Organizational Behavior: Ethical Issues and Facebook Scandals

This report examines the ethical issues and scandals surrounding Facebook, including the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal and a software bug that affected millions of users. It provides an overview of Facebook's history and its impact on society, highlighting concerns about privacy and security. The report analyzes these issues through the lens of ethical theories such as virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontology, assessing Facebook's responsibilities and actions. It also discusses the potential consequences of these scandals, including user resistance, decreased company productivity, and damage to Facebook's reputation and share value. The report concludes with recommendations for Facebook to enhance security, increase user awareness, and prevent future ethical breaches, emphasizing the importance of social networking platforms prioritizing user safety and ethical conduct. Desklib provides access to a wide range of academic resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students in their studies.

RUNNING HEAD: Organizational Behavior 0
Facebook
Organizational Behavior
(Student Name)
10/10/2018
Table of Contents

Organizational Behavior 1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Overview of Company.....................................................................................................................2
Issues of Facebook...........................................................................................................................2
The case of Privacy scandal.........................................................................................................2
The case of Facebook Latest Bug................................................................................................3
Theories of Ethical...........................................................................................................................4
Impact of Facebook Scandal............................................................................................................4
Recommendation and Conclusion...................................................................................................4
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

Organizational Behavior 2
Introduction
Every individual is living in the golden age of technology. In the recent scenario, technology
plays an important role in human life. Every aspect of individual’s life such as medical,
education, information, business, transport and communication demand or require technological
support (Fuchs, 2017). Technology introduces social networking through which the individuals
can easily connect with each other, sitting in any corner of the world (Stelzner, 2014). In the
present scenario, the social networking is a very common way to connect with an individual
through the internet among the new generation. Facebook is leading as a most popular user social
networking site. Most of the individual is severely addicted to facebook. Certain issues have
occurred in recent six month such as the case of privacy scandal which has been published in the
news of BBC (Published on May 2018) afterwards the case of Facebook latest bug which has
been published in BBC news (Published on June 2018). These cases created great impact on the
Facebook users.(Ruths and Pfeffer, 2014).
In the assignment, there will be a detailed discussion on the issues occurred from facebook and
the impact of such issues in the life of others.
Overview of Company
Facebook has started in the year 2004 which is introduced by Mark Zuckerberg. At the starting
of facebook, it was only available to college students and the student was required valid
university email address to sign up on Facebook (Lillqvist and Louhiala, 2014). After some time
it could be accessible by the high school students, regional network, corporations, or any user
across the world and in the present it has around 500 million active users and will continuously

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increase in future (Ho, 2015). The facebook is mostly used by individuals to share their
information, add friends, share videos and photos, to create a blog and also use to play flash
game. It is also increasingly being used by companies in many ways such as to the promotion of
a new product, attract employees, attract prospective customer, and share the information of the
company and so on (Ostergaard, 2017).
Issues of Facebook
Billion of users are active on Facebook and a reported approximately 700,000 new people
joining the social networking website every single day. With the frequent changing in settings,
users are gradually irritated and confused about their privacy system on facebook. In a bare
security poll, approximately nighty three per cent of Facebook users would mostly prefer-
Facebook privacy option to be opt-in rather than opt-out. The identity thieves can use the
information of the individual to commit crimes against them and their companies. There are
certain cases have been found in the recent scenario. These are explained in below points:
The case of Privacy scandal
According to the new of BBC (Published on 2nd May 2018), The Facebook has lost 1.8 million
Aussie users science the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal (BBC NEWS, 2018). It was
revealed that scandal of Cambridge Analytica data was a foremost political outrage in early,
2018. At the time of US presidential election campaign of Donald Trump, a company has reaped
the private data of many people in the USA through Facebook without the consent of people.
The snatched data was used for political purpose which has been covered in the news of The
Guardian, as published on 6th May 2018 (Lewis, Pegg and Hern, 2018). It was a moment of
watershed in the public understanding of personal information and hastened an immense

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plummet in stock price of Facebook and also appeals for constricted the regulation of tech
companies for use of data. The Cambridge Analytica has not committed this crime for the first
time, in the past, they have already attempted more than two times. Harry Davies has published
first report in December 2015; they harvest the personal data of people without their approval.
Facebook refused to comment on such an article and has replied with the answer that it was
investigating. The share price of Facebook has knocked off more than 100 billion dollars in days
as well as politicians in the United State and United Kingdom demanded answers from Mark
Zuckerberg. The case of Cambridge Analytica scandal is properly explained in the diagram of
article Vox which has been published on 2nd May 2018 (Chang, 2018).
Twelve percent of Australian Facebook user removed their account that equated to 1.8 million of
the whole 15 million users, which were recently estimated to use the service and 2.25 million
Australian Facebook users edited and upgraded their privacy settings which mainly cover their
personal information. In total over 4 million Facebook user of Australia have either removed
their account else altered the personal setting in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal
and around 17 percent of the entire nations have taken action (Domanski, 2018).
The case of Facebook Latest Bug
The case has occurred of a bug in software which messed up the privacy settings in the account
for around fourteen million users of Facebook which has been covered in BBC News, as
published on 7th June 2018 (Lee, 2018). It is the second recent case of Facebook blunder. It was
getting worse when the announcement was made that the setting privacy of the facebook
automatically change to public view and whatever the users of Facebook share their content was
visible publically. Approximately, fourteen million users of Facebook, who believed that

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whatever they were posting their stuffs are secure and those who only wanted selected group or
their natives to see, have unintentionally post that stuff in public.
Facebook is blaming that the issue was occurred because of software bugs or glitches changing
important privacy settings automatically that determine who can see a new post from users. The
setting called by the Facebook as ‘sticky’ which mean it would stay consistent from post to post
unless it is manually updated by the user itself. Facebook accepted that because of the reason of
software glitches, the privacy setting of the user was automatically changed to “public” without
intimating them. Around 14 million users of Facebook were the victim of such software glitches.
The users of Facebook lose their faith and trust for Facebook and most of the people prevent
themselves from posting their information on Facebook which directly affects the image of
Facebook (Wagner, 2018).
Theories of Ethical
Virtue ethics
It is the normative characteristics which mainly focus on virtues of mind and character in moral
philosophy. Therefore, it was the moral responsibility of Facebook to protect their user from
such scandals and give moral advice but Facebook ignored their virtue ethics and kept their eyes
close in the case of Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal (Lucas, Van and Maat, 2016).
Utilitarianism
It is an ethical theory which consist of best action which is the one that can maximise utility. It is
described as sum of an action which minimise the suffering of anyone involved in the action or

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activity. In the case of Facebook scandal, the facebook has not taken any step to safegurd the
facebook users from such scandals. They have not fulfill their responsibility by creating leneancy
for their privacy settings,as any one can harvest the private information of the facebook users
(Lucas, Van and Maat, 2016).
Deontology
It is an approch of Ethics that states the rightness and wrongness of action themselves, as
opposed to the rightness and worngness of the consequences of those action. Therefore, the
facebook has not taken righ decision in related to the case of software bugs. They launch their
new software without testing it, which cause loss of users privacy. They have not fulfill their
responsibility in proper way and was having a casual attitude towards the security of thir uers
(Lucas, Van and Maat, 2016).
Impact of Facebook Scandal
 Most of the users will feel resistance to use facebook because of facing the security
challenges by the users.
 Most of the Facebook users deleted their account from facebook which also affects the
productivity of the companies.
 Most of the companies can have a fear of security risks such as spam attack, phishing
attack and the theft of identity that spread out malware which can damage the reputation
of the company.
 The share market is greatly affected because of facebook scandal, it resists shareholder to
hold the shares of Facebook.

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Recommendation and Conclusion
Recommendation
It is recommended that Facebook should take strong steps against scandals and focus on
increasing the security to secure the user account. Facebook should also aware the users related
to privacy and any updated by the Facebook which can protect the users at a certain level (Rains
and Brunner, 2015).
Conclusion
In the end, it can be concluded that social networking is a medium of entertainment with reciting
information about personal. Facebook is the mean or tool to connect with another person. In the
recent year, lots of cases have been found of facebook scandal. If some steps can be taken to
prevent the invasion of privacy it can help the society and community to keep happier and
peaceful.

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References
BBC NEWS. (2018) Cambridge Analytica: Facebook data-harvest firm to shut [Online].
Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43983958 [Accessed 2/05/18]
Chang, A. (2018) The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, explained with a simple
diagram [Online]. Available from:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-
trump-diagram [Accessed 02/05/18]
Domanski, H.(2018) Facebook has lost 1.8m Aussie users since the Cambridge Analytica
privacy scandal [Online]. Available from: https://www.techradar.com/news/facebook-has-lost-
18m-aussie-users-since-the-cambridge-analytica-privacy-scandal [Accessed 26/07/18]
Fuchs, C.(2017) Social media: A critical introduction. New York: Sage.
Ho, C.W.(2015) Identify with community or company? An investigation on the consumer
behavior in Facebook brand community. Telematics and Informatics, 32(4), pp.930-939.
Lee, D. (2018) Facebook privacy bug 'affects 14 million users [Online]. Available from:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44407767 [Accessed 7/06/2018]
Lewis, P., Pegg, D. and Hern, A. (2018) Cambridge Analytica kept Facebook data models
through US election [Online]. Available from:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-kept-facebook-data-
models-through-us-election [Accessed 6/05/18]

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Lillqvist, E. and Louhiala L.(2014) Facing Facebook: Impression management strategies in
company–consumer interactions. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 28(1),
pp.3-30.
Lucas, K., Van, B. and Maat, K.(2016) A method to evaluate equitable accessibility: combining
ethical theories and accessibility-based approaches. Transportation, 43(3), pp.473-490.
Ostergaard, S.D.(2017) Taking Facebook at face value: why the use of social media may cause
mental disorder. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 136(5), pp.439-440.
Rains, S.A. and Brunner, S.R.(2015) What can we learn about social network sites by studying
Facebook? A call and recommendations for research on social network sites. New Media &
Society, 17(1), pp.114-131.
Ruths, D. and Pfeffer, J.(2014) Social media for large studies of behavior. Science, 346(6213),
pp.1063-1064.
Stelzner, M.(2014) Social media marketing industry report. Social media examiner, 9(11) pp.1-
52.
Wagner, K.(2018) A software bug messed with privacy settings for 14 million users, so here’s
what you need to know [Online]. Available from:
https://www.recode.net/2018/6/9/17439780/facebook-privacy-blunder-public-posts-14-million-
explained [Accessed 9/06/18]

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