An Effective ICT Policy: Facebook's Blueprint for Success - Research Paper

Introduction

According to Andoo-Baibadoo (2016), developing an effective information communication policy (ICT) policy is a vital step towards helping an organization to realize its desired goals. Facebook provides the best example of a company that requires an effective ICT policy to assist in the effective management of its employees and customers who utilize its data and platform in different ways. The company's Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, remains focused on ensuring that consumers get access to highly regulated content to satisfy their daily needs (Newton, 2020). Therefore, this report aims to provide specific recommendations for developing a comprehensive ICT policy for Facebook. The report will achieve this noble goal by identifying various issues associated with Facebook's need to create and implement an appropriate ICT policy in its tenure.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Steps Taken By Facebook to Regulate Content on its Platform

The upcoming general elections in the United States represent a major political event with a far-reaching impact on the technology industry (Andoo-Baibadoo, 2016). A plethora of companies, including Facebook, are increasingly taking appropriate steps to regulate their content. Facebook remains committed to safeguarding the rights of its consumers by ensuring that they access high-quality and strongly regulated content. The company plans to achieve this goal by focusing on four key areas, which include election integrity, harmful content, privacy, and data portability. The company has the responsibility of ensuring that its customers access to information that is safe and beneficial by reviewing its policies with experts to ensure that they take appropriate steps towards limiting the posting and sharing of harmful content. Secondly, Facebook acknowledges legislation as a critical step toward promoting fair elections (Zuckerberg, 2019). As a result, the company implemented remarkable changes around its political advertisements to safeguard elections.

Zuckerberg (2019) averred that Facebook requires all advertisers to verify their identities for purchasing political ads across the world. Thirdly, Facebook is planning to implement a globally harmonized framework to achieve proper privacy and data protection. The company wants to have a comprehensive privacy regulation that strictly follows the recommendations provided by the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Newton, 2020). Lastly, Facebook believes that having a common global framework can prevent the internet from fracturing while ensuring that entrepreneurs develop products that serve everyone. Facebook plans to implement ICT regulations that can guarantee the principle of data portability (McNamee, 2018). This concept will help data users to share it across multiple platforms, give them various platforms to access data, and allow innovators to not only innovate but also compete favorably.

Analytically, the four steps taken by Facebook are not sufficient to effectively regulate content on their platform. For instance, it is still difficult to determine whether an ad shared and viewed on Facebook is political, economic, or social. The company's system could be more effective if regulations could create common and mutual standards to help in the verification of political actions (Vincent, 2020). Laws should also apply to the online political field throughout the year rather than focusing on election periods and political candidates alone. Lastly, GDPR should also set a strategy to hold companies, such as Facebook, responsible and accountable to their actions by imposing sanctions when they make mistakes. Facebook has also put in place appropriate strategies to identify and address future areas that may present significant challenges, such as deep-fakes. For instance, the company promised to remove all forms of manipulated and misleading media created through editing and synthesis of original data by using artificial intelligence and machine learning (Vincent, 2020). The company plans to achieve this goal by using approaches that are not apparent to ordinary people and would probably mislead them into thinking that a protagonist in a video said words that they did not say in real sense.

Responsibility of Facebook on the Content Issued on their Platform

Analytically, Facebook has exclusive responsibility for the content issued on its platform. As pointed out by Zuckerberg (2019), Facebook must demonstrate a high level of commitment to making vital decisions about what constitutes a harmful speech as well as political advertisement. The company should understand how to assure its users their privacy and confidentiality by preventing them from sophisticated cyberattacks. As a result, I believe that Facebook should abide by rules applicable to other forms of media to establish a globally harmonized framework, which can ensure continuous privacy protection and mutual coexistence (Doffman, 2019). Adhering to the rules and regulations developed by GDPR can not only serve as a common framework but also help technology firms like Facebook maintain their positive reputation in terms of appropriate use and protection of private data.

Enforcement of Antitrust Laws on Facebook

According to Rosenbaum (2019), Facebook's operations continue to face a plethora of opposition from a wide range of critics who believe that the organization operates as a monopoly in the global technology industry. Indeed, there is a basis for subjecting Facebook to antitrust laws. Facebook actions continue to endanger consumer data, reduce the quality of customers' choices, and increase the cost of advertising (Livni & Kozlowska, 2019). Also, the company is liable for acts of exposing consumers' private and confidential information to third parties without their consent. Finally, data shared on Facebook, such as hate speech, plays a significant role in promoting violence, as seen in the 2018 Myanmar violence that led to ethnic cleansing (Stevenson, 2018). However, it is critical to have a comprehensive framework and approach on how to enforce these antitrust laws to attain the desired goals in regulating Facebook's actions and encouraging favorable competition. The best strategy should entail consulting the company's management led by its CEO Zuckerberg and ensuring that they are aware of the applicable antitrust laws (Rosenbaum, 2019). The creation of awareness will ensure that the company remains liable and accountable to its acts of violation, which will, in turn, help in promoting fair completion and disorienting Facebook's monopolistic nature.

Analyzing Whether Facebook Has Excessive Control over Private Information

Indeed Facebook has exclusive and excessive control over the information sent, received, and shared among people living in contemporary society. According to McNamee (2018), Facebook has control over the social, political, and economic information that people send and receive throughout their lives. This control, in turn, has a far-reaching impact on national security issues. For instance, numerous hackers and terrorists rely on private and confidential information shared on social media platforms, such as Facebook, to launch their attacks successfully (Gafni & Deri, 2012). Filter bubbles and the concept of free speech, on the other, hand play a vital role in increasing the overall threat that fraudsters and terrorists have on national security because they help them get the required number of comments, likes, and followings. These comments are crucial in convincing other innocent civilians to join such dreadful groups and, in turn, increase the number of security issues that a country must address (McNamee, 2018). Therefore, there is a need to regulate Facebook's control of people's information to increase the security and stability of countries across the world.

Benefits and Liabilities of Participating on Facebook

According to Gafni and Deri (2012), there are multiple benefits as well as liabilities of taking part in different activities that occur on Facebook. First, Facebook enables people to communicate, interact, and share information with their colleagues, family members, and loved ones, regardless of their geographical location at a cost-effective price. Secondly, the platform is crucial in helping people to have continuous access to information and news regarding what is happening across the world. Thirdly, Facebook has the most significant number of online users, which can serve as potential customers for contemporary businesses (Bank, 2015). Lastly, entrepreneurs can develop products and services and, in turn, utilize Facebook as their significant advertisement as well as selling platforms, hence growing their profitability. However, the online platform has substantial liabilities, such as the promotion of fraudulent activities, including identity theft and terrorism. Also, reliance on Facebook leads to addiction, which, in turn, culminates in the loss of productivity among multiple employees (Gafni & Deri, 2012). Lastly, Facebook is a tool that promotes antisocial behaviors in the organization and can be a source of malware and viruses that may affect personal computers by necessitating hacking.

Facebook's Privacy Issues and their Repercussions

According to Bank (2015), Facebook is one of the social media platforms and companies with a history of multiple privacy issues as well as selling and availing the personal information of its users to third parties. Some of these incidences include the infamous data harvest by Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 United States' Presidential elections, the 2018 incitement to violence in Myanmar, and rising evidence of the Iranian as well as Russian meddling in the United States elections (Stevenson, 2018). These privacy issues had a far-reaching impact on Facebook, its members, national, and global entities. For instance, Facebook- Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal damaged the company's reputation among its stakeholders and exposed millions of user's profiles without their consent despite using it for political advertising benefits (Nakashima & Jesdanun, 2018). As a result, many users lost their trust in Facebook for engaging in such a scandalous program.

According to Stevenson (2018), Myanmar violence led to ethnic cleansing, which, in turn, damaged Facebook's image and created multiple national social consequences, including displacement and deaths of innocent civilians. As a result, there is a need to implement appropriate regulations to prevent the reoccurrence of such incidences. First, countries should create a global framework that aligns with the GDPR stipulations to ensure the protection of people's private and confidential information (Zuckerberg, 2019). Secondly, the United States federal government should prohibit Facebook and other social media platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, from the sharing of private and confidential information with third parties. Lastly, counties should develop new regulations requiring technology firms to publish annual reports illustrating how they protected private and sensitive data from unauthorized access by third-party companies to assure users their safety (Nakashima & Jesdanun, 2018). Indeed, these regulations follow under the 1st Amendment of the United States' Constitution, which provides for freedom of speech and ensuring continuous protection of private and confidential information.

Conclusion/Recommendations

This report aimed to provide appropriate recommendations for the development of a comprehensive ICT policy for Facebook. The researcher achieved this critical goal by responding to various issues associated with Facebook's operations. First, Facebook remains committed to undertaking multiple steps to regulate content on its p...