Global giants such as Facebook always leave a trail of monumental building blocks. The origins of such large companies often leave damages in their quake. Some of the building blocks of Facebook left some rather large devastation as it came to be.
Today, I analyze the ethical value of the actions that brought Facebook into existence. The good, the bad and the ugly. Everything from what sparked the idea of Facebook to the lawsuits filed against the creator, Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg's initial website that brought him fame was called Facemash, which by all means was unethical. He created it in a fit of passion after his girlfriend left him. She was fed up with his egocentric personality.
He set up a system to where people could view two images of girls and decide who was "hot" and who was "not". Zuckerberg gathered all the photographs that he used by manually hacking into different colleges online databases and stealing the photos. Not only was this unethical, it was illegal and got him suspended from his enrollment at Harvard.
All of this started over the passion felt after being dumped. He gets drunk and in one night creates a website that hinges on an unethical decision that every wants to make. People get a rush when they can choose such things. All of this because of a girl. Mind you throughout the film, The Social Network, women never had an important role in the foundation of Facebook. They are displayed as objects, which is not ethical in a sense that I am sure that there were many women who helped get the company to where it is, but also ethical in the sense that it helped to show the personality of some of the founders of Facebook.
All of this started over the passion felt after being dumped. He gets drunk and in one night creates a website that hinges on an unethical decision that every wants to make. People get a rush when they can choose such things. All of this because of a girl. Mind you throughout the film, The Social Network, women never had an important role in the foundation of Facebook. They are displayed as objects, which is not ethical in a sense that I am sure that there were many women who helped get the company to where it is, but also ethical in the sense that it helped to show the personality of some of the founders of Facebook.
During his suspension, Zuckerberg was approached by the Winklevoss twins. They had an idea to create a Harvard-only website to allow Harvard collegiates to connect online. Shortly thereafter Zuckerberg comes up with the idea for the Facebook. A new social media platform exclusive to Harvard students to socialize online.Eventually, this led to a large lawsuit from the Winklevoss twins against Zuckerberg for intellectual property infringement. While it is unclear whether or not Zuckerberg was to be creating the Harvard connection site for the Winklevoss twins at the same time he was creating the Facebook, during the lawsuit a judge found Zuckerberg's actions to be unethical and rewarded the Winklevoss twins a substantial amount of monetary reciprocity.
It was not unethical to create the Facebook but the conditions surrounding the circumstances on where the initial idea came from makes it a little more unclear as to whether or not it was completely ethical. But here, I am going on the basis that the actual creation of a site for people to connect with each other, is not unethical.
There is another element I have not addressed the ethics on during the initial creation of Facebook.
Exclusivity.
It has always been a question as to whether or not it is ethical to exclude others from a particular group. Exclusion is a tricky subject due to the fact that it is not always fair to everyone. While Facebook eventually opens up to anyone over 13 years of age with a valid email address, its origins were based on an exclusive entry. A harvard edu. Exclusivity played a rather important role in Facebook's timeline. It was a savvy way for west coast college students to connect with each other.
As it grew in popularity, Zuckerberg opened the doors for more students at other colleges.
There was an initial investment by one of Zuckerberg's close friends, Eduardo Saverin. He made some ethical strides to help the company get started. His monetary contributions provided all the initial funding to help Facebook have the equipment needed to continue to prosper.
Saverin and Zuckerberg made Facebook exactly what the students who used it wanted. Together they made the company into a success, but Saverin was ready to get money out of it. Zuckerberg feared that advertisements would kill their creation.
This fundamental difference began the very unethical double cross between Zuckerberg and Saverin.
Zuckerberg continued the growth of the company in California while Saverin finished school and searched for advertisers in New York.
While the two were apart, Zuckerberg partnered with another website entrepreneur, Sean Parker. He had similar views at Zuckerberg but also felt as though the company had the potential to outgrow anything they had previously envisioned.
Zuckerberg using his newfound connections with Parker to gain access to rather deep and wealthy pockets for funding was an ethical and smart move.
With the new partnership and continual growth of the company, Facebook got a $500,000 initial investment. A fantastic initial investment for advertising. Advertising is completely ethical to a point. If you are going to use a free service, and that free service can stay afloat or profit by using advertisements, then that is fine.
Arguably great.
I believe it to be a little more of a fine line between ethical and unethical when the advertisements are catered to individual users. Much of the current advertisement tactics that are employed by Facebook, use programs that analyze the recent search history of individual users to change advertising to match each user on a personal level.
After the company got 1,000,000 users, they held a party and invited everyone, including Saverin from New York. When he got to the party, there was a legal team awaiting him to let him sign some new papers. These papers dwindled the shares that Saverin held down to .03%.
Everyone else retained their shares completely, while Zuckerberg and Parker had Saverin's were diluted to .03.
The man who single-handedly funded to start of the empire known as Facebook received nothing more than what he invested. It was a very unethical move.
Saverin responded by suing Zuckerberg and Facebook to restore his shares.
Yet again, Zuckerberg went to court to defend his actions and yet again a judge decided that the actions were indeed unethical. Saverin received an undisclosed amount and had his name restored to the Facebook mast.
Speaking of which, the fact that Zuckerberg had his name on every page was ethical. It is absolutely fine to leave your name on your creations, so long as due diligence is given in making sure everyone has an equal opportunity to have their names on the front page.
While Facebook has had some very unethical moves that have been widely publicized, it has also had some ethical movements that have allowed to company to grow to a point that it truly integrated in billions of individual lives.
Every move that we make can get categorized into ethical or unethical but ultimately they are just actions. Good bad or ugly. They are actions we make that cause reactions that are simply good bad or ugly.
While Facebook has had some very unethical moves that have been widely publicized, it has also had some ethical movements that have allowed to company to grow to a point that it truly integrated in billions of individual lives.
Every move that we make can get categorized into ethical or unethical but ultimately they are just actions. Good bad or ugly. They are actions we make that cause reactions that are simply good bad or ugly.
Great response, Michael! My one bit of contention: I read the film as Mark never really embracing the exclusivity of networks, despite playing up the need to be part of a "finals club" with his then girlfriend. Instantly, he rejects the elitism of the Winklevosses, knowing full well he wanted to make The Facebook into something that everyone could use. That probably comes from his less than elite upbringing, the product of an upper middle class son of a Long Island dentist. Zuckerberg represents NEW money and success, someone who earns his way to financial reward rather than relying on the laurels of his parents. That is likely to create someone who rejects the attitudes of OLD money and their entitlement culture.
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