Do you agree that social media is forcing businesses to do good?

[OneGrassRoot]

David Jones, the co-founder of the charity 'One Young World', and Sir Bob Geldof say that businesses which are socially responsible will do better than those who are not because social media gives the community the ability to sanction organisations which behave badly, unethically or dishonestly.

DAVID JONES, CO-FOUNDER, ONE YOUNG WORLD: I think we're seeing huge amounts of evidence and one thing I wrote is we're entering head long into the age of damage where what has happened is people have been empowered through social media and digital to hold businesses and leaders accountable and if you don't behave in the right way anymore they can now take you down and sanction you.

And I think a couple of years ago there was maybe one or two examples of this. Take BP as probably the poster child for a business that behaved in the wrong way and, you know, record fine in the history of American business, $4.5 billion, banned from any contracts with the US oil industry. You know, that was a great example but every single week now we see another example.

Take Goldman Sachs with the employee who resigns, sends the letter, posts it, it goes completely viral and within 24 hours $2 billion have come off Goldman Sachs market cap.

You had American apparel and Gap trying to push sales while people were stuck indoors through Hurricane Sandy huge backlash through social media. So I fundamentally believe in the future the new price of doing well is doing good and if you don't set out to be socially responsible as a business you won't be able to succeed.

Video at link: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3724453.htm