Does the government have an ethical duty to regulate social media companies in order to protect the public?

Please answer the two questions at the end in essay format.

Putting Profits before People?

If you have been following the recent Facebook Whistleblower Scandal, you may have heard about the profits before people’s questions were raised in reference to the business practices of the social media giant. Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp, and its global use makes it one of the most popular social media companies.

What is a whistleblower, you might ask? Here’s the Merriam-Webster definition: “an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or by other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency

Note: A whistleblower is commonly protected legally from retaliation” Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whistleblower

To learn more, here’s a link to an NPR article excerpted below. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043377310/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-congress

“Haugen told Congress that Facebook consistently chose to maximize its growth rather than implement safeguards on its platforms, just as it hid from the public and government officials internal research that illuminated the harms of Facebook products.

“The result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, and more combat. In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual
the violence that harms and even kills people,” Haugen testified.

Before Haugen left the social network, she copied thousands of pages of confidential documents and shared them with lawmakers, regulators, and The Wall Street Journal, which published a series of reports called the Facebook Files.

“During my time at Facebook, I came to realize a devastating truth: Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook,” Haugen told Congress. “The company intentionally hides vital information from the public, from the U.S. government, and from governments around the world.”

This week’s discussion questions:

1. Does the government have an ethical duty to regulate social media companies in order to protect the public? (Use the definition of duty ethics to guide your answers here)

2. Do you think Facebook has an ethical duty to implement safeguards like protecting children (for example- limiting use for those under 13) or to regulate news stories that are false?

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