Risks throughout social media

Nowadays people are aware of the risks that engender social media. From critics to bullying, all platforms encounter these problems. What people usually think about while hearing the term « bullying » tend to believe that it is about physics. But bullying attracts everyone, skinny people, fat people, trouble people, original people, creative people and so on… 

But it’s what social media is about in a way. You post tweets, pictures, videos about you, your feelings, your thoughts and liberty of expression makes it a problem sometimes. 

Despite everything social media can bring, by being public you need to have the shoulder to pay for all the bad comments you can receive. But it isn’t easy for everyone.

You may know her, Lea Elui a famous influencer whose career started on Musical.Ly which now is TikTok has been through bullying. She shows a lot on her social media: Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok… And her physic can submit to jealousy and criticism. She started posting belly dancing videos which were « a passion » as she said. 

Nowadays she has more than 10 million followers on her social media. Last year, she reported that she faced physical aggression while going out of school. A group of boys tried to get her attention, and she didn’t reply to their comments, which provoked the anger of these boys. 

They started throwing rocks on her and insulting her. This act was a representation of what she is going through every day on her social media. But this time it was real !

Thanks to the support she also has for her family and community, she faces all of this by giving advice to her followers who might also suffer from bullying. 

Unfortunately, some people might not have the same power to fight against this. Sometimes they commit suicide because of how far it can go. Social media are very dangerous, despite everything people care about the notice of others. Going through this without talking about it makes it horrible and can lead you to depression. 

What people should understand is that no matter what the only notice you need is from the one you love and who loves you. The rest are insignificant. Whenever comments start affecting you you need to talk about it and be strong because you never know who is writing behind your screen and most of the time, it is people who have less confidence in themselves then you think. 

Noa Bajczman. 

The opportunities of social media on business

The famous Maison Sauvage café opened its doors in 2017 while Instagram started having an impact on the notoriety of the multiple restaurants, or coffee shops. Maison Sauvage is located on one of the most famous as well as the touristic street of Rue de Buci on the left bank of Paris. Before they opened to clients they had published pictures to announce the day it would open. 

Maison Sauvage has an impressive exterior decoration, which makes a difference artistically on the pictures they post compared to their competitors. At the starting point of the Instagram account, they have promoted their avocado toast as well as the colorful and very Instagram spirit plates, which people would massively share on their stories, or make some posts about. 

This splendid facade has made the clickbait of the account massively increase, especially by adding the factors that everything else is also being captured by clients, as they are original, beautiful, and chosen with a lot of taste. 

Nowadays the Maison Sauvage Instagram account has 43,8k followers and is following only 216 accounts. Before they had accomplished having a consequential amount of followers they have been posting every day, now that they acquired their community, they post three times per week. 

The benefits of the Instagram account of Maison Sauvage are huge, as it makes it possible for anyone around the world to have a look at the meals they propose. Anyone going to Maison Sauvage to eat brunch is ordering depending on what they have seen lately on social media. Maison Sauvage is one of the restaurants who has the biggest number of followers, as even if there are other restaurants with more followers, they have more restaurants, thus easier to promote. Maison Sauvage truly gets the opportunity of social media, and they acquire the benefit from it. Nowadays every restaurant is starting an Instagram account, to get more clients. Not only restaurants but all types of business.

Risks of social media on education

Social media are mainly used by teenagers and young adults, it gives them the possibility to create their own profiles such as fan accounts, or even animal accounts, in addition to gaming accounts, etc. Social media within education is positive when they are being used to have fun, communicate with classmates and family, thus they are creating interaction between people. Still, due to this gigantic exposure of our profiles, there are some massive risks that hardly can be ignored. 

Ambre Bourdoncle.

“Le Slip Français”, the 2020 threats

We are all users of social media in our daily life in addition to our professional activity. We all think that we are experts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat due to the amount of time we spend on them. Still, there are some hiding threats which some firms have already suffered from.

Let’s come back to the scandalous scenario which has occured in January 2020 for the brand “Le Slip Français”.

The brand was the victim of a bad buzz after the diffusion of a video which was filmed during a "black face" party between employees of the "Le Slip Francais". On the images, we could observe their racist attitude as the employees have tried to dance like a monkey, listening to African music.

In consequence of the video, the brand has suffered from a boycott of customers, as people didn't want to give any money to a brand that had racist employees. In response, the band has shared a press release where they accuse their workers and denounce what they have done.

This video has been viral on social media, which has ruined their popularity, hence people would hear about the brand not for their products but for the racism of their employees. Nowadays this kind of bad buzz is the alarming threat of all the brands.

The threats on social media are gigantic which is why some actions which are posted can cause the bankrupt of brands.

"Le Slip Francais" is the perfect example as it demonstrates how the popularity of a brand can switch in only a single click. A tweet, a video, a sentence or a picture can be enough to threaten an entire society, or someone individually. "Le Slip Francais" has a capital of 135 552 € and was launched in 2012. This brand of underpants was boycotted due to its employees.

The scenario of the brand could happen to any other one, especially for big companies as they can't check on all of their employees, hence very hard to control. In this new generation, people have to be conscious of their attitude on social media, as they can be used against them. Before such an impact of social media, brands only had to make advertisements on TV or journal's, thus they were more controlled and less likely to be misunderstood.

Ambre Bourdoncle.