. Ghost tweeting is unethical when a client hires a practitioner to tweet without the public knowing. I don't think it's fair to the public to be misled to who they are following on Twitter. I know that would like to know who is writing the tweets.
Ghost tweeting is an online ethical dilemma because of those who are not following the rules of ethics. I believe in being honest. You can still ghost tweet and be honest at the same time by stating in a tweet that you have someone tweeting for you. 


For more information about another ghost tweeting ethical dilemma check out Guy Kawasaki's issue here.