Should you ask to borrow a photo posted by someone else?

You’ve found a perfect photo. You just love the photo. You want to keep the photo forever. But the photo does not belong to you.

Is it OK to copy and paste a photo from someone else’s social media site — a photo that someone else indicates he, she, or they took — without seeking permission from the original poster of the photo? That’s the question a reader we’re calling Annie asked me recently indicating that she really wants to download some photos from social media posts made by friends and family and has done so in the past. Each time, however, Annie writes that she feels a bit of guilt or remorse that she has done something wrong because she has never sought permission to download the photo.

On most social media sites you can limit the people who are able to view your posts, so such photo pilferage is at least kept among a close few, or a close several hundred depending on how many “friends” you have on your account. But near as I can tell there’s no feature that automatically sends a message to a social media account holder asking them if it’s OK to download whatever someone wants to download. Perhaps that’s a feature social media companies should consider.

But without such a feature, friends and followers are left to their own consciences when deciding when and what to borrow from someone else’s post and when, if ever, to ask permission.

I am not a copyright lawyer and I admit right off that I have not read the entirety of every user agreement for every social media site in the land. But regardless of law or fine print, it strikes me that any original photo or item being posted by someone has been created by them and they should have some say over what gets borrowed by whom. Of course, that doesn’t happen which is how memes and posts sometimes go viral and the originator gets lost to Internet history.

We’re not talking about random and willy-nilly reposting of items from unknown origins. We’re talking about taking something from a friend for your own pleasure or use without seeking that friend’s permission. Such borrowing without alerting the originator doesn’t strike me as how friends or anyone should treat one another.

Granted, when someone makes their posts public to the world (well, the Internet world), they should know there’s a good chance others might abscond with their creations. Even if it’s not for nefarious use, putting something out there is bound to find it grabbed by others for their own personal use.

The right thing, however, is to ask when you want to download someone else’s photo for whatever reason you want it. Yes, it will take longer to send the request and wait for a response. And it would take the poster extra time to read and respond to your request. But it’s the kind of behavior that should be expected of friends and family when they want to borrow something. Besides, if the item Annie wants to copy is that good, aren’t good things worth the wait?

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should you tell someone if something negative is written about them?

What should you do when you read something that might negatively affect someone you know but you don’t relish being the bearer of bad news?

I follow many people and institutions on Twitter. Some share views with which I generally agree. Others don’t. I also have alerts set up on my search engine so I am notified when news stories appear about people, institutions, or things in which I am interested. These alerts are set to get combined in one email I receive once a day if there is anything that matches the alert criteria.

A few days ago an alert arrived with a link to an article about a former colleague I’m calling Art that questioned the colleague’s appropriateness for a new position. I was pretty sure that someone else might have seen the article and told Art about it, but I wasn’t positive given that the article was in a publication that wasn’t particularly well known.

My colleague is accomplished, has a fairly high profile, and has been consistent in various things he’s written or spoken about over the years. His Internet footprint is not insignificant. It’s quite likely that other negative pieces had appeared about him over the years, but I had not seen any.

I had no idea how my colleague would react to first learning about this most recent missive about him. We had a good relationship when we worked together and have maintained it over the many years that have passed since then. Did I really want to deal with being the one to deliver the news? He would be none the wiser if I said nothing and left him to discover the article in some other way, if at all. Life is full. Life during the pandemic is even more full. Do I really need to add another unwelcome task to my life? After all, it’s not my job to ensure that my former colleagues’ flanks are covered.

Even though I know I have appreciated it over the years when a friend, colleague, or relative has alerted me to not-so-kind barbs tossed my way online, it still would have been simpler not to let Art know what I had discovered.

Ultimately, any hesitation I had about emailing Art about the article was only to figure out how to word my message as kindly and reassuringly as possible. The right thing was to let him know because his life might be made a tad easier if he didn’t find himself blindsided by receiving the information in some other way. Angry reader emails. Other reporters showing up in the inbox or, worse, at the door.

Those who argue that no good often comes from delivering bad news so it’s best to keep your head down and nose out of other’s business are missing an important point. If we ignore our responsibility to be decent human beings who try to ease someone else’s potential discomfort when we can, we risk becoming immune to the incivilities and disrespect that gets tossed around too easily. We risk becoming the person we swore we never wanted to become.

I emailed Art. He’d already knew about the piece. We had a nice exchange. He knows I am here if he needs to chat and I am confident he would do the same for me were the roles reversed.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Please don't block the bicycle lane

Most every morning on my trip to work, rather than get off at the subway stop about four blocks from my office, I get off at the stop about two miles away and walk from there. I do the same thing in reverse in the evening when I leave work. Walking those couple of miles at the beginning and the end of the day helps me to clear my head. It’s an enjoyable walk through several neighborhoods.

The walk in the morning is generally quieter. There’s the silver food truck set up every morning by 6 a.m. to sell coffee and breakfast sandwiches to the contractors working on some major building projects. Lots of people in medical scrubs are heading off to a morning shift or heading home after a night shift. In the evening, there’s much more activity. After 7 p.m., restaurant diners are sitting at outside tables if the weather permits. The sidewalks are packed with people heading home or heading out for the evening.

One particular site caught me by surprise on a walk home a few days ago. A car was double parked in the bicycle lane of a busy main street, covering half of the bike lane. The driver was nowhere in sight, but there was an older woman in the passenger seat and some kids in car seats in the back. Given the substantial bicycle traffic in the evening, double parking was clearly thoughtless, annoying, and illegal. The unexpected event was when a cyclist, a well-dressed man with a gray goatee in what looked to be his early 50s, saw the double-parked car, turned his head to it and spit at the car’s window as he passed. He then pedaled on up the road.

My first thought was: “Really? Is this how we respond to inconveniences now? By spitting at them?” Granted, the car parker was wrong, but there was still plenty of bicycle lane in which to pass. My second thought was to wonder if this was yet another indication of who we are, a nation of spitters at the things we don’t like.

But on the rest of the walk, I also saw people in a local church hand a bag of food to someone on the front steps. I saw someone else help a distraught stranger navigate his way into parallel parking into a tight spot. There was a guy taking some books out of a canvas bag and placing them onto a shelf in one of those tiny free libraries. And I remembered that earlier in the day, I received an email from security at work letting me know that a cafeteria worker had turned in my wallet which had apparently fallen out of my pocket.

A pessimist might witness the spitter and let that define his view of the world. An optimist might see those other things and more like them that happen daily and have that determine his worldview. I prefer to believe that there is a healthy blend of good and bad behavior surrounding us daily and the right thing is to do our best to act out of kindness with grace even when we feel like spitting. But please don’t block the bicycle lanes.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I battle my fears of speaking up at meetings?

One of my more accomplished colleagues at work told me the other day that after decades on the job she still feels reluctant to speak up at meetings to offer suggestions because she’s afraid others might find her ideas to be stupid. What seems to irk her most is that invariably someone else will pipe up with the same idea she held back offering and be met with praise.

My colleague, whom I’m calling Zuzu, has no trouble speaking truth to anyone around if they do good work or violate company policy. She also has no trouble making a decision when she’s left alone to do so. It’s just when offering new ideas in a larger group of people trying to solve an issue that she finds herself clamming up out of some fear of embarrassment.

Zuzu wonders if she is doing more damage to her own reputation and to the success of the groups she’s in if she continues to hold back. Or, given her insecurity, is holding back the sensible thing to do.

Zuzu’s predicament is not unusual. Many of us are reluctant to offer ideas in group settings, particularly when there are one or two others in the group who seem to dominate the discussion. Often we hold off saying anything because we share Zuzu’s fear of saying something that will embarrass us and cause the rest of the group to think we’re not as bright or insightful as we’d like to think we are. Sometimes we don’t talk because there are just some unproductive meetings that we pray will come to an end and we try to avoid saying anything that will prolong them.

With increasing frequency some students are expressing concerns that they are facing an impostor syndrome where they believe it will become apparent to someone soon that they have no business having been accepted into school and are surrounded by fellow students who know far more than they do.

Managing insecurity can be challenging. It can also be crippling if it’s allowed to shut a person down from engaging in anything.

That’s not the case with Zuzu. She engages. She gets things done. And she loathes large meetings for the insecurity they bring upon her.

The right thing for Zuzu and others who share meeting participation anxiety to do is to remember a few things. First, you’re at the meeting for a reason. Presumably something about your past accomplishments or your current insights got you invited. Second, the flip side of possibly saying something perceived to be stupid is that it could be perceived to be spot on and perfect for the moment. If you don’t say it, then either someone else might or it will go unsaid and a possibly good idea would never see the light of day.

It’s no simple task to overcome anxieties. It’s challenging to speak when you’re afraid to sound stupid. But if you are at the meeting and you have something to contribute, you should fight the urge to hold back and go head and contribute. Just don’t talk too much or the meeting will go on forever.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.