The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

The Role of Social Media in Relaying News

The media plays a very crucial role and arguably social media continues to extent its dominance globally with effect to relaying news to a wide audience. However, misuse of social media data and information by companies has come to the fore in recent years with one incident that has raised controversy and received a lot of attention being the Cambridge Analytica access and use of Facebook data.

Cambridge Analytica’s Use of Facebook Data

According to Fortune, Cambridge Analytica “acquired data of millions of Facebook users” and used the data to build psychological voter profiles before the election (Jenkins, 2018). The retention of data models derived from the data could have played a role in Trump’s election, which Cambridge Anaylitica was involved since according to the Guardian, the company “retained predictive models derived from millions of social media profiles throughout the US presidential election” (Lewis, Pegg & Hern, 2018).

Data Privacy Concerns and Targeted Advertising

The incident raised a lot of concern on data privacy as the private information of 50 million Facebook Users was accessed by the company. The information accessed by the company was used to develop psychological profiles and target digital advertisements to sway the audience towards a certain decision (Granville, 2018). The actions of both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica clearly reflect a need to rethink data privacy and the need for users to be keener in consenting to participate in research.

References

Jenkins, A. (April 6, 2018). We’re keeping track of all Facebook’s scandals so you don’t have to. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2018/04/06/facebook-scandals-mark- zuckerberg/

Granville, K. (March 19, 2018). Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What you need to know as fallout widens. Th New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica- explained.html

Lewis, P., Pegg, D., & Hern, A. (May 6, 2018). Cambridge Analytica kept Facebook data models through US election. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-kept-facebook-data-models-through-us-election

Discussion on Ethics

The class has been a huge learning platform for me especially relating to ethical conduct both at personal and organizational level. I have earned that ethical conduct plays a leading role both in consistent development as a professional and towards business continuity since some business that followed unethical conduct in the past failed. I have also learned a lot about having principles and ethical guidelines to guide employees and individuals in every decisions and promoting ethical conduct. I will endeavor to ensure in all decisions and practices, I follow strict ethical guidelines both at school and the workplace. Also, ethical conduct plays significant roles in dealing with others and making decisions to achieve certain goals. Therefore, I will always strive to be ethical in spite of a challenging operating environment where ethical practices may not be a norm. In effect, the class has helped me get a bigger picture of ethics and how it could either be a very important stepping stone or could herald a downfall.