Ethics Paper on Facebook Beacon

Facebook is able to collect information about its users unless users specifically opt-out. However, in September 2007, users could not choose to opt-out and personal data was collected. Facebook changed a setting that was previously more secure (Debatin 2009:3).

The article Facebook’s Unethical Experiment was written by Katy Waldman. The article states that Facebook manipulated the news feeds of users to study “emotional contagion through social networks.” Researchers manipulated the posts users would see on their timelines to see if the user’s own posts would be impacted. Essentially, Cornell and the University of California in San Francisco tested whether reducing the number of positive messages people read on their news feeds made those people less likely to post positive posts.

Facebook is a major social networking site that connects users through text, post, and video all over the world. It was created by Mark Zuckerberg on February 4, 2004 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. It now has about 1 billion users and has grown to become the second most popular site ever. Facebook has enabled many people to communicate and share things online like never before. In can also raise support or awareness for a cause through facebook. This of course shows

Facebook is the biggest social media network on the internet with a massive following which continues to expand. Mark Zuckerberg alongside his college roommates created and launched the world’s most popular social media site on 4 February, 2004. Zuckerberg previously developed other sites for fellow students to

Facebook has to be the worst social media out there when it comes to privacy. They always seem to know where you’re at whether it’s through geotagging, gps, or the new maps feature it has a pinpoint on where you may be at. It seems that everything you do through Facebook is connected in some way to something else. For example if you decide

This company’s business model is about collecting personal information. The personal information should be kept in secret and not given or sold to a third party. Facebook is one of the company that gather detailed personal data about its users giving them up on a platter to advertisers (Farrell 2015). Moreover, not only the advertisers want the data, but the NSA and other U.S. security agencies as well. They use the information for surveillance and other purposes which it is a violation of the right for privacy.

In “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure” danah boyd reveals the faults of Facebook and how it affects the actions of its users. boyd observes that when users have access to a privacy feature they feel freer to post and comment as they please. When we are in pubic we acclimate to our surroundings and then choose how to we talk and what we share. boyd points out that normally each users actions were not overly obvious until an update to its system that caused the each user to get notifications each time they logged in based on their friends actions. This generated a new problem where the users had to really question and think about what they posted and shared on Facebook knowing that everyone could interpret their actions differently.

Aside from the impact of the security breach, the breach causes us to question Facebook’s business ethics and emphasis on privacy as well. When users sign up for Facebook they do not sign up for their post and likes to be politically exploited, so the exploitation of this data demonstrates that the company does not value users’ privacy. The minimal emphasis on users’ privacy also serves as a major ethics problem within the company. Their inability to protect users’ information tells the world that they simply do not care for the protection of users’

Facebook Hit with Lawsuit Alleging Privacy Wrongs | PCWorld According to the lawsuit, Facebook violated the U.S. Wiretap Act by tracking its member’s movement on the Web through "like" buttons embedded on millions of web pages throughout the Internet. The law bars “interception and disclosure of wire, oral or electronic communications" and provides fines of $100 a day, up to $10,000, for every day the law is violated. If the maximum fine were imposed on Facebook members could receive $10,000 - which is highly unlikely. The class action suit is the result of a decision made by a California judicial panel, which decided the multiple lawsuits should be unified and heard in Facebook’s home state.

Facebook did not have enough control over their third party apps because these apps could have received more data and even sold it without Facebook’s permission.There are a few business ethics issues present in this Facebook crisis such as trust, and loyalty. All three of these business ethics played in a role in this case because Facebook violated users’ trust which caused the users to feel a lack of loyalty and dishonesty from Facebook. Therefore, the privacy issues presented in this case were very visible. Facebook thrives off peoples’ photos, texts, videos, and other posted content because that is how they stream revenue. Millions of people questioned Facebook’s user privacy and security which caused the company to be looked at as more questionable than reliable. In addition, once the data was leaked to the Cambridge Analytica people were upset because now there information was going to the government. People think the data leaked played into the Russian attempts to influence the presidential election. Facebook now has to begin the process

Facebook is a well know social networking site that has taken all over the world with over 500 million people using the site. Social networking sites such as Facebook share information about the user over the Internet, where it can be freely accessed by anyone. This is where issues of privacy to the individual arise. As

After that Facebook sold their private information, what people do with is even worst. Their personal information like “private conversations” and “phone numbers” which are “not publicly viewable, can be accessed by clients that have a contract with Facebook”. After receiving its money, what people do with those resources is not anymore Facebook’s business. In the same way that they buy newspapers, do not read them, and use them to cover theirs items. The seller is not preoccupied by what they do with his articles, but rather how much he obtained from them. So, people who bought the users’ privacy, use it “to stalk” their “ex-girlfriend”, or “to blackmail” “their classmates”, or “to embarrass or discredit their rivals”, or “to fire their employees” who disagree with theirs thoughts. Like Facebook does, the purchasers have no remorse to use others’ intimate secrets for their own purpose. That is acceptable to it to let people do everything they want with their life’s secrets.

One thing Microsoft, Google and Facebook have in common is that they collect about as much data from each of their visitors as each other, according to an internet marketing research company (Alexa 2012). Users are concerned about the privacy of their personal information, even after the Facebook security expanded its efforts to reduce the risks to the users’ privacy. Facebook Beacon was launched in Nov 2007, a service that was ultimately a failed attempt at advertising specific products to a user’s friends depending on what known purchases that friend had made. As of last month, Facebook has begun to more closely examine the usage of its user data. Facebook accepted that it had deceived users by failing to keep certain promises regarding privacy, and agreed to settle charges laid by the United States Federal Trade Commission.

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites, was founded in 2004 by Mark Zukerberg and his college roommates. Today, Facebook has users three times the

Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues.