Comparative Business Ethics & Social Responsibility

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY
Name Anil Adhikari
Student ID EIN3009
College Holmes institute

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................3
Summary of ethical issue..............................................................................................3
Process of decision-making in relation to the ethical issue..........................................3
Ethical moral philosophies............................................................................................4
Conclusion....................................................................................................................5
Reference list................................................................................................................6
Appendix.......................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Business ethics refers to the core values, principle, and standard of organizations
that reflect on the behavior of internal stakeholders. The chosen newspaper article
has been published by ABC News, Australia and this paper is demonstrating the
ethical issue regarding maintenance of privacy by the large social media platform,
Facebook. They have admitted that they pay a large amount to the contractors for
transcribing the audio clips of users. This essay is focusing on understanding these
ethical issues and their impact on the decision-making process. Besides, ethical-
moral philosophies relevant to the ethical issue are included in this essay.
Summary of ethical issue
The ethical issue raised in this article is regarding privacy of users. Facebook has
recently admitted that this firm pays contractors for transcribing private messenger
audio clips (Abc.net.au 2019). This can hamper trust of its millions of users and
hamper the reputation of this organization. As opined by Boddy and Dominelli (2017,
p.172), a privacy breach is a serious ethical issue that increases the risk of diluting or
losing security. This act can be categorized as a violation of business ethical
principles. Privacy protection of Facebook users is under question mark because
contractors were not given the context of audio before transcription. However,
Facebook confirms that only those messages were transcribed, which are permitted
by users. Besides, Facebook told that they have masked the audio to maintain the
privacy of users. Moreover, Beke et al. (2018, p.2) argued that assurance of privacy
by a company means protecting serious information about clients or users fairly and
legally. Although, Facebook confirmed that transcription is done through artificial
intelligence but they have not told that what happens to that audience after
transcribing. This is raising a serious ethical issue regarding privacy of user data. In
the article, it is mentioned that other companies such as Google, apple also
transcribed messages of their users. Jamie Winterton, director of strategy at Arizona
State University's Global Security Initiative stated that using human transcribers for
training artificial intelligence is a good process. However, it is impacting on trust of
users as it is hard for user to believe the facts provided by companies. According to
the privacy policies of Facebook, they can use data of customers for making their
products more attractive and flawless. However, it does not mean that they can
transcribe personal audio messages of users. Tim Bajarin, a tech columnist and
president of Creative Strategies, says in this article that if humans act as a part of
analyzing messages then it should be mentioned in privacy policies.
Process of decision-making in relation to the ethical issue
The identified ethical issue of breaching of privacy violates ethical principles and
impacts on trust of users. Individual ethical decision making is made by following
some steps that include establishment of facts that must be collected by reviewing
a situation. As opined by Mai (2016, p.193), it is essential to collect relevant and
adequate evidence about a situation that can help in ethical decision making. The
next step is making a decision about the nature of issues. This means whether is
identified issue is ethical or legal. Identification of options and consequences is
the next step. An individual needs to analyze possible consequences that can occur
due to the identified issue. Other steps are evaluation of the option, choosing the
best option and implementation of decision.
From analyzing the information in the article the facts are established that Facebook
transcribes audio messages of users without proper permission. Moreover, they
have not mentioned this process in these privacy policies that have raised an ethical
issue regarding privacy of data of users. Facebook has paid contractors for
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