Facebook Company Analysis: Ethics, Laws, and Employment Regulations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Facebook, examining its mission statement, ethical guidelines, and legal compliance. It delves into Facebook's mission to connect the world and build community. The report explores the company's adherence to various ethical considerations, including employee codes and handling of confidential information. Furthermore, it outlines the legal frameworks that govern Facebook's operations, such as the Honest Ads Act, COPPA, ECPA, CISPA, the Employee Privacy Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The report highlights the importance of these laws in ensuring user privacy, data protection, and fair employment practices, providing a detailed overview of Facebook's ethical and legal landscape.

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COMPANY ANALYSIS: FACEBOOK
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What is the mission statement of the company?
Facebook Inc. is one of the largest social media platforms in the world. The position
of the company in the global market aligns with its mission and vision statements, which
highlight leadership in positively impacting the global social relations. Any organisation’s
mission and vision statement define the conditions in which it intends to operate and achieve
its goals. In the case of Facebook, its mission statement guides the company in focusing on its
efforts to improve corporate effectiveness in developing the organisation internationally.
Moreover, the mission statement highlights the primary goals and the necessary actions
needed to accomplish its vision (Lehto, 2018). Every company’s mission determines the
strategies and tactics to grow and develop the business. Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission
statement is “to give people the power of building community and bring the world much
closer together”. The global society uses Facebook to stay linked to friends, family members,
and business colleagues among others. Moreover, the platform helps in discovering what's
going on around the world, and share experiences that matter to certain people.
Company Ethics and laws.
Notably, social media companies have to comply by a list or regulations set by the
federal commission especially when it comes to disclosure of paid advertisements and data
protection. These rules are applicable to Facebook as well as other social media platforms
through the Honest Ads Act. This law compels Facebook to reveal who might be paying for
any advertisements or political advertisements on its platform and requires promoters to make
public their approval of all the campaign advertisement posted on their behalf (Young, &
Quan-Haase, 2009). If Facebook is publicly held accountable of how third-party
advertisements are disclosed on its platform, the rules might directly breach Section 230 of

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the 1996 Communications Decency Act. This act points out that online publishers such as
Facebook are not liable for what user doe on the platform (Kerr, 2014).
Section 230, has been maintained in various court systems when considering holding
companies like Facebook liable for any content advertised on the platform. Therefore the
Honest Ads act has to create an exception to section 230. However, there is a number of
exemptions of section 230, and it is conceivable for Facebook to lose its safeguard under the
law. But for the most part , this rule has continued to be dominant for a decade, and a
majority of internet freedom activists have argued that consenting any exceptions to section
230, no matter how well-intended , is a risky practice to set (Levinson, 2011).
The laws that the company must follow.
Protection for Children on Social Media
COPPA is the governing law concerned with the protection of online information
about children below the age of 13. Online platforms that primarily target children are not
allowed to collect data about a child without first providing on paper notification of the
disclosure practices and obtaining approval from close relative. It is the superior
responsibility of parents when it comes to ensuring the security of their children right on
Facebook (Jones, 2012). Similarly, Facebook also has the obligation to identify such
information and ensure that the necessary procedures have been followed prior to making
such information public on the platform.
Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was implemented in 1986, and while
Facebook was founded in 2004, the act remains enforceable. The law sanctions the US
administration to access digital information such as social media messages, or messages in
cloud platforms among others with a summons. Warrants are not necessary if the matter in

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question is more than 180 days (Weiss, 2015).Therefore, Facebook supplies the government
with information at the request of the government. This act also dictates when the
government can legally track GPS tracking on phones.
Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)
This law was first presented to congress in 2011. It was approved by the House of
Representatives but the Senate rejected it which was later reintroduced in 2013, where it was
implemented as a law. The act is an improvement of the 1947 National security Act, which
did not provide rules and regulations against cybercrime. This law concerns how social media
platforms share data on possible cyber threats to the federal government (Hurley, 2012).
However, the law has been met with considerable opposition from multiple online platforms
citing strict data protection considering the broad definition of cyber threats. It is likely going
to be a continuous debate in Congress for a while.
Depending on the role played by staffers at Facebook, one might have access to data
systems that allow them to view certain information related to users of children, which would
otherwise not be directly visible to them. These tools are necessary as they enable staffers to
perform their work effectively. However, it is important that all staffers should treat such
access to data with the sensitivity and caution that it deserves to the extent required by the
company and the law (Tuunainen, Pitkänen, & Hovi, 2009). Such data is confidential and
subject to privacy protection under the COPPA among other different rules in different
jurisdictions. The Facebook brand and the trust put by users on it depends on the company’s
role to comply with the privacy rules. Facebook has access to data systems or tools that allow
them to view private information linking to all its users. These tools are essential and
necessary in order to assist the company to perform its role effectively. Nevertheless, the
information they hold is subject to privacy protection in multiple jurisdictions (Raynes-

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Goldie,2010). To understand the sensitivity of various types of personal data, and how to
protect it, Facebook has to refer to private data classifications in various countries in which it
has a presence.
What is the Employee Code?
Potentially Conflicting Relationships
Facebook employees, its affiliates or any other party that operates on behalf of the
company are expected to act lawfully. With integrity and honestly with the best interest of the
company in their mind while performing the obligations on behalf of the company. The code
offers fundamental guidelines for the overall business conduct of the company’s staff. Any
persons that are not sure whether other staff members comply with this code ought to
communicate with their respective managers. This rule is applicable to all Facebook
personnel, including members of the board of director as well as its corporate affiliates and
contingent workers (AlSudiari, & Vasista, 2012). This law is subject to reforms and might be
amended or superseded by various federal policies.
If any part of the law is in conflict with the local laws and protocols, only the part of
this code that is permissible by the appropriate law is applicable. Any local guidelines that are
particularly applicable to different jurisdiction will take precedence to the extent they
demonstrate conflict. These laws are put in place to ensure that the company’s staff use their
judgement to act, at all time they work for the company. Kosinski, et al., (2015) indicates that
conflict of interest often exist when the personal interest of the staff interfere with the best
interest of the company. The best rule for circumstances that appear to present a conflict of
interest.

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Confidential information
The development of social media unsurprisingly led to the rise of multiple ethical
concerns in various spectrums. The uptake of Facebook and other social media platforms has
raised the question regarding the potential of facilitating fraud, and the creation of
disparaging content among others. The most common form of this argument takes a
consequentialist stand point which posits that what makes an action either ethical or unethical
are the ultimate consequences (Novak, 2015). That being said, the stress is that technology
design ought to be developed in a way that they achieve the utmost good for the users, and
Facebook staff are considered to have ethical obligations to ensure that the design of the
platform is oriented towards accomplishing the desired objectives. Moreover, the employees,
are supposed to hold a user-oriented view in order to further develop the platform for people
to interact with each other easily (Shields, 2015).
Even though the social platform chooses or is bound to control certain aspects of
interaction through confidentiality, such practices are targeted at users of the site in terms of
what they can or cannot do. In this instance, the ethical focus shifts to what users ought to do
and expect in terms of their moral responsibilities and rights. Such normative perspectives of
morality attribute to human conduct, while social media platforms are viewed as object in
their hand which might be developed in a way that is morally suitable (Hashemi, 2009).
Generally, Facebook is considered as a fundamental actor and thus morality or technology
arises.
Facebooks staff are also fundamental players in the confidentiality process, as they
have the ability to divert user attention from issues such as confidentiality setting and also to
make it challenging or easy for users to create their own confidentiality settings if they
desired it. Consider how Facebook showers its users with multiple invites, and ads once they

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sign up, even when they are subject to the risks of an open profile. Also consider how they
allow other users to post images and tag their friends, even if you might know them, which
implies that you might not be aware of such photograph, however embarrassing or
compromising it might be. Clearly, the consequences of the possibilities and confidentiality
violations are not envisioned by the staffers or the users of the site (Lehavot, Ben-Zeev, &
Neville, 2012). Therefore, it is important for the company to reveal all the implications of
some fundamental regulations in the user experience, but in due course the company should
pursue an understanding of how various players institute ethical behavior in the
transformation that would take place.
What employment laws must Facebook follow?
Employee Privacy Act 1974
The biggest concern for most of the employees at Facebook is mainly one of
allowing improper information such as race, religion and sexual orientation to be used by the
employer to taint the employment process. This include revealing the sex and race of the
candidates on social media or allowing them to proclaim their religious inclination.
According to the Employee privacy act, the employer is not allowed to review or request the
private information before the candidates are interviewed. This results to the entire interview
being devoid or blind to any appropriate information (Hurley, 2012). No matter what, if
Facebook plans to review the social media presence of its candidates, it should first ensure
that it has obtained a written approval to carry out such kind of search, preferably as part of
the release in the Facebook application.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation
Act).

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The ADA covers companies with more than 15 employees, including states and local
governments. Therefore, the law is also applicable to Facebook and other social media
platforms which have employed thousands of employees across the world. Section 503
restricts discrimination of certain employees on the bases of disability and also necessitates
affirmative actions in the employment process, placement or advancement of persons with
disabilities within the organisation. Some of the recent updates to section 503 strengthened
the requirements for affirmative actions. The rules now include the using goal of 7 %,
particularly in large corporations (Zazove, et al., 2016). This goals is a directive in which
Facebook can measure their success in employing and retaining persons with disabilities. The
non-discrimination and affirmative action requirements of section 503 are applicable to all
social media platforms.
Conclusion
It appears that when it come of Facebook, the best defence is its observance of ethical
conduct of its employees .The company has the necessary policies in place that are primarily
focused on ensuring that employees observe the multiple facets of the laws applicable in
various Jurisdictions cross the world. That being said, The Facebook cases is a proof that,
with strong social media guidelines, the entire community will be safe. So the bottom line he
is that ethical conducts and the laws are the starting points for Facebook to understand its
employees, its Users and the laws in the various jurisdictions it operates.

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References
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surveillance, and reconnaissance. AIR UNIV MAXWELL AFB AL AIR FORCE
RESEARCH INST.
Jones, R. (2012). Child protection, social work and the media: doing as well as being done to.
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Kerr, O. S. (2014). The Next Generation Communications Privacy Act. University of
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