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Facebook Ethics

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Facebook Ethics
The Ethics of Facebook The creation of social media websites as a gateway to advertising, playing games, and meeting people all over the world sounded like an awesome tool for the modern world; but with the good comes the bad. When anybody conducts a search for social media the first website one will find is Facebook. Facebook is by far the most popular social media outlet for people all over the world. For people aged 13 and above, as long as you have a valid e-mail address signing up can by the easiest task to accomplish. With the total number of users growing over 700 million in three years any company would have to hustle to accommodate the rapid increase in customers (or in Facebook’s case, users) and in order to perfect a privacy policy it would take a considerable amount of time and man power. “Facebook tended to make the default setting maximum exposure, putting the burden on users to "scramble for cover" and attempt to navigate confusing privacy controls to restrict access to their information.” (Vinson, 2010, p.364) Based on the growing number of ethical issues involving the privacy policy; it needs to be refurbished to accommodate both the growing number of users and the range in age groups on Facebook. Ethics does not play a role in Facebook’s privacy policy.
Facebook was originally created by Mark Zuckerberg, but did not start off using the Facebook name; it was called Facemash and had a rather ominous start. When Zuckerberg was a sophomore at Harvard he wanted to start a website that used photo’s from the school’s nine houses. In order to launch this site Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard’s private computer network and copied the houses private dormitory identification images. Before getting caught and the site shut down, Facemash was able to get 450 visitors and over 22,000 photo views in the first few hours of the sites original launch. Once the Harvard administration knew what Zuckerberg had done, they immediately shut down the site and



Cited: Hull, G., Lipford, H.R., & Latulipe, C. (2011, December). Contextual gaps: privacy issues on facebook. Ethics and Information Technology 13.4. P 289-302. McCarthy, R. (2011, November). Social networking through facebook: are we asking for friends or foes?. British Journal of Midwifery Vol. 19, Issue 11, p734-735. Brandtzæg, P., Luders, M., & Skjetne, J.H. (2010, November/December). Too many facebook “friends”? content sharing and sociability versus the need for privacy in social network site. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 26, Issue 11/12, p1006-1030. Vinson, K. (2010). The blurred boundaries of social networking in the legal field: just “face” it. The University of Memphis Law Review 41.2, p355-412. Tow, W.N.H., Dell, P., Venable, J. (June, 2010). Understanding information disclosure behavior in Australian facebook users. Journal of Information Technology, suppl. Special Issue on Social Networking 25.2 p126-136. Shalvey, K. (2011, Dec. 22). Facebook agrees to changes more notifications actions follow review by Ireland data protection agency on privacy issues. Investor’s Business Daily. Business News, pA4. Conley. J.H. (2007). Ethics. Encyclopedia of Management. Retrieved December 17, 2008, from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Em-Exp/Ethics.html

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