Shutting Down of Facebook

This essay outlines the benefits of Facebook and argues against shutting it down due to data misuse. It discusses features like news feed, timeline, likes, comments, and messages, and benefits like communication, networking, social marketing, research, and insights. It also explores the concept of networked individualism.

Running head: SHUTTING DOWN OF FACEBOOK
Shutting Down of Facebook
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Introduction
Facebook Inc is one of the popular and significant online social media as well as
social networking service organization of America (Bakshy, Messing and Adamic 2015).
This social networking site was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his fellow students of
Harvard University in the year 2004. Initially, the founders of this website restricted the
membership to only students of Harvard. Since 2006, access was given to anybody with age
limit of 13 years. A registered user of Facebook gets several benefits after joining this social
networking website. Apart from connecting to the rest of the world, Facebook is even helpful
for research, insights and social marketing (Kross et al. 2013). However, in spite of having
some of the major advantages, Facebook also comprises of few threats that are not
appropriate for the users.
The following essay outlines a brief discussion on an imaginative scenario of Mark
Zuckerberg, being forced to shut down Facebook for misusing of data. However, this is not
correct and this essay is being provided to the Supreme Court of Justice for the fact that how
utilizing Facebook eventually holds the important advantages, which do not justify the harsh
ruling. This essay provides proper examples from relevant studies regarding the scenario of
Facebook.
Discussion
Case Study
Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook, the biggest social networking website in
the world. It is used by several users and hence has become extremely popular since last 14
years. However, recently Mark Zuckerberg is forced to shut down his website of Facebook as
it incurs huge misuse of data. Although, Facebook takes up data misuses, it does have several
important benefits and is quite beneficial for the users, who are using it.

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Main Features of Facebook
Facebook should not be shut down as it comprises of some of the major and the most
significant features or characteristics. The main features are provided below:
i) News Feed: The first and the foremost feature of Facebook is the presence of news
feed (Seidman 2013). This Facebook news feed is the primary system by which the
respective users are exposed to the contents posted on networks. With the help of a secret
method, called EdgeRank, the website chooses a small lot of updates for showing to the
users. It is automatically updated in every 15 seconds and the users receives 1500 updates on
an average. The news feed then highlights the relevant information, which involves profile
changes, birthdays or upcoming events and many more (Van Dijck 2013). Thus, spammers or
other users could not manipulate the features by the creation of illegitimate events and
posting fake news to attract legal users. The integral part of the interface of News Feeds is
mini-feed, which is the news stream over the profile page of the user.
ii) Timeline: The second feature of this social networking site is timeline. It is the
original profile space, in which the users of Facebook can display the contents. A privacy
setting is present so that the user could restrict the access of their contents and not everyone
gets the chance to view the confidential data or information (Russell 2013). This privacy
option allows posting of information like short or temporal notes and for the specified user, it
enables to check the date and time, that message is being written. The friends can see or
update the content if the user allows and can even share their views easily. The information
could even be changed periodically.
iii) Likes or Reactions: The third important feature of Facebook is the presence of
likes or reactions. The like button helps the users in easily interacting with the status updates,
photos, links, videos, comments or even advertisements. When this button is clicked by the

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user, the specified content eventually appears in the news feed of that particular user’s friends
(Ellison et al. 2014). It demonstrates that the friends of the users have liked the post or
message shared by the user and they are supporting the messages. Recently, Facebook has
introduced a new feature, called reactions. The users can share the views or emotions with the
help of these reactions and can even provide their point of views with these reactions.
iv) Comments and Messages: The other significant feature of Facebook is comment
and message. The users can make comments on posts, videos, photos or anything shared on
timeline. With the help of this feature, the user does not require to message everything
regarding the posts and rather he or she can directly write on that particular post or video and
photo (Rosen, Carrier and Cheever 2013). Moreover, another important feature of this
website is the instant messenger. Facebook Messenger is the instant message service as well
as the software application that allows the users to send messages easily and promptly.
Essential Benefits of Facebook
The Supreme Court of Justice has instructed to shut down Facebook for the excess
usage or misuse of data. Apart from having several significant features, Facebook also
provides several essential benefits to the users. The most significant benefits of this website
of Facebook are as follows:
i) Better and Advanced Communication: The first and the foremost benefit of this
website Facebook is that it helps in providing better as well as advanced communication
(Grieve et al. 2013). Although, it is mentioned that Facebook substantially isolates people
from each other by putting the users in computers and other devices. However, this particular
website enables the members for efficiently and quickly exchanging confidential information
that is held private. Regarding the business users, Facebook serves as an open communication
channel and hence the customers could ask several questions, which they might feel

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uncomfortable over on the phone or even asking in person (Rieder 2013). Moreover, the
facilities of real time communication that are available on the website of Facebook enable the
business owners for providing customer services and answering the questions directly by the
social networking sites.
ii) Provides Networking Tools: The second significant and important benefit that is
provided by Facebook to the users is networking tools. Networking is one of the major or key
element of business; however, the massive social network of Facebook comprises of several
resources to seek exposure for the users (Enli and Skogerbø 2013). With the help of this
website, the business owners could quickly and promptly update the investors, key contracts,
higher value customers and suppliers. While posting any news publicly regarding the
offerings or services of the organization, the users must remain aware of the fact that the
competitors could check the information. The business owners must utilise discretion with
the sharing of information over the pages of Facebook.
iii) Helps in Social Marketing: The website of Facebook also offers several number
of advantages to marketing professionals as well as smaller business owners (Stutzman,
Gross and Acquisti 2013). With the massive or huge user base, this social marketing site
provides the marketers limitless users for the commercial messages. Moreover, the
advertisement tools of Facebook allow the business users for targeting the message delivery
with the help of demographic information, which ranges right from the geographical location
until age and many more. Facebook is even responsible for providing an array of various
analytical tools, which the marketers could utilise for gauging advertising efficiency and then
adjusting the advertisements as per requirement.
iv) Research as well as Insights: The fourth important benefit of Facebook that is
extremely effective for the users and it is helpful for researches as well as insights (Halpern

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and Gibbs 2013). The business owners could also research the offers from several other
organisations. Few of the efficient and popular organisations utilise the pages of Facebook for
posting the news letters as well as all other updates and the business owners could use the
information for keeping the organizational activity active. Moreover, the users of Facebook
easily share the interesting details regarding the lives of users for keeping track of the famous
culture or emerging trends (Sánchez, Cortijo and Javed 2014). For getting updates about the
customer interests, the businesses could easily adapt to every changing environment.
v) Provides Several Applications: Facebook provides numerous applications to the
users. Events are the basic application of Facebook social networking website, The Facebook
events are the methods for members for letting their friends knowing about the upcoming
events within the community and also organizing the social gatherings. These events of
Facebook events need the name of the event, networks, and types of events, hostnames,
location or even start time (Cvijikj and Michahelles 2013). There are two types of events
present in Facebook, which are public and private. The private events could not be found in
the searches and are found by invitations only. The users, who are not invited in these private
events, could not view the details or descriptions of that event. On the other hand, the public
events could be viewed, and the description is present on the timeline publicly.
vi) User Friendly Interface: Another essential and important benefit of Facebook is
that it provides user friendly interface. The platform of Facebook gives set of application
programming interfaces or APIs as well as tools that allow the third party developers for
integrating with an open graph via Facebook applications and external devices or websites
(Kwan and Skoric 2013). This platform of Facebook has been evolved from the enabled
development to web or devices. For its user friendly interface, Facebook is used by almost
2.27 billion users in today’s world.

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vii) Shares Information: Apart from business news, Facebook even helps in sharing
relevant and important information. It is the biggest source of information, which the users
share on the website of Facebook regularly. The several users get information about anybody
in the world irrespective of the time and location.
viii) Allows Several Languages: The website of Facebook has thousands of pages in
numerous languages in each and every country, which share confidential information for
reading (Kwok and Yu 2013). Hence, it is extremely effective as well as efficient for every
user, using this website of Facebook.
Concept of Networked Individualism
Networked individualism significantly represents the proper shift of classical models
of various social arrangements that is being formed around the hierarchical bureaucracies and
social groups, which are work groups for connecting to the individuals with the help of
method provided by evolving the ICT or information and communication technology
(Halpern and Gibbs 2013). Networked individualism is fostered by developing the social
media network. Facebook should not be shut down because of networked individualism. The
respective networked individuals or the users of Facebook are the members of the diversified
groups, where these members seek into various things. These groups could even be dispersed
in the world as well as the amalgamation of these networks for making it well networked and
highly individualised (Enli and Skogerbø 2013). This particular concept of networked
individualism even implies that there are various advantages for the future of the society.
Thus, the Supreme Court of Justice should think of the Facebook shutting down.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that Facebook is the most
popular social networking site that has provided several benefits to its users. Communication

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is the first and the foremost advantage of this social networking site and thus connecting with
the other persons is more comfortable and prompter. The next advantage of this social
networking site is business. The business-persons can create the page or group to publish the
product images, details and prices for getting more involved with the customers. The founder
of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg and it was founded in the year of 2004. The above essay has
clearly outlined the case study of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was forced to shut down
Facebook for the core reason of misusing the data. He was accused of making such a website,
which misuses data to a great extent. This essay provides a brief demonstration that is being
sent to the Supreme Court of Justice for outlining the essential benefits that Facebook has and
these benefits do not justify harsh ruling. Relevant details are provided in this essay to
understand the advantages with theories and studies.

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