A stunning report published last week revealed that Facebook provided more than 150 companies — including Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo — far more access to users’ sensitive personal information, including allegedly private messages, than previously admitted. The disappointing details, reported by The New York Times, call to mind the sage observation of poet Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
In every company, there is some gap between professed core values and the lived values that actually guide decisions and actions. The best companies are mindful of those values gaps and take steps to narrow them. But Facebook is not among the best companies where protection of users’ sensitive personal information is concerned.
The company’s history is riddled with data privacy scandals, most recently allowing political data firm Cambridge Analytica to access personal data from more than 50 million Facebook users in an effort to help Donald Trump become president. After each scandal those of us who use Facebook for want of a morally better alternative to staying in touch with friends and family members hope the company will finally do the right thing — i.e., protect users’ personal information — if only for the wrong reason — i.e., because it has to rather than because it wants to. But in light of the Times report, we apparently hope in vain.
Facebook’s five professed core values — as described on its website and in a letter from chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in the prospectus filed ahead of the company’s initial public offering — are as follows: be bold; focus on impact; move fast; be open; and build social value.
Protecting users’ private data is not even among those core values, which is as glaring an omission as it would be if “build quality aircraft” were not among the core values of Boeing. And Facebook’s lived values are at odds with its stated values.
• “Be bold” involves taking the risks needed to accomplish great things in a rapidly changing world. But while boldness can be a virtue, recklessness is a character flaw, and actions detailed in the Times report suggest Facebook’s actual value is “be reckless.”
As reported by the technology website Gizmodo, the controversial “People You May Know” feature that Facebook introduced in 2008 recklessly recommended friend connections between a harasser and his victim, among patients receiving care from the same psychiatrist and between a man who donated sperm secretly to a couple he knew so they could have a child and the daughter who does not know he is her father. Awkward.
• “Focus on impact” aims to solve “the most important problems” and not waste time on lesser issues. In his letter, Zuckerberg writes, “We don’t wake up in the morning with the primary goal of making money,” but his company’s (in)actions consistently suggest that data privacy is a lesser issue and that the real value is “focus on making as much money as possible.”
• “Move fast” reflects the belief that moving quickly and making mistakes is better than moving slowly and missing opportunities. Interviews with former Facebook employees revealed that some executives and engineers saw newly mandated reviews of new products and features for data privacy concerns as “an impediment to quick innovation and growth.” That suggests the value embedded in the company’s culture is “never let noneconomic concerns (like data privacy) get in the way of economic opportunities.”
• “Be open” reflects the sound belief that “informed people make better decisions.” But Facebook’s repeated privacy violations over the years reflect its clear preference that users remain in the dark where lax oversight of their personal information is concerned and suggest its actual value is “be no more open than required” by law or occasional user outrage.
• The final Facebook professed value is “build social value” by bringing the world closer together. There is a tension in Zuckerberg’s letter between his claim that “We’ve always cared primarily about our social mission” and his commitment to work hard to make shares purchased by new investors in the IPO “worth a lot.”
I suspect Zuckerberg does care about bringing people together, but only secondarily. His company’s actions consistently suggest its actual value is “bringing people closer together is a nice plus” but not as important as making as much money as possible for ourselves and our investors.
Facebook leaders have once again shown us who they are, and I for one believe them. I would readily leave their platform for a new social network that brings people closer together as well as Facebook does while zealously guarding users’ sensitive personal information. And I believe that many other increasingly disillusioned Facebook users would readily do the same. Who will be our entrepreneurial hero?
Joseph Holt is an ethics professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. He wrote this for the Chicago Tribune.
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