Abstract

The effect of social media platforms collecting the different types of data that their user-base
submits creates a wide range of ethical issues, long-term repercussions, and legal considerations
that span the whole area of social media in general.
The project aims to critically analyze the current status-quo of social media platforms and their
collection of data, with special emphasis on the sale of data to third parties, and the wider
repercussions of such activities on both users and the social media platforms.
A comprehensive analysis of the many stakeholders in this scenario will be done while
construing solutions to the issue identified.

Summary

In the current world at hand, there is an increasing venture of social media companies and other
internet-based platforms that collect the sensitive data of users who use their platforms, and
through the collection of these data, are incentivized to use them for purposes which the users
had not authorized them to use them for such as selling data to third parties who wish to conduct
marketing and advertising, or selling and providing data to companies and groups that wish to
conduct some form of research based on the given data.
There are several ethical considerations that exist, and key ethical theories and factors that play a
large role in providing a rationale for such actions and scenarios, which will be used in this
project very thoroughly in order to provide the reader with an absolute understanding of the
concepts, scenarios and findings that the project team has compiled throughout the period of
research.
An evaluative and informed conclusion will be provided at every closing juncture with a final
conclusion at the very end of this project that will effectively summarize and conclude the
current state of events, relevant data that supports the findings of the project team, and the
multitude of ethical theories that have been learnt as a result of attending the overall course.

The research that will done will have several methods and sources that are used, which range
from statistics provided from a large range of secondary and primary sources, findings from
news articles and websites, and various accounts and incidents of breaches of sensitive
information.
Currently, there are several social media platforms that engage in the collection of user data,
where these user data will be stored on their servers for future use which may or may not be
within the term and conditions / user agreements of the platform. (Pixees, 2022)
The collection of user data is generally done during the signing-up stage of the social media
platform where the individual is required to enter their details onto the platform in order to
register an account on that platform. Some of the required information during the registration
stage would be a full-name, email address and a mobile number, which are often highly sensitive
pieces of information for any individual, and is viewed as information that has a requirement to
be protected due to the spam, and other breaches of privacy that may follow if the information
was leaked to other organizations by any chance.

At the end of the day, there is an absolute requirement to review the current circumstances of all
ends of the spectrum that have different depths and issues that must be specifically looked at in
order for an informed and evaluative conclusion to be made which comprises of different views
from all areas of the main issues.
The above essentially means that there are areas such as the method in which the data of the
users are distributed to third party along with the relevant ethical theory backed justifications for
why this is done along with the current revenue models of these social media organizations
provide for a majority of the justification of the practice of selling user data to third parties.
The revenue flows of this method will be analyzed along with the types of data that is sold to
third parties.

There is also a primary question, as to whether the ethical theories that will be made reference to
are worthy of being used in this project due to several factors, and the applicability and overall
validity of the ethical theories that are in existence at this current point in time will be looked at
in order to provide for a more pragmatic overview of the project’s main aim, and the values that
can be construed from the overall findings of this project that would essentially allow the better
formulation of an informed and conclusive evaluation of the current state of events that the
rubric of this project is designed to tackle.
Furthermore, another pointer that will be effectively explored is how exactly the relevant ethical
theories that have been referenced to are being put into practice during the process of the whole
area of data sharing, the sale of it and the collection of user data throughout the few decades that
the internet has existed, and the wider impacts of these actions to the individuals of a society and
the user base. There will be multi stage evaluation of all the findings in this essay in order to
allow for the best efficiency and the most informed research to be present, where the initial and
most basic stages of this issue will be looked at and reviewed, where the underlying issues of the
topic will be looked at and its most basic effects on several individuals.
The next stage would be a more intermediary stage of analysis where the other stakeholders will
be looked at, where the previously looked at group were the user base and other individuals who
consume social media services. The other stakeholders that would be looked at are governmental
bodies, other major organizations that play a part in the workings of the issue at hand such as the
companies that buy the data from social media platforms, where the overall effect on the social
media company at large will be looked at to ascertain whether it is a sustainable model of
working, and whether this model of working would be sustainable in the long run.
The third stage of analysis that would be done is more complex and advanced, where the
underlying rationales of all the ethical theories that are brought forward will be analyzed and
connected with the whole act of the social media companies selling the users data to third parties
after the collection of the data, where the overall social workings will be seen, and then there will
be determination of whether social media companies can indeed stop the selling of data or at
least limit the selling and collection of user data in such manners in order to make a compromise
towards the respect of the user’s privacy and security, where the third party organizations who
purchase the user data from social media platforms have the probability to leak these data into
the world.

The social theories that are put forward, being connected with the social media platforms and
also the users who use the platform will be given a rationale and a justification, where the
behaviors of users will also be questioned heavily and analyzed in order to understand how their
overall reaction to the sharing and collection of their personal data would look when it comes to
the creation of awareness that their data is being share din widespread mannerism that impeded
one their privacy and does not get deleted from archives, staying there for years.

Why information is illicitly sold/leaked

Most large companies work with the trust of their user base, and similarly, when there is a trust
that the user base has to the social media platform, the respective platform is able to run very
well due to the popularity it has as the trust it has with its community is maintained to a large
degree. However, when there is a large number of sensitive user information available in the
database of the servers of the social media platforms, it gives incentive to these platforms to sell
these data to third parties who are willing to pay large amounts of money simple to get such
information. (Daniel 2022)
Social media platforms may see these third party buyers as an extra revenue stream that could
potentially provide a good amount of revenue consistently to the platform due to the large
number of types of data that may be collected such as the user search histories, user activity logs,
emails, phone numbers and other information that is extremely sensitive to the users themselves
and could be used for several purposes such as analyzing the data of these users to create
marketing content that will be used to markets relevant products to the customers at a later date.

Therefore, although unethical, companies would do this usually in a backhanded way to ensure
that there are extra sales to the company without having to make any investment. This is one of
the main reasons that social media platforms sell user information.
Furthermore, there are instances that this information would not be sold by the social media
company themselves but by the employees who act on a personal capacity and other hackers or
mistakes that cause the sensitive information of the users to be leaked.
The core reason why this type of practice still exists in this current day is due to the lack of
consideration for ethical practices in the environment, and the lack of moral values that would
dictate the ethical decisions that individuals make. Therefore, the lack of values would be a core
area that this project will touch on amongst other subject matters. Furthermore, other reasons as
to why data is breached, sold, and shared will be explored, such as hacker group activity. But the
main area of focus is the role that social media groups have with relation to the safety of
sensitive data of users and their involvement in the selling and sharing of data with third parties
that the users do not consent to expressly.

As seen in the above visual, several major social media platforms and apps share their user’s data
with third parties, and this sharing of data is done in large quantities, meaning that gargantuan
amounts of data is shared to third parties within the span of one day, which is an absolutely
shocking metric considering that this is the personal data that individuals have after their use of
the relevant platforms or simply their personal data. (Simplilearn 2022)

Long-term impacts of data sharing

There is always a chain reaction to certain events, and these consequences must be fully taken
into account, especially in a world where the rate of cybercrime is high, and where there is a high
reliance on online activities by every individual in the world, where a small issue could create a
domino effect into escalating into a bigger issue that affects many individuals. Therefore, there is
an inherent responsibility of social media companies and platforms to ensure that the data that
they take from the users are safe and protected and not unethically shared with third party for
whichever reasons that may exist. However, the question would be what the long-term effects are
of when it coms to social media platforms selling o sharing the data of individuals and users that
decide to register and conduct activities online on the platform.

When looking at the initial effects on a smaller scale, it is seen that social media information
could span from sensitive information to information that is not of importance. Therefore, it is
important to look at the different types of information that is shared and the impacts each type of
information can have on the consumers and other stakeholders. Social media platforms selling
the data of users that Are deemed more sensitive and more dangerous to be shared can amount to
email addresses and phone numbers, where malicious parties can use these information to call
the users, send them scam emails in order to scam them of their money by tricking them through
various means.
There are also advertising and marketing companies and other types of research firms that
require this information for non-malicious use, where there would simply be researches
conducted with the user data that has been collected throughout the time that the user uses the
platform such as the content they view, and the statistics on their daily use schedules. This
information may simply be very normal information that may not be a threat to individuals as
they are simply a collective form of data that has analyzed the user’s activity on the social media
platform. This type of information can be used to create products or services that the users would
find useful in the long run as there is market research that is conducted through the use of these
types of data. However, it must be noted that these types of data, although not harmful, are still
data that the users did not consent to sharing, and such sharing of data can create mistrust in the
social media platforms that the users are working on and could be consequential to the social
media platform.

However, when looking at the subject matter from a third-person point of view, it can be seen
that the long-term effect of selling user data to third parties could be extremely detrimental when
being linked to the Kantianism thought process of whether it would be sustainable if everyone in
the surroundings were to abide by these similar practices of selling user data, where it is indeed
seen in this current scenario that it happens, where there is a major risk of the data being leaked
for malicious purposes especially when the data keeps travelling down different channels, where
the final recipient of data could be malicious individuals or corporations that may harm the
user’s whose data has been leaked. (Kantianism 2018)

Therefore, even when linked with the Kantianism thought process, it is very visible that there is
an intrinsic detrimental effect that would be widespread if there is a continuation of individuals,
groups and other organizations engaging in the practice of selling their user’s data to third party
for various purposes which even the social media platforms may not be able to keep track of.

Can social media platforms operate without the collection and/or sale of user data?

The main aim of social media platforms is to provide users with a platform to connect with other
individuals and groups, where even businesses use social media platforms such as Instagram and
TikTok in order to boost their reach. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and
TikTok generate revenue through the running of advertisements on their platforms, where they
charge a fee for every ad that a user runs. The main source of revenue for such social media
platforms can be considered to be ad campaigns, however, it may not simply stop at ad
campaigns due to the fact that social media platforms possess various other ways to generate
more revenue from the running of these platforms.
In order to answer the question at hand, it will be looked at as to whether social media platforms
really require the sale of such data in order to survive in the industry. On an initial note, it is
important to understand that the storing and analyzing of data by the social media platform
internally is vital to the development of the platform and the way in which users will be treated,
and would essentially dictate how the future updates of the platform would look like, where the
activities of users are monitored and analyzed in order to provide a better qualities experience of
the app in subsequent updates.
In this scenario, it is vital that the data of uses is stored and analyzed in a geopolitical and
geographical context to ensure the maximum accuracy of the data that has been analyzed, and is
seen as an ethical doing since this data is not divulged to other third parties and are simply used
in order to provide a better qualitative experience to the users in the future. However, there are
instances where there can be fraudulent and malicious uses of this data that social media
platforms conduct which could crate issues for the livelihood of people and their data, which is
when the data is sold to third parties; where these third parties are malicious entities who simply
use the data for purposes in which it can exploit users by sending them spam emails that simply
contain product marketing which they never consented to, or carefully written emails that turn
out to be scams that are extremely believable due to the prior data which they had about the user
that is being scammed.
When looking at it from an extended perspective, it is extremely clear that this data can that is
shared to other third parties contain a long-term issue that can harm the long term livelihoods of
individuals. A social media platform ultimately can survive without the disclosing of data to
third parties and could make a generous revenue and survive their business by solely running
advertisements on their platform, which is already a business model that is bound to generate
billions for an extremely long time period.
In that context it is able to be concluded that the social media platforms can indeed survive
without conducting such unethical activities of selling user data to third parties based on the
revenue model that the social media platforms currently follow that mainly collects revenue from
the running of ads.
The main reasons that the sale of data would not stop is initially due to the lack of knowledge
that users have with regard to the gravity of their data being collected y social media platforms,
where such lack of awareness can lead to disastrous consequences due to the fact that data of
individuals can end up in the wrong hands.
Another reason for the widespread sharing of data is the fact that social media companies illicitly
engage in this activity although they state that they shall not engage in it, which is an absolute
unethical and illegal factor that must be taken into account, where the only method in which this
can be prevented is from proper awareness of the user where they explicitly understand the ways
in which their data can be breached and the measures they can take to solve this issue, which
ultimately could solve the issue of data sharing and data selling of social media platforms. The
most basic level that must be looked at is how the awareness can be created, and in order to do
that, a video can be created that effectively summarized the negative effects of data collection
and what individuals can do about it.

The creation of awareness to both social media platforms and users

Within the current status-quo, it is apparent that there is a major lack of awareness in the whole
sphere of data collection, data sale and the general disclosing of data of users of social media
platforms, where social media platforms can take advantage of this lack of awareness to exploit
the users as they wish and maximize their revenue outputs.
The major reason for the lack of awareness of users is due to their ignorance and lack of
knowledge on how their data impacts them, where they do not fully understand how the
providing of their sensitive data such as email addresses and mobile numbers could create major
repercussions if shared with the wrong parties, and such sharing of data could be done without
the knowledge or the express consent of the users.
The users will only figure out the grave repercussions of them sharing their data to other
platforms after they experience a security breach, or some form of scam or hack that utilizes the
data which they have entered on the platform.

Many users also do not understand the different types of data that can be collected off of them
such as their overall platform activity data which creates statistics on the type of content that the
user may view, or the times and dates that the user is most active on, which would be extremely
lucrative information for certain firms and also hackers who wish to collect as much data on an
individual or group of individuals before proceeding with their hacking procedures.

On the other hand, social media platforms also require some form of awareness to be brought to
them on the wider repercussions of their use of user data, and must be held accountable for any
type of breaches of user data as they are collecting sensitive data that could danger the security
of their users if released to the public. Therefore, there is a requirement of understanding whether
the gathering of data for the purposes of improving their platform’s services to users is worth the
burden that they would have of protecting the data of their users.

The primary question that arises in this scenario is whether indeed the creation of awareness is
sufficiently possible, and the extent to which this awareness can be created along with the
success of this awareness campaign. The previously mentioned factors are clear determining
factors of the success of the whole awareness campaign, and may essentially be the foundation
towards the greater conclusion of this project due to the fact that the final conclusion will be
based on the test as to whether the awareness campaign will be successful or not.

In the scenario at hand, it is clear that there is already a widespread collection of different types
of user data that is analyzed, sold, and used for different purposes. Social media platforms have
already used this as a traditional practice, and this essentially equates to billions of users worth of
data which the social media platforms collect.
It is to be understood that with this large collection of data throughout the years, it is extremely
dangerous for the personal safety of many individuals who use these social media platforms
because of a digital footprint that could be breached at any moment, where billions of user data
could potentially be put out into public where years' worth of user information could potentially
create the biggest digital catastrophe that mankind has known
Therefore, establishing the gargantuan risk that every user of social media platforms is taking
when they decide to register an account on such platforms and go about their usual activity
online. Therefore, it is clear that even with sufficient awareness created for users, the data that
has been already collected will not disappear, and the threat of this collected data being released
still would exist to this very day.

The overall success of awareness

Before looking at the success of awareness campaigns for the users of social media platforms, it
is important to understand the methodology of such awareness campaigns, which will initially
start with a general survey on everyday users of social media from different age ranges.

The survey that has been conducted in the course of this project was a hybrid questionnaire type
of survey where different individuals who were approached had been provided with a 10-
question questionnaire where they had to choose which answer suits their descriptions of their
daily social media use, where 90% of the participants had answered in a manner in which the
conclusion drawn would be that the social media platform has collected many data from these
individuals, proving exactly how much of an exposure that they have already had to these
platforms, and the way in which these platforms can exploit them if needed, where even legal
mechanisms of protection would not be sufficient.

Awareness can occur in a few stages, where users of social media in general would be educated
on the pros on cons of divulging their personal data to social media platforms, and the long term
repercussions of doing so, where the user will gain the maximum knowledge on how exactly
social media can be a hindrance to the safety of their identity.
These insights that will be provided can potentially allow them to better choose which type of
data they would be comfortable to disclose to the social media platform, which would be much
better than them not knowing the repercussions of it and disclosing all their personal information
without prior knowledge.
In the event that this campaign goes according to the projected outcome, instead of the unlikely
possibility of the whole problem being solved, the project will have a success due to the creation
of some form of positive outcome. Ultimately, bringing a solution to a part of the problem and
reducing the issue partly is more than sufficient as compared to the unlikely possibility of
completely solving the issue of data selling.

When looking at the success of this campaign on the end of social media platforms, the main
question arises as to whether the social media platforms will look at user awareness as a deterrent
towards the misuse of user data. This deterrent can come forward when more users are aware of
the effect that could befall them if the data which they share with due to the fact there would be
increasing pressure on top of the social media platforms by the users who now have a great
knowledge of the way social media platforms can collect, disseminate, analyze and sell their
data.

Would there be any other solution to this issue?

Looking at the problem from a distant perspective, we see the need for a solution that takes into
account the flaws of other solutions, and provides for an all-encompassing mitigating solution at
the very least. When it comes to awareness as a whole, there is a limited extent to its success,
where the level of success is not sufficient for the current status-quo that the issue is currently in.
Therefore, a solution that may be considered rather radical, but quite effective would be the
pressurization of social media companies to become more transparent with their processes and
analytics of user data, or even the pressuring of social media companies to delete all kinds of
sensitive data that may be injurious to an individual's livelihood if the data is leaked to an outside
forum or to the public at large. (Wu. J, 2019)
However, every idea may not be perfect, therefore it is important to look at the flaws of this issue
thoroughly and evaluate the pros and cons of it, following it up with some throoguh analysis on
its metrics.

The most obvious benefits that this method would have, is that the social media companies and
platforms will be facing immense pressure to comply with the demands of users, as the collective
user base would demand some form of compliance, where the social media platforms may resort
to a compromise and satisfy at least a part of the user’s demands.
There will also be a massive change in the culture of the world, where the users will be more
aware of the actions that social media platforms can take using their personal data, which in turn
allows them behave in a manner in which their most sensitive data is not shared with social
media platforms, which may engage in the misuse of their personal data.

The downside to this is the apparent lack of enthusiasm that the community of users may have
with relation to the movement in pressuring social media companies due to the acceptance of
circumstances as the way they are (O. J, 2020). What this means is that users will have already
been accustomed to the fact that they disclose such data to the social media platforms, and do not
necessarily care about whether their data is analyzed and collected or even sold because they do
not believe that this would cause them any type of harm. With this mindset, individuals will
unfortunately be placing themselves in a situation of ignorance where their mindset would affect
the rest of the users of social media platforms who truly understand the repercussions of this
issue, and with no way to better this circumstance, all individuals will be stuck in the same type
of issue that they have been facing for a long period of time due to the lack of enthusiasm that
individuals would have towards such a movement.
Another downside to this solution would be the extent to which this could actually make a
change in the current environment as the whole idea of this movement is to simply pressure
social media companies to remove the data which is sensitive that they have stored on their
servers. Understanding that social media companies are large corporate giants, they can simply
push their leverage which they have over individuals to make the users comply with whichever
policy they wish to enforce, and with such circumstances at hand, the movement that this
solution brings forward would be futile understanding that the social media company has
considerable leverage over users, who are especially dependent on the daily use of social media
platforms, and the threat of these platforms disappearing from their lives which they use for their
personal purposes or business purposes may be taken away.

Therefore, it is clearly seen that although there are considerable advantages of this solution, and
several mechanisms in which this solution can be made to work, the primary issue at hand is that
the downsides of this solution could prevail in a manner in which the whole model of this
solution is rendered futile, which prevents any progress that the solution could have had in the
first place. Furthermore, considering that this solution was simply looked at in a theoretical
perspective without the consideration of other variables that could have very well made a change
in the circumstances at hand pertaining to the issue that this project has been highlighting.
It must also be understood that the whole narrative of pressuring a social media platform, which
is a giant in the field, could be swiftly rendered ineffective by the many means under their
disposal, especially the privacy policy which they compel users to agree with if they are signing
up for the platform, which the users usually do not read or bother to go through. Therefore, the
social media platforms can simply cite the clauses which the users have already agreed to
pointing out the consent that they have been given out for the purposes of the social media
platform conducting their usual business of selling the user data.

In conclusion to the viability of this alternate solution, it is quite clear that this movement relies
very heavily on the willingness of the user base, where currently, most of the user base has
grown accustomed to the use of the social media platforms, and cannot afford to sacrifice the
digital comfort which they currently have for a cause which they do not see an issue behind.
Therefore, the most viable option would be the creation of awareness in the issue that was
highlighted, and the creation of ample awareness could allow the solving of a larger problem that
plagues the current world of tech.
The greater issue is the massive threat of the current archives of social media platforms on
sensitive user data and other analytics being released to the public by negligence or by hackers.
The negligence could be simply from the hands of the insiders of the social meida platform
where an individual who is in charge of the controlling of certain data might make a mistake in
his daily functions which leads to a breach or a leak of data.
The hacker scenario is where a malicious entity simply enters into the database of the social
media platform, deleting or publicizing the data which the social media platforms have collected.

The statistics of stolen data

Figure 1: Records breached by industry in 2021

According to the above image image, statistics show that 41% of user personal data being

leaked comes from social media platforms. This information was taken from a recent analysis

published by ForgeRock (AtlasVPN), and it emphasizes just how much of a concern social

media sites are to the security of everyone using the internet.

Large social media corporations don't appear to be taking much steps to secure their servers and

databases. In contrast to social media, which accounted for much more of the leaked data (24%),

retail websites were the source of much less of it, suggesting that these platforms may have

contributed negatively to the rise of cybercrime and the theft of login information from users

throughout the internet. The ease of impersonation on social media is another factor contributing

to its reputation as a hotbed of criminality. Because doing so has the ability to make their

schemes appear more credible, con artists frequently pretend to be business professionals. This

can result in phishing assaults, especially on websites like LinkedIn where users routinely click

links and fill out forms provided by potential employers. (Cyberpedia)

Likewise, excessive social media sharing simplifies the process for criminals to collect personal

data that will aid in account hacking. In order for users to begin using social media platforms

more responsibly, they must be made aware of the hazard that these platforms pose.

Evaluation

In order for an evaluation to be done very well on this subject matter, it is highly important that

the respective philosophical and ethical theories are examined and connected to the findings of

this project to create the best evaluation possible by taking into account all the factors found

through the research and making relevant links and rationale to them with the prevailing ethical

theory.

When looking at Kantianism as a whole, where Imannuel Kant had established some basic

principles behind his theory which brought to life a few absolute theories such as the rule where

the privacy of individuals must be respected along with the decisions that they make throughout

their life, which by nature, impliedly goes against acts of murder or breaches of privacy.

The primary views of Kantianism is to set a standard in which individuals can live by, which
enshrines the fact that human beings are not to be treated as simple objects or tools that have

some form of purpose and are disposable, but rather, individuals with feelings, rights and other

characteristics that give them a look of individuality. (Imannuel Kat, 2002)

Figure 2: Kantianism

The ideas of Kantianism can be alternatively described as a vigorous thought process in which

individuals repeatedly question their actions and the overall impact of their actions to understand

if the way in which they are conducting themselves is sustainable and can be maintained by the

other individuals in society as conventional behavioral patterns. (Fisher, A. and Dimmock, M.

(2022) )

There is also the theory of ethical egoism which is most relevant to the subject matter of this

project where the theory may specifically apply to the social media platforms as the whole idea

of ethical egoism revolves around the philosophy that all actions taken should be taken under

self-interest and for the benefit of one’s own livelihood without the consideration of the

surrounding people's livelihoods. This form of living can be considered as the selfish way

forward in terms of ethics, and would be detrimental when compared to the Kantian mechanism

of living, where the overall effect on the society of one’s action and the imagination of the same
action being done by the masses being analyzed.

Ethical egoism can indeed be beneficial when looking at it from an individual point of view

where an Individual may simply focus on his career and his livelihood to the fullest while not

giving much regards to the individuals in his surroundings, it may not cause a mass negative

effect, but the context in this case is of the values that social media platforms have, and their

connection to the theory of ethical egoism, where the actions that they conduct themselves in

could amount to a massive detriment to the user base that they are catering to. Furthermore,

understanding that ethical egoism in this context is being applied to a corporate entity such as

Facebook or Google, where they have stored more than a billion of bytes worth of data, the same

benefits that an individual will have when following this ethical theory would be widely different

from a corporate entity due to the fact that such huge corporate entities make up for a large

percentage of the market share of social media which equates to a large number of users being

affected by the actions of the social media platforms. Therefore, the theory of ethical egoism will

cause a definite failure in the whole sustainable metrics of the business, and would have severely

consequential impacts that the individuals and the social media platforms will face, where on the

other hand, Kantianism would be a theory that would be on the better working side due to the

positive values that is pushes forward despite the flaws that it has. No theory could be

completely positive, which means that the best working theory must be the one that is adopted

for the betterment of the society. (Wordstream,2022)

As another line of evaluation, it has to be understood that these ethical theories put forward are

merely theories of human behavior, and codes of conduct that individuals can use for their daily

activities, or a mere auxiliary tool for justifying the rationale towards a certain type of behavior,

which all do not have a completely practical guarantee of working out in a real world scenario as
the theories may so suggest.

As the theories are simply put forward in a theoretical placement for the sake of making research

more justified to conduct, these theories may be useful, however may not always be applicable

when put into the context of each and every human being due to the varying moral values,

behaviors and ethics that could come in the form of having several different traits from ethical

theories in one person, which would cause the rationalization of a specific ethical theory to one

person extremely difficult and impractical.

Furthermore, ethical theories as a whole are not up to date with modern day practices, where the

current world setting in 2022 is much more diverse, unpredictable and sophisticated due to the

various cultural. Political, technological, and other changes that would defiantly influence the

change in behavior of a person or a group of people which ethical theories that have been made

in the archaic days do not account for due to how much of time has passed between the time the

theories have been made to the current date. The current form of ethical values is influenced by

the current culture that is prevalent in the world, and the current culture can be influenced

heavily by influencers, high profile individuals and other types of technological factors that may
influence the overall behavior of people. There is a rising requirement of different ethical

theories to be construed to suit the current ethical behaviors of individuals that need to be put

into rationale in order to better understand the way in which these individuals currently work in.

Therefore, these areas of thought must also be thoroughly looked at when applying the

evaluation to the overall conclusion of this project which is an aggregation of all evaluations that

have been construed throughout the workings of this essay.

Conclusion

After collecting all relevant research material and construing a viable theory that takes into
account all the ethical theories that are applicable to this scenario, a rationalized and informed
conclusion can be made on the current state of affairs that is in place.
It is concluded that social media companies will not fully stop the selling of user data to third
party organizations as it is an income stream for the social media platforms and apps, where if
they were to stop one of the main sources of revenue, they would be losing profits that they have
been thoroughly enjoying. Although there is a possibility of business survival even with the non-
existence of that particular revenue stream, social media platforms will simply not settle for
merely survival whilst having to bear such a large cut in their revenue models. (T and
Kankanamge, 2022)

On the note of the users of the social media platforms and apps, it must be understood that these
individuals have little to no say in the whole avenue of their personal data being sold to third
parties or being processed in ways in which they were not specifically informed of.
Furthermore, with regards to the solutions which have been put forward and analyzed where
each of these solutions have different strengths and weaknesses, it must be understood that these
solutions will not completely solve the problem, but would play a key role in the mitigation of
the problem, thus signifying the importance of at least attempting to put these solutions into force
in order to create some type of change in the major issue that is prevalent in this digital world
today. (Becham, L. (1996))
Looking at the current world that we live in, it is often seen as a are of widespread ignorance
when it comes to the major effects that major companies and their selling of goods and services
have on the livelihoods on people, be it health or security, there is a huge monopoly of power
that these major corporations have over the people of the world due to their ignorance, and this in
turn gives a higher power to the major corporations to do as they please, and this rationale does
not only apply to the social media platforms that were mainly discussed and put forward in this
essay, but also applies to every giant corporation in the world that is exploiting their consumers
every day in order gain some sort of benefit over them.

Thus, there is an increasing need for a better type of awareness to be created for all types of
individuals worldwide, be it users of social media platforms or normal consumers of goods and
services. The modern day era that we currently live in is already grasped by several larger forces
that have digitally captured the lives of most individuals these days, knowing their daily routines
to all other information on them, which is easily retrievable within a short time span, giving a
large threat towards the user base in the world, where the only mechanism that could be taken for
security purposes is to work under the assumption that all the larger conglomerates and
governments who work with them are working in good faith, and would not compromise the
security of the individuals that they supposedly serve.
Therefore, this project has successfully managed to analyze the current sphere of social media
platforms and their mechanisms in selling the data of individuals who use their platforms, where
the problem has been identified with the potential solutions to these problems, and also other
circumstances and surrounding factors that would play a major part in several aspects of this
issue such as stakeholders, income streams, rationale and other ethical theories that allow the
reader of this project to truly understand the depth of the findings in this project.

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