Data Collection: “Harvesting” Personalities Online

SOCIAL MEDIA

SOCIAL MEDIA 1
Data Collection: “Harvesting” Personalities Online
Introduction
Social media is an interactive technology which is used to share the information,
ideas, and other forms of expression from one person to the other. Social media makes the
human interaction much convenient and much faster than the real life interaction. The
entrepreneur can easily build the relationship with the international entrepreneurs. It can be
said that the social media reduce the distance between the people. This platform is used by
the people as per their requirement and for entertainment. People usually use this platform to
communicate with their friends, relatives and share their personal views. There are many
people who develop their business on social media (Boulianne, 2015).
Social media is beneficial for the society as well as organisations but the developing
technology rise challenges for humans such as privacy, crimes, and security. People share the
personal information on this platform to their relative and friends. It is require to maintain the
privacy of the users but it was founded that there are many social media applications which
leaked the personal information. Like in the case of Cambridge Analytica, Facebook is the
famous media application who leaked the personal information of their users to the
Cambridge Analytica. The users of the Facebook faced the problems from the step of the
company. The Cambridge Analytica analyse the data to predict the voters preferences (Lee,
2018). In this report, the discussion is made on the ethical issues of use of cyber technology.
In this report, the case study of Cambridge Analytica will be analysed to identify the issues
related to the cyber technology. In this report, the ethical theories will be discussed to analyse
the ethical such as utilitarianism, deontology, contract, and virtue.

SOCIAL MEDIA 2
Ethical issues
Utilitarianism theory
Utilitarianism theory refers the action which gives the maximum happiness to the
large number of people. The happiness of the people is measured in the terms of utility. It has
been seen that the company has the responsibility to deliver the services to the consumers in
order to serve the happiness. The company also deliver the services in order to earn the high
profit. The company deliver the services so that it can provide the happiness to the consumer
while using the services. The company has the responsibility to perform his duty to deliver
the services.
Cambridge Analytica is the company who work for the political parties in order to
provide the suggestion. The company helps the Donald Trump to analyse the preferences of
the consumer. Facebook leaked the personal data of the users to Cambrideg Analytica in the
exchange of high amount of profit. Cambridge Analytica used the personal information and
predicts the voting for the Donald Trump. In this case, users face the issue due to the step
taken by the Facebook. Cambridge Analytica also earned the high revenue in the exchange of
information. Donald Trump won the election of the president of America as per the people
vote preferences and point of views (Allcott, & Gentzkow, 2017). In this case, Facebook,
Cambrideg Analytica and Donald Trump get the utility but the users faced the issue. As per
the Utilitarianism theory, it has been seen that the step taken by the company is unethical for
the society.
The company has the responsibility to deliver the happiness to the user. The company
has to sign the policies with the consumers in order to maintain their privacy to solve this
problem. The government of the country should also take the step to stop these issues such as
develop the act and laws against these issues.