Facebook Ethics Paper

Facebook is a well know social networking site that has taken all over the world with over 500 million people using the site. Social networking sites such as Facebook share information about the user over the Internet, where it can be freely accessed by anyone. This is where issues of privacy to the individual arise. As of July 2010 Facebook has more than 500 million active users, Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. As of December last year, Facebook called its 500 million users to review their privacy settings at the launch of its new user control tools which allow the user to control their information easily depending on the content, reasons for sharing and who they are viewed by. Three Issues that Facebook has and would fall under ethical issues are Appropriate Information Use, Health & Safety and last and not least Copyright Laws. Appropriate information use refers to the correct usage of information and the adherence to privacy policy if any. Appropriate use of information on Facebook can refer to applications accessing the user’s information and correctly using it without distributing it to any external sources or companies.
An example of how Facebook applications incorrectly use user information is located in the link to the article below. It outlines how application “mines” a user’s information and uses it to spam the user’s friends and networks spreading like wildfire and almost impossible to stop. Health and safety on the Internet applies to the mental health of an individual rather than the physical. For example the use of social networking site Facebook is associated with issues of cyber bullying and peer pressure.
The link to the article below describes students who have been suspended from school for the cyber bullying of their peers via Facebook and Facebook groups. There are many measures that Facebook users can take to eliminate