CASE ANALYSIS: FACEBOOK IS WATCHING YOU

INTRODUCTION
The truth about Facebook: how to win 2bn friends and destroy civilisation. We think it’s a
harmless way to stay in touch with friends. The truth is far more destructive. Award-winning
writer John Lanchester investigates how Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard jape grew into the
biggest surveillance enterprise in the history of mankind. There have been ethical problems
and ambiguities about Facebook since the moment of its creation. While in his first year at
Harvard, Zuckerberg suffered a romantic rebuff. Who wouldn’t respond to this by creating a
website where undergraduates’ pictures are placed side by side so that users of the site can
vote for the one, they find more attractive? The initial launch of Facebook was limited to
people with a Harvard email address; the intention was to make access to the site seem
exclusive and aspirational. Then it was extended to other elite campuses in the US. When it
launched in the UK, it was limited to Oxbridge and the LSE. The idea was that people wanted
to look at what other people like them were doing, to see their social networks, to compare,
to boast and show off, to give full rein to every moment of longing and envy, to keep their
noses pressed against the sweet-shop window of others’ lives. Facebook confronts
controversies over the data collection and use of the broad data it gathers from its
subscribers. FB users are worried regarding their privacy and users controls over the
personal information given to Facebook. Facebook faces the situation of how to earn
incomes from Subscribers data without abusing their security.
WHAT WENT WRONG
Facebook collects a lot of data. It has an impressive social graph for its members. It can
analyze communication patterns and determine our moods, the strengths of our
relationships, and our tolerance for our crazy uncle. Most, if not all, of Facebook's ethical
lapses involve its handling of this data. The most recent one involved allowing other large
firms access to that data. Large media firms, such as Facebook, Apple and Google, hold a lot of
information about everyone. Even if you don’t use their product, your appearance in someone’s
contact list reveals a lot about you. This information is what they bundle up and use to sell products.

When done right, they sell targeted advertising and access without revealing your deepest
secrets. When done wrong, they end up selling you.
Facebook uses highly specific details such as relationship status, location, employment
status and other demographic information, as well as users online activity to develop
an incredibly accurate picture of your life. The purpose of Facebook doing so is to serve
more relevant advertisements to the users than anywhere else on the Web. However, the
personal information gathered by Facebook can also be used against the users in other ways
both with and without the consent of the users.
The stakeholders involved in an ethical analysis of Facebook include Facebook (obviously),
advertisers, data collecting agencies, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and
individual users. Facebook collects an incredible amount of personal data on its users. It is
using its ability to track online activity of its members to develop a frighteningly accurate
picture of their lives. It gathers personal information about users, both with and without
their consent, which can be used against them in other ways. Facebook’s goal is to get its
users to share as much data as possible because the more Facebook knows, the more
accurately it can serve relevant advertisements and thus, charge higher fees to advertisers
and Facebook servers would keep user information permanently whenever the user has
deleted their account.
The ethical dilemma in this case study is Facebook monitors its subscribers and then sells
the information to advertisers and app developers hence the Facebook’s critics are
concerned that the repository of personal data of the size that Facebook has amassed
requires protections and privacy controls that extend far beyond those that Facebook
currently offers.
The relation between users’ privacy and Facebook business model is very important because
advertising is the main revenue of Facebook. Facebook wants the world to be more open
and connected because it stands to make more money in that world stated by the
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 70% of its five million users log in every day and it is
between 18 and 24 that advertisers want to collaborate with Facebook to make profits for
both. The less privacy Facebook offers to its users, the more valuable and useful its business
model becomes. By providing more privacy to its users, the less data it collects, stores, and
provides to advertisers. That makes its business model less valuable because
advertisements cannot be as fully developed for individual users hence talking about privacy
to Facebook is a bit ironic so for Facebook wanting to make more money is not a bad thing,
In 2013, Facebook approximately made $55 billion in advertising thus Facebook’s entire
business model is based on aggregation and sharing user information. They give people a
free social media platform to use and in turn sell advertising and insights based on what
they learn about the user. This allows Facebook to sell much-targeted advertising.
Major Points of Concern of Users–
 Poor protection and privacy control
 User’s activities are trespassed by other parties
 Allows third parties to collect users private information without permission
 Exposure of user’s biometric database without users acceptance
 Unequal privacy protection standards in different countries
The personal information collected on the site represents a mother load to advertisers, but
one that will remain largely untapped if Facebook users do not feel comfortable enough or
have sufficient incentive to share it.
Users that attempted to delete their accounts were met with resistance and often required
outside assistance from watchdog groups.
FB wants the world to be more open and connected because it stands to make more money.
However, the privacy controls over the personal data are far from what FB currently offers.
Moreover, most of the users are not really aware of the privacy setting in their FB’s account.

ANALYSIS AND WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

The key question is clear: Can these problems be fixed without causing significant harm to
Facebook itself?
Facebook is built on a business model that naively overlooked the severity of the privacy
threats. Now that naivete is jumping up and biting it on the rear end.
Rather than being impractical and believing that our information can be completely private
on Facebook I would rather approach this practically. I don’t think Facebook will be able to
have a successful model without invading privacy because Facebook is currently serving as
much to advertise and reach people as it earns from those advertisements. There are no
fees that are to be paid to join FB or for its use, it all seems like they threw in a few
advertisements and hoped that its exposure would bring in consumers. Obviously, the
backbone of FB’s business model is advertisement. As a result, FB needs more users’ data to
customize its ads and indirectly invading individual privacy. It is a critical challenge for FB to
avoid offends user’s privacy but yes measures can be taken by making active changes to
improve users’ privacy such as:
To alert all the members of FB with an electronic detailed letter stating that for advertising
purpose information that is submitted to your information pages will be used by Fb
company.
To give the users the options to either accepts or reject this offer in order to install a legal
standing that with the users of the site as well as protect the integrity of the company.
To offer applications that could be put on their pages in terms of interactive games and
trivia, in return for allowing FB to access users account for advertising purposes.
Once the Facebook management can do this then a broader, more organized and more
successful advertising campaigns can be launched.

CONCLUSION
Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It
knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about
its citizens. It’s amazing that people haven’t really understood this about the company. I’ve
spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users
don’t realise what it is the company does.
What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your
behaviour to sell ads. I’m not sure there has ever been a more complete disconnect
between what a company says it does — “connect”, “build communities” — and the
commercial reality. Note that the company’s knowledge about its users isn’t used merely to
target ads, but to shape the flow of news to them.