Ethical Issues in Facebook Data Leak

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND MATHS, Charles Sturt University
Ethical Issues in Facebook Data Leak
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1. Introduction
Ethics refer to the moral codes of conduct or principles that instruct a person’s
behavior. The purpose of this essay is to identify and explain an ethically questionable issue
related to ICT as observed in the media. The situation chosen for analyzing the ethical issue
is the data leak case involving Facebook. The news had taken the world by storm when it first
came to the fore during March and April 2018. The essay will discuss the issue from three
ethical perspectives – professional, philosophical and sociological (Tavani, 2011). The three
perspectives will be explained at first and then associate the ethically questionable situation
with it. While doing so, views from different scholars will be used.
2. Professional Ethics Perspectives
The professional ethics perspective is one of the three aspects of the applied ethics
branch. Professional ethics identifies and analyzes issues of ethics for which computer
professionals are accountable (Tavani, 2011). It is termed as cyber ethics and is considered
the standard for computer professionals to follow. The perspective provides a solid ground
from which ethical issues relating to ICT could be analyzed properly. The Facebook-
Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal raised serious ethical questions. On March 17 2018,
leading English daily The Guardian reported that around 50 million Facebook profiles were
illicitly used for Cambridge Analytica, an elections consultancy based in London
(Theguardian.com, 2018). Although Facebook CEO and creator, Mark Zuckerberg refused to
accept the fault at first, he later confessed to the wrongdoings. In terms of following the
standard that guides the ICT professionals, Zuckerberg and his Facebook lagged far behind.
According to the professional guidelines, it is mandatory that the users are informed about
any survey or experiment carried out by such IT companies.
Many studies and reports have found that the Facebook data leak scandal reflected the
absence of strict ethical guidelines. The main ethical question the case brings forth is the
privacy of individuals. According professional code of conduct, it is the responsibility of the
service provider to respect and protect the privacy of its customers. With millions of users
associated with it, Facebook should have protected their personal profiles being misused for
election purpose. According to the professional code of conduct, professional relations at
work and in service must be maintained. The relations generate norms such as fidelity,
honesty, care and most importantly safety. When Facebook sold the personal data of its users
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without their knowledge or consent, it broke the norm of maintaining a transparent and strong
relationship.
Accepting one’s failure to protect the privacy or confessing to wrongdoing also comes
under professional ethics. Both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica failed to acknowledge
either of the professional ethical norms. When the expose was made in March, the elections
consultancy firm denied right away that none of the data used by Aleksandr Kogan in 2015
was used in any election campaign. Zuckerberg also initially denied any involvement but
later on confessed to it. From the professional ethics perspective, the denials were completely
against ethics.
The professional perspective of ethics comes under the normative principles of
applied ethics that include personal benefit, social benefit, honesty, autonomy, justice and
rights amongst others. Facebook data leak scandal raises another question of ethics in terms
of professionalism and that is lawfulness and honesty. However, when cases like these
appear, it shows how such companies go against ethical principles and deceive people.
3. Philosophical Ethics Perspectives
The philosophical perspective goes beyond professional boundaries to analyze an
ethical dilemma or issue (Tavani, 2011). It takes into account, the moral principles and
behavior of the persons or group involved. From this perspective, the Facebook data leak
scandal is viewed as the faulty behavior of Aleksandr Kogan and Mark Zuckerberg. Both
individuals were aware that using private data without users’ consent and knowledge was
unethical and yet they went ahead with it.
The case of Facebook is a business ethics related issue. The users who blindly trust
Facebook with their private data like messages also expect that the organization would also
revert with honesty. Here social responsibilities of capitalist business practices, moral status
of corporate entities, deceptive advertising, and insider trading and so on are under scrutiny.
A look into Facebook’s history shows several cases of ethically questionable issues that went
unnoticed owing to the economic status of the organization and its founder. Many scholars of
philosophy have criticized Zuckerberg’s role in the entire episode, as he was responsible for
ensuring the protection of his users’ privacy (Werner & Lim, 2016). Zuckerberg only
accepted his company’s fault after the case was exposed. Kogan on other hand had been
denying all the allegations stating that he has been made a scapegoat by both Facebook and
Cambridge Analytica (Globalnews.ca, 2018). However, it is worth mentioning that in 2013,
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