Ethical behavior can be defined in many ways. For the purposes
of this post, let’s keep it simple:
Ethical behavior - Behavior that is consistent with what society
believes to be good morals.
There are several incidents on the road to Facebook where Mark
Zuckerberg may have felt he was behaving ethically. These same incidents, when
viewed from another person’s perspective may appear unethical.
The movie The Social Network portrays Zuckerberg largely as a socially
awkward villain. Other sources of information about the founding of Facebook,
including “The Accidental Billionaires” book offer slightly more balanced
views.
Ethical behavior is understood in part based on what society is
judging it.
Cultural Differences
As
members of the Porcellian Club, the most exclusive final club on campus, the Cameron
and Tyler Winklevoss lived in a very different world from Mark Zuckerberg. Even
his friend, Eduardo Saverin lived in a different world from Mark Zuckerberg.
The
primary difference between their worlds is that Saverin and the Winklevoss
twins live in the world of business, although at different levels. Zuckerberg
lives in the world of computers. Although some types of ethical behavior may be
considered universal, the world of business and the world of computers do have
different standards by which behavior can be judged to be ethical or unethical.
Hacker
Culture
When
Zuckerberg created www.facemash.com, he accessed information that was not open
to the public. He hacked into the computer networks of various Harvard houses
in order to obtain the pictures to be used in his “Hot or Not” style program. An
article in The Harvard Crimson that is still available online -
discusses the results of the Administrative Board hearing he was called before
after creating the site. He was charged with security, copyright, and privacy
violations.
It
is likely that Zuckerberg did not believe he was behaving unethically in creation
of the site for several reasons. First, Zuckerberg states that he did not mean
for the site to go to such a wide audience. He forwarded it only to a few
friends, who then forwarded it on to others. The spread was viral rather than
deliberate as implied in the movie. Second, Zuckerberg took the site down
himself, having some understanding about the privacy violation it created.
Third, he had created the site as an interesting programming problem, not a
payback for being dumped as implied by the movie.
Breaking
into the Harvard house networks may anger the authorities, but in the hacker
community, angering authorities is a good thing. If security can be broken then
it was too weak and information wants to be free. His actions (probably
unintentionally) pointed out several security weaknesses of the campus network
and likely led to them being fixed. Highlighting the weaknesses of a network
without doing real harm might actually be considered ethical behavior in hacker
culture. He also apparently documented what he was doing as he did it and
posted it on the site itself. In researching this post, I couldn’t find anything
that said whether or not he turned that information over to the folks
responsible for IT security at Harvard after taking the site down. If he did
turn it over, then he actually did provide a service. Although such a service,
if it occurred was certainly not in a form they would have liked.
The
fact that he sent the program out to only a few friends for feedback shows some
awareness that it might not be something that should be shared with the wider
world. He might genuinely have not known that it would go viral while he wasn’t
looking. The movie shows him watching it explode across campus. Other sources
indicate that he went off to class or a meeting and was away from his dorm
while it was growing. This experience may also have led him to thinking more
seriously about privacy options when the time came to create Facebook.
In
hacker culture, computer geek society, solving interesting programing problems
has intrinsic value. While the implementation might be sketchy ethically, the
primary purpose of making a comparison algorithm work elegantly is not.
Business
Culture
The
Winklevoss twins saw what Zuckerberg did as a violation of ethics according to
business culture. In their perception, the creation of his own social network
while he was supposed to be working on theirs was a huge violation of their
trust.
Various
sources indicate that the one truly unethical thing that Zuckerberg did
concerning the Winklevoss twins and Harvard Connection or ConnectU was lead
them to believe that he was working on their site so that he could release his
first. This gave him the ‘first mover’ advantage.
However,
since they had no formal business agreements and hadn’t even discussed paying
him anything for his work, Zuckerberg’s creation of his own site was not actually
unethical in and of itself. There already were several social media sites out
there and putting a new spin on one was not a unique idea by any stretch.
Money and Ethics
You
can’t have an online presence without servers, and servers cost money. This
means that TheFacebook would never have gotten off the ground at Harvard even
without the help of investors. The first investor was Eduardo Saverin, a friend
of Mark Zuckerberg. Later early funding was obtained from Peter Thiel. As
FaceMash proved, using Zuckerberg’s personal computer as a server would not be
sufficient to cover even the Harvard undergraduate population.
First
some definitions:
Angel investor - Person who invests their own personal funds
into a start-up business to help it grow. Angel investors usually get some sort
of ownership equity in return for their investment. If the business fails, they
get nothing. If it succeeds, the angel investor owns a chunk of a successful
business.
Venture capitalist - A person or group who invests into small,
growing businesses. Venture capital is generally sought by businesses that are
small and growing rapidly. Venture capitalists often help the firm grow with business
model and marketing strategy advice as well as providing funds. Venture capitalists
make their profits when the company grows big enough to sell shares to the
public through an initial public offering or when the business is sold to a
larger company.
Eduardo
Saverin’s initial investment into TheFacebook was an angel investment. Venture
capitalist Peter Thiel’s initial investment into Facebook was also an angel
investment. Although as a venture capitalist, and member of Facebook’s board of
directors he seems to have provided significant assistance in developing
Facebook’s business model and structure even if he was not involved in
day-to-day decision making.
One
of the ethical obligations of a business that accepts investments is to work
hard to succeed. When Saverin froze the account that was keeping TheFacebook’s
servers up and running, he created a major threat to the fledgling business. Downtime
can kill a fledgling social network. After he does this, Zuckerberg takes steps
to cut Saverin out of the business. Zuckerberg’s actions to cut Saverin off
from having any sort of position or power with Facebook are ethical in the
sense that he is protecting investors from a threat to their investment.
Gender Relationships
Although
the other sources I’ve looked at in the process of researching this blog post
rather strongly indicate that The Social Network movie is an extremely
fictionalized account of the Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook, his
behavior towards as portrayed in the film is quite problematic. It starts with
a scene where he is extremely rude to his girlfriend who then dumps him. In
reaction he posts a demeaning blog about her personally. Then he goes to work
creating Facemash which compares and ranks the attractiveness of Harvard
undergrads. In the movie it shows the program only comparing women. He does at
least refrain from comparing them to farm animals. The movie does not show him
having any positive relationships with women at all, although towards the end
he is at least polite to one of the women in the law firm.
Social Network Exclusivity
One
of the goals in the creation of Facebook was to create an online social network
where you actually knew the people you were connected with. This was the idea
behind keeping it exclusive to Harvard at first and later exclusive to colleges
and universities in general. Several of the design features show ethical
decision making.
People
are encouraged to sign up with their real names so that they may connect with
their real friends. It is not a dating site so much as a site that builds
connections. There are privacy options built in that the user has control over.
Facebook users may share too much, but what they share is by their own choice.
Even if the oversharing is sometimes through ignorance of how the system works
there are privacy settings and instructions on how to use them readily
available.
Earlier
social network sites were more focused on meeting new people. Facebook focused
on connecting with people you already knew to some degree. Zuckerberg wasn’t
interested in creating another dating style social network.
Additional
information about the founding of Facebook:
The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich is an
account of the early history using information gathered from several sources.
Mark Zuckerberg provided no information for this book. It is a fast fun read.
The
Social Network (2010) is a movie loosely based on The Accidental Billionaires.
Wow! That's a fantastic response, Robyn! I was particularly impressed that you touched on Mark's desire to make Facebook something other than another exclusive little virtual version of a Finals Club, like the Windlevosses seemed to want. He wanted it to go global, become open to everyone and anything but elitist.
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