Tag Archives: CSR

New Era, Old Issue: Should 24-7 Stop?

by Danlu Ding

On May 1, 2019, Japan turned into a new era from Heisei to Reiwa when the new emperor Naruhito was enthroned. Many proper in Japan were really excited about the beginning of the new era. 

But not everyone was happy. Hachioji Yorozucho, A worker of the convenience store 7-11, had been worked as this job in midnights for 12 years. This is a busy work. Yorozucho could never leave work on time which was 9 a.m. He and the store owner Toshiro Masuda were not excited of the coming of the new era. Masuda thought the excitement was the wish of the government. Even though they made good progress on the sales, they still faced problems since the lack of customers made them paying for the unsold goods. And the nightly revenue even couldn’t afford a worker’s salary. Even though they trade to stop the mode of 24 hours which was tiring and not really efficient, the public and the company rejected. Luckily, “Takanori Sakai, chairman of a union of convenience store operators in Japan”(Mainichi Japan,2019), and some managers of 7-11 realized the problem and decided to cancel the operation mode of 24 hours. Since the profit couldn’t catch up inflation, the condition of convenience store was ill tough. 

Convenience stores, such as 7-11, operate in the mode of 24-7 intend make the store really convenient, but this also causes some problem. the cost for operation at nights is almost the same as in daytimes. The company still need to pay for the electricity, water, salaries, etc. Can the revenue provided by the few customers cover the high cost? Moreover, it is really tiring and unsafe. It becomes hard to control the working environment. If something happens, there will be extra cost.  

On the other hand, convenience stores seem to be necessary especially in cities. Even there are less customers, there always exists people in need of the stores. For example, someone need felt really hungry after leaving work in the late night; someone is hurt and needs a bandage. Opening the stores at night really helps people and can gain good impressions form the public. But is it worth being so responsible to the society consider the unbalance of the gain and loss?

Maybe there is a small tip: the government can make statistics of the convenient stores at nights and even evaluate the quality and the income situation and give some allowance to decrease the losses. 

original news: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190504/p2a/00m/0na/008000c

TikTok to pays $5.7 million over alleged violation of child privacy law

by Danlu Ding

TikTok is a media app from China used to or create and share short videos. The company called ByteDance. The media app was launched as Douyin in China in September 2016 and then became world wide one year later. It attracts users from a wide age range, especially young people and even children. 

In Feb. 27th, TikTok fined 5.7 million dollars because of the charge of “illegally collected images, voice recordings, and geolocation” of children under 13 years old. This was regarded as “the largest civil penalty ever issued by the agency in a child privacy case.”The company sometimes refused to delete children’s information even complained by children’s parents and still remained the videos after deleting the children’s ID. Moreover, it also encouraged children to engage in sexual activity online. Since TikTok was making profit by damaging children, the FTC complaint accused the company of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.  

In the aspect of commercial law, TikTok went against the policies of consumer and users’ privacy. In terms of protecting children, the Supreme court also have limitation and filter of  obscene speech and pornographic materials. So allowing those material to be spreaded is not only responsible to the society and needs to be changed by the law. Since many children don’t have the awareness of protecting themselves from the potential danger, many groups can easily use the information for their own profits. 

Tis case is really important to operating a business since when we provide a platform on social media, we really have to think about the safety and privacy to protect users and consumers, thinking about whether the media will be illegally used and taking action to protect the users, prior to how much profit it can earn. Once some issues break the law, that will be the loss and danger of both users and operators. 

What’s a good news is that after this case, TikTok now realizes the importance of privacy and safety of users, especially children and is making changes to make the usage of  the app by children safer, following the requirements of  FTC. The users’ personal information will not allowed to be shared and interaction between users will have more limitation. 

The original news: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-pay-5-7-million-over-alleged-violation-child-privacy-n977186