Facebook Data Breach Case Study

This report provides a detailed research on the significant case study of Facebook data breach. It discusses the three typical perspectives of applied ethics that are professional ethics, philosophical ethics and finally sociological or descriptive ethics perspectives. This case study is related to information and communications technology.

Running head: FACEBOOK DATA BREACH
Facebook Data Breach Case Study
Name of the Student
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Case Study..............................................................................................................................2
Professional Ethics Perspective..............................................................................................3
Philosophical Ethics Perspective............................................................................................4
Sociological/ Descriptive Ethics Perspective.........................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Ethics can be defined as the moral codes, which eventually govern the behaviours of a
person for conducting the various activities. These are basic concepts or fundamental
concepts that define the right or wrong conduct of a human being (Noddings, 2013). Ethics
proceeds in the dialectic manner after using the rigorous analysis for revealing the various
logical flaws and reasoning contradictions. Ethics even seeks to go beyond the several flaws
and contradictions. The most significant objective of this ethics is to guide a human being to
make him alert about good or bad, vice or virtue and right or wrong. The ethical directives do
not have proper clarity for every individual and hence these individuals often disagree on the
right or wrong conduct (Frank, 2013). The report will be providing a detailed research on the
significant case study of Facebook data breach. This report will be discussing on the three
typical perspectives of applied ethics that are professional ethics, philosophical ethics and
finally sociological or descriptive ethics perspectives. This case study is related to
information and communications technology.
Discussion
Case Study
Facebook has suffered the most dangerous and massive data breach, which enabled
each and every user to snatch the information of more than 3 million users. In May 2018, a
personality quiz application, namely, “MyPersonality” was claimed to be exposing the
various details to the third parties (Waterfield & Revell, 2018). It has been noted that this
particular scam was going on since the year of 2016. This particular quiz application involved
every detail of the user, such as name, date of birth, status, post, friend lists and photos. After
taking the details, the users had to play a small quiz and as soon as the user clicks on the

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result button, all the private information was leaked to the third parties. This application was
so dangerous that even after deleting the application, the information can extract every datum
from the user’s profile. According to the cyber security experts, the only method for
preventing this quiz from leaking the data was to manually delete all the cookies within the
respective device. Moreover, the pop up advertisements, while playing this quiz, were the
next vulnerable threats to the device (Waterfield & Revell, 2018). There were more explicit
websites that could have easily utilized this flaw for extracting the data of the visitors and
thus threatening to leak the search history in public. However, due to quick identification by a
cyber security expert, the quiz application was stopped and thus such illegal activity was
stopped.
Professional Ethics Perspective
The first and the foremost perspective of the applied ethics is professional ethics
perspective. This particular perspective significantly encompasses the personal as well as
corporate standards of the behaviours of human beings that are expected by several
professionals. Each and every professional is subsequently working in various professions
with special skill or knowledge (Fromm, 2013). The knowledge should be utilized in proper
areas and should be governed only when the services are given to public. This is mainly done
to consider the moral issues and is thus known as perspective of professional ethics. The most
significant professions are divinity and law. This type of ethics perspective is responsible for
making judgments, applying the several skills and finally taking important decisions within
situations.
The major difference of this ethics with other ethics is that in this typical ethics can
only be followed by the professionals and the general public could not follow this ethics since
they do not have required knowledge and skills (Sorokin, 2017). Some of the professional
organizations might be defining the ethical approaches in respect to several discrete and

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significant components. These components are honesty, transparency, objectivity, loyalty,
accountability, integrity, confidentiality, law obedience and respect. The enforced codes of
practice, which the professional members usually follow for the prevention of exploitations
of the clients and even the preservation of professional integrity, are termed as the parts of
professional ethics. With this scenario, not only the clients, but also the professionals are
benefitted (Durkheim, 2013). The disciplinary codes of ethics eventually enable the
professionals to define the several standards of conducts. Moreover, the individual
practitioners ensure that these standards are met properly by the discipline of practices.
This particular case study of Facebook data breach that took place in May 2018 is
considered as one of the most dangerous cyber attacks in the history of cyber world. Since,
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in all over the world; this data breach
affected the data of more than 3 million users (Dewey, 2016). The quiz application of
“MyPersonality” was leaking the private data of the users and hence this was one of the
major causes that the users were suffering. According to the professional ethics perspective,
this ICT related case study is unethical, since Facebook was unable to save the personal and
confidential information of their users. Hence, they were lacking of professionalism and they
can be termed as unprofessional in nature.
Philosophical Ethics Perspective
The next important perspective of applied ethics is the philosophical ethics
perspective. The philosophical ethics mainly concerns about the correct and incorrect, good
and evil of the conducts of human beings. There are certain projects, which are using the
perfect reasoning to answer various types of important ethical questions (Gatens, 2013). Each
and every moral principle of the groups, traditions and individuals are subsequently checked
and observed by the philosophical ethics perspective. The philosophical ethics can fluctuate
either from cultural, personal and legal approaches or from the religious approach. This is

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substantially done by seeking to conduct the complete study of principles and ethics by
rational and secular outlooks. The betterment or the well being of human beings is observed
by the rational and secular outlooks.
The most significant advantage of this particular perspective of applied ethics is that
here the demands of the individuals are avoided based on law and religion. The
unpredictability characterization of the personal and cultural moral views is also utilized by
this perspective. Philosophical perspective is responsible for resolving the ethical issues or
wrong actions (Bennett, 2016). The case study of data breaching in Facebook states that 3
million users’ data were hacked by a quiz application. The moral principles were affected in
this case study and thus according to the philosophical perspective of applied ethics, this case
study in unethical.
Sociological/ Descriptive Ethics Perspective
Sociological or descriptive ethics is the third perspective of applied ethics. The
descriptive ethics is solely defined as the significant study of several moral beliefs and
disbeliefs of human beings (Biesta, 2015). This descriptive ethics can be contrasted with the
perspective ethics and normative ethics and is observed on the basis of how people are acting.
The social responsibility is considered as one of the major parts of ethics, in which the users
or individuals are accountable for fulfilling each and every civic duty. The several activities
of the individuals must be beneficial for the society and all the surrounding people. The
economic growth of the society is also checked with the help of the sociological ethics. This
particular perspective refers to the system, in which all the decisions or actions are validated
before that action is being preceded (Ciulla, 2014). When this action is causing any type of
harm to the society, it can be termed as socially irresponsible.

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Each and every moral value is created with the ideology that whether it is correct or
incorrect. This helps to reduce the chance of incorrect activities and thus all the individuals
should be behaving in a manner that can be bring advantages to society. Moreover, the
confidentiality of any data or information is ensured with the presence of social
responsibilities (Tavani, 2015). This case study of Facebook data breaching was not socially
correct. It was the responsibility of Facebook to maintain confidentiality and integrity of
users’ data. However, they were unable to do so and according to sociological ethics
perspective, this case study is termed as unethical.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above report, conclusion can be drawn that ethics do not impose
any rules or regulations within the authoritarian methodology. This methodology is not at all
prescriptive since these are morals or principles. Ethics majorly deals with the factors that
what should or should not be done and how the logical reasoning is being applied. The major
reasons for requiring ethics are constant changes within the society for adapting the rules of
conduct and social pressures for the individual rights and thus finding an optimal balance
between collective rights and individuals. The sensitive and controversial ethical issues have
a strong impact on the traditional approaches of ethics and have diverse viewpoints of any
other aspect. There are four theories in ethics that are responsible for defining each and every
aspect of human behaviour. These are utilitarianism theory, deontology theory, virtue ethics
and contract theory. The three sub divisions of ethics are Meta ethics, normative ethics and
applied ethics. The applied ethics is further sub divided into three perspectives that are
professional ethics, philosophical ethics and finally sociological or descriptive ethics. This
report has explained an ICT related case study with these three perspectives.

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References
Bennett, J. (2016). The enchantment of modern life: Attachments, crossings, and ethics.
Princeton University Press.
Biesta, G. J. (2015). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy.
Routledge.
Ciulla, J. B. (Ed.). (2014). Ethics, the heart of leadership. ABC-CLIO.
Dewey, J. (2016). Ethics. Read Books Ltd.
Durkheim, E. (2013). Professional ethics and civic morals. Routledge.
Frank, A. W. (2013). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. University of
Chicago Press.
Fromm, E. (2013). Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics. Routledge.
Gatens, M. (2013). Imaginary bodies: Ethics, power and corporeality. Routledge.
Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. Univ of
California Press.
Sorokin, P. (2017). Social and cultural dynamics: A study of change in major systems of art,
truth, ethics, law and social relationships. Routledge.
Tavani, H. T. (2015). Levels of Trust in the Context of Machine Ethics. Philosophy &
Technology, 28(1), 75-90.
Waterfield, P., & Revell, T. (2018). Huge new Facebook data leak exposed intimate details of
3m users. Retrieved from https://www.newscientist.com/article/2168713-huge-new-

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facebook-data-leak-exposed-intimate-details-of-3m-users/ Accessed on [08 Aug.
2018].