Facebook's Data Sharing Practices: An Ethical Analysis

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Exposure of Face book’s perform of Data sharing
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Data privacy- An Ethical issue........................................................................................................4
Ethical Theories...............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion and Recommendation...................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8
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Introduction
Data security means protecting the digital data in a particular data base from the unwanted risks
created by unauthorized users. Such as protecting the data form a cybercrime or a data break. At
present time it is necessary for a user to protect their data from the cybercrime attacks. Facebook
was failed to manage to data of people and the above analysis is a reflection on that case. The
report will illustrates about the essential issues founded in the case by the side of applications of
the principled theories. The report would also provide solution for the case recognized in
facebook.
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Data privacy- An Ethical issue
At the present time, internet services are using by people rapidly and people spend more of their
time on social media sites or websites. People now a time know that their personal information is
not safe on the internet and anyone can see their personal information easily. Like on Facebook,
people can see all the activities which a user does with their accounts. Now the time protecting
the data secure from others becoming more difficult for the people. The data protection involves
some rules and regulation when a person uses some personal information of a user. The Internet
maintains a various type of information about a customer and it hiked the theory of information
privacy. The sizes of information which are available on the internet need some security for
being misused by unauthorized users. The data privacy methods create a relationship between the
technologies and legal rights related to a consumer.
In the case, Facebook failed to make available a well-organized data protection policy for its
customers and they shared these data with the third parties. Facebook had taken this extreme step
because it wanted to protect the user’s data. However, it was not an appreciable decision of
Facebook and by this scenario; they would understand that a user’s privacy should be prior for
them. Without taking the users approval, Facebook sold their information to the third party and
this step could be disastrous for a user because the private data of them could be misused by
anybody. Facebook is unable to making transparency in their services of data security and the
developers of websites also not take permission from a user and could make misuse of their
personal data. However, their aim indicates the assessment of numerous circumstances for
various employments, but privacies issues are included in it (Mahar, et. al., 2016).
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Ethical Theories
The Utilitarian theory: The theory deals with the result of the condition of a specific action.
The theory pronounces that a decision which produced by a performer is significant if they
provide benefits to an organization and a large number of people get benefit from this. This
theory would work effectively in the process of decision making and it is beneficial for a large
number of people. The theory recognizes the abilities of individuals and early recognizes the
outcome which could be received from that person by using a particular decision-making
strategy. The case of Facebook was unscrupulous as per the utilitarian theory as a large number
of people were influenced by it because of selling their personal pieces of information to a third
party.
Deontology Theory: The theory includes some rules and regulations while taking a decision for
an individual. The theory sets all the rules and functions in a fixed way which creates efficiency
in work. While performing a task if the deontology theory included in decision making, it takes
less time to think about right or wrong. The case of Facebook incorporated the carelessness of
duties and responsibilities towards the consumers and it became the cause of a bad performed
privacy policy provided by Facebook to its customers (Meeker and Wu, 2018).
Virtue Theory: Virtues are the ethical theories which highlight qualities of character and mind.
The ethics of virtues illustrates the relation of virtues with individuals. The theory explains how
they need to apply in a culture or whether they improve human nature or not. The theory said
that the ethical behavior of a person includes their values and morals. In the case of Facebook, it
can be seen that they failed to protect customer’s private information safe and sold them to a
third party. But the virtue of Facebook for sharing the data to others was upright. For that reason,
an ethical practice cannot support the claims as ethical because it wrecked many people by
sharing their private information with others. People provided their personal information
truthfully to facebook and it was not good for their organization’s image to not provide any
privacy for the personal information of users (Laudon and Traver, 2018).
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Contract Theory: Contract theory emphasizes the rights which must be given to a user by an
organization. The theory of contract concerns financial principles and behavior of the economics
of the individual party. The theory explained that there must be some rights for the people while
taking a particular decision. In the case of Facebook, it could be beneficial for a user after the
case of Facebook's failure of data protection and this theory have to be upright for the working
culture of Facebook (Salloum, et. al., 2017).
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Conclusion and Recommendation
The above essay outlined the theories of data protections which could be implemented by
Facebook in its privacy policies. It can be assumed that security and protection of data are
essential at the present time for a user and Facebook is a platform where a large number of
people are providing their personal information to the site. Website developers use the data and
it’s not a big deal but facebook need to know about the solicitude behind using a user’s data. The
step which was taken by Facebook has not dissented from the view of the ethical theories like
deontology theory, utilitarian theory, the virtue theory, and the contract theory. Facebook need to
use their intelligence for shielding the data of users and they need to use great technology for
this.
The transparency maintains is essential between the provider of data and the user of data. It
could be recommended to Facebook that they need to ask from a user before sharing their data
with any other organization or third party. The organization needs to keep back-up and data of all
the users. They should try to use day o day monitoring for the data and need to implement
effective strategies so the other firms can’t mistreat it.
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References
Irshad, S., and Soomro, T, R., (2018). Identity Theft and Social Media. International Journal of
Computer Science and Network Security, Vol. 18. Pp. 43-55.
Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2018). E-commerce 2017.
Mahar, M., Eyring, M. J., Gordon-Carroll, C., Warren, J. B., Nye, J. E., & Lyman, J. (2016). U.S.
Patent Application No. 14/617,750.
Meeker, M., & Wu, L. (2018). Internet trends 2018.
Salloum, S, A., Monem, A, A., Emran, M, A., and Shaalan, K. (2017). A Survey of Text
Mining in Social Media: Facebook and Twitter Perspectives. Advances in Science,
Technology and Engineering Systems Journal, Vol. 2, pp. 127-133.
Vida, H. A., & Grenie, N. (2012). U.S. Patent Application No. 13/436,871.
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