IT Ethics Report: Social Media Data Collection Ethics Case Study

This report examines the ethical issues surrounding social media data collection, focusing on the Cambridge Analytica scandal and its implications. It analyzes the actions of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica through the lens of four classical ethical theories: deontology, utilitarianism, virtue theory, and contract theory. The report highlights the unethical behavior of these entities, including the leaking of user data and the breach of user agreements. It discusses the challenges faced by users due to these actions and proposes recommendations for government, companies, and users to mitigate these issues. These include stricter regulations, increased awareness, and the use of protective software to prevent data breaches and unethical practices in the realm of social media and data privacy.

IT Ethics

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Data Collection: “Harvesting” Personalities Online - An Ethics Case Study
Social Media is a websites or an application that is designed to provide the facility to
people to share the information with each other. It is considered as a new platform to interact
with the millions of people without any boundaries. It is observed that there are various facilities
that are offer by the social media applications to its users and those are sharing information,
pictures, documents and the others. Nowadays, social media is considered as the best platform to
spread the awareness and news in minimum time period (Fuchs, 2017). Although, there are many
benefits of social media but nowadays people establish or start their business at this platform as it
helps to spread the business at the global level. It is a fact that the personal information is very
sensitive for users that is why; it is the duty of social media application to protect their personal
data. Leaking the personal data of operators consider as the unethical step taken by the social
media applications like Facebook. In this report, the case study of Cambridge Analytica has been
taken into consideration to evaluate the ethical and unethical steps. The ethical theories have
been implemented at the case study to analyze the step taken by the social media application
(Facebook) and the company (Cambridge Analytica).
Deontology theory states the actions of a person or a leader whether it is wrong or right
according to the guidelines (Paquette, Sommerfeldt, & Kent, 2015). The Cambridge Analytica is
the advisory company of government that helps to take the decision. In the scandal, Cambridge
Analytica takes the action of analyzing or predicting the votes by using the personal information
which is right as per the agreement of Cambridge Analytica and government. But using the
personal facts of operators affects the life of users which is criminal and unethical for the society.
Facebook disclosed the private information of users which is considered as incorrect step that is
taken by the firm towards the society. The step taken by the business is wrong or immoral

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towards the society as it leaked the user’s personal data. According to this case study and the
ethical theories, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook did not perform any right action as per the
rules and regulation (CNBC, 2018).
Utilitarianism theory is one of the ethical theories that refer the actions that bring the
happiness among the people (Mill, 2016). It is the responsibility of Facebook to provide the
facility to users in order to entertain them or brings the happiness among them. In the case study
of Cambridge Analytica, Facebook leak the private data of operators to Cambridge Analytica to
helps the government in election by predicting the votes. Facebook does not bring the happiness
in the life users but Cambridge Analytica brings the happiness for the Donald Trump in the
elections of America (Allcott, & Gentzkow, 2017). According to the ethical theory, it can be said
that the step taken by Facebook is incorrect or immoral and brings the fear among the operators
rather than bringing the happiness.
Virtue theory states the duties of a leader or a person that takes actions for the community
whether it right or wrong for them (Ahrens, & Cloutier, 2019). The CEO of Facebook has the
various responsibilities such as to secure the personal data of users, provide facility to users to
bring the happiness and to check the actions of supervisors on daily basis or monthly basis in
order to reduce the mistakes. According to the case study, the supervisor of Facebook disclosed
the information of visitors or users without the permission of CEO. The CEO of Facebook does
not have any information about the case of disclosure of information of users. The main leader of
Facebook is irresponsible and failed to perform their responsibilities. After this scandal, users are
scared to share their information on social media that is why; it can be said that it brings the fear
or security among the society as per the wrong action taken by Facebook leader (Raicu, 2018).

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The contract theory refers the contract among the publics who lives in a same place. The
social media has the mutual promise with the users to offer the entertainment facility or to secure
the personal data (Ngai, ao, & Moon, 2015). According to the case, it is observed that Facebook
has the agreement with the users to prevent the users from leaking their secret information.
Government of America makes a contract with the Cambridge Analytica to examine the voting’s
of voter’s for election prediction. It has been seen that Cambridge Analytica used the private data
of operators to forecast the votes to help the government. As per the case study, it can be said
that the Cambridge Analytica performs its obligations according to their contracts but Facebook
fails to perform the accountability. The contract among Facebook and users does not fulfill due
to which the contract is beach (Raicu, 2018). As per the contract theory, it can be said that
Facebook breach the contract which is unethical.
As per the above discussion, it has been found that Cambridge Analytica and Facebook
perform the unethical behavior. There are many challenges face by the users just because of
Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal. It is suggesting that the government has to take the
strict action against these companies such as it has to impose the penalty of high amount and the
others. The government also has to provide the education and spread the awareness towards the
unethical hacking. It is also the responsibility of the users to aware from the unethical behavior
of these companies by installing the detector and avoids the pops. The companies also have to
use the software to detect the hackers so that they does not hack the data without any permission
of the company. These recommendations help to reduce the challenges which are faced by the
users.

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References
Ahrens, A. H., & Cloutier, D. (2019). Acting for good reasons: Integrating virtue theory and
social cognitive theory. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, e12444.
Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of
Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211-36.
CNBC. (2018). Facebook-Cambridge Analytica: A timeline of the data hijacking scandal.
Retrieved from: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/facebook-cambridge-analytica-a-
timeline-of-the-data-hijacking-scandal.html
Fuchs, C. (2017). Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy. Oxon: Routledge, 337-
383.
Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S., & Moon, K. K. (2015). Social media research: Theories, constructs, and
conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), 33-44.
Paquette, M., Sommerfeldt, E. J., & Kent, M. L. (2015). Do the ends justify the means?
Dialogue, development communication, and deontological ethics. Public Relations
Review, 41(1), 30-39.
Raicu, I. (2018). Data Collection: “Harvesting” Personalities Online. Retrieved from:
https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/internet-ethics/resources/data-collection-
harvesting-personalities-online/