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Feb 20, 2024

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Article Review Assignment    Michael Melika   Department of Business, Liberty University  BUSI 201: Intermediate Business Computer Applications   Professor ______  October 13, 2023                Mark Zuckerburg has been making millions off his online site known as Facebook for nearly the last 20 years, amassing millions of users over this time but hiding one unethical practice. This practice mined user’s data while both on and off the site and selling that information out to company’s so that they could target their audience with advertisements. This practice was just brought to justice in an article named, “Facebook parent Meta agrees to pay $725 million to settle privacy lawsuit”.   The first part of this article outlines just how monumental this case is. As quoted by the law firm representing the plaintiffs, Rohrback L.L.P, it is the “largest recovery ever achieved in a data privacy class action,”. The original lawsuit appeared in 2018 when Facebook disclosed that the personal data collected from 87 million users of the website/app had been shared with Cambridge Analytica (Kharpal, 2022). This consulting firm was the same firm that was linked to the 2016 campaign for one Donald Trump. After this first link was found between Facebook and sharing unknown data, it opened a rabbit whole that eventually led to a deeper look into Facebook’s broader data-sharing practices. Facebook was then accused of providing this same user information to additional third-party sources without proper consent from the users as well as failure to monitor what these third-party sources were doing with this information (Kharpal, 2022). Meta has agreed to the monumental payment of $725 million but along with this agreed upon fee, admits no wrongdoing. This finalization of the case did not come without previous lawsuits that led up to this peak. There were two notable cases before hand, the first being in 2019 where Facebook had reached an unheard of $5 billion settlement with the FTC as well as a $100 million settlement to a case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. After the initial introduction of the case against Facebook in 2018, Cambridge Analytica shut down. The company used the information from Facebook to inform political campaigns. The reason they shut down was because of a huge scandal with the executives. They were caught on camera suggesting extremely unethical tactics to influence political campaigns that included fake news, bribes, sex workers and much more (Kharpal, 2022). This ultimately spelled the death of this company. After this association with Cambridge Analytical, Facebook sought to rebrand into something new. They adopted the name Meta, accurately reflecting their association with the newly developing metaverse. Even after multiple lawsuits spanning 4 years and a scandal with a shady corporation, Meta continues to still operate one of the worlds largest social media platforms.  
Within the Meta/Facebook controversy stood 2 main ethical problems. These problems were data privacy and consent & data misuse. The first issue of data privacy and consent was the main reason that the company was sued for three quarters of a million dollars. A company has a both ethical and legal obligation to directly inform you both if your information is being collected as well as what that information is being collected for. The main issue within Facebook and data privacy was the information being collected not within the Facebook app/website itself, but the following of data collection even off the website. Any use of the internet was being monitored and data was being collected from much of the online traffic by both users of Facebook and nonusers. The next issue is data misuse. Once the data collected from the online traffic of users, the second breach of ethics came. Facebook would then sell the information to third party sources without the consent of the user whose information was being sold. This happened most notably with Cambridge Analytical but could have happened with many other companies and data collectors without the knowledge of the users. Breaching this trust can result in loss of customers/users which leads to loss of revenue which in many cases leads to the end of a company. Lucky for Meta, they had the funds to make it out of that hole and stay profitable even though they lost a significant number of the custom base.   These ethical problems cover a few topics within the Christian worldview and those topics are honesty/trust & greed. First it is necessary to understand what the bible says about honesty. In Ephesians 4:24-25 it says, “and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” (The Holy Bible, New International Version [NIV] , 1973/2011) This verse was written during Paul’s first imprisonment while under house arrest in Rome. This entire chapter is filled with basic rules and guidelines to good Christian living. These include managing anger (verse 26) and not cursing (verse 29). All that being said, not lying to one person is a very basic guideline as it applies to a Christian worldview and Facebook did it to over 87 million people. They were dishonest to people that trusted them to keep their information safe as well as not to try and take even more information from them without their consent. Another aspect of this situation that disagrees with the Christian worldview is the greed of Facebook. In Ecclesiastes 5:9-10 it says, “The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields. Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.” (The Holy Bible, New International Version [NIV] , 1973/2011) This passage clearly states Gods stance on monetary greed. Facebook was still gaining popularity and making great money being one of the top social media platforms online. They became too greedy and began selling information that they weren’t permitted to sell. This greed caused billions of dollars of lawsuits and was ethically terrible. Through a Christian worldview, greed can lead to many sins and cause one to stumble and that is exactly what happened in this situation. Instead of keeping everything above board and being honest with the users of Facebook and honoring their trust, the leaders of Facebook decided to try and go behind the backs of the users to data mine and sell that data for top dollar because of the greed in their hearts.  
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