Communication Ethics Discussion

News has just become public: Cambridge Analytica used Facebook users’ data without their awareness to try influencing them during the 2016 Presidential campaign. U.S. citizens, the Congress, and Facebook’s Board of Directors are alarmed, demanding an explanation of how to prevent the same mistake from recurring. The Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, schedules a meeting with the Director of Business Development, Director of Marketing, and Director of Information Security to discuss what happened. Assume that you are one of these directors and that you will meet with the other two directors. Before the meeting, everyone should review the background materials. During the meeting, each group member should choose a role. Then the group should answer the questions below, drawing from the two sources provided by the instructor and at least two sources not provided by the instructor (4 sources totally). Incorporate at least one principle from the Social Media Club’s code of conduct and any other relevant values. Also, include any facts, citing them.

1. What does Facebook need to decide?
2. What are one or more moral problems?
3. How are factors internal to Facebook contributing to the one or more problems? Provide enough of an explanation to imply one or more solutions to the problem (without naming the solutions).
4. How are factors external to Facebook contributing to the one or more problems? Provide enough of an explanation to imply one or more solutions to the problem (without naming the solutions).

The following video and readings provide the background information that will help you discuss the factors that contributed to users’ loss of privacy through Facebook. The group activity will draw from these materials, so please review the questions before going through the materials.

– https://socialmediaclub.org/blog/from-the-clubhous…
– https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2018/mar…