If you have watched the famous Facebook film, “The Social Network” then you are aware of the ethical issues in the creation of Facebook. Previously in class, the topic of business ethics has been discussed. The gist of the film follows like this: Mark Zuckerberg agrees to join the Winklevoss brothers in their venture; Harvard Connection. Harvard Connection was to be a website for the students of Harvard to interact and live the college experience online. What Mark does is he leads the Winklevoss’ on, takes their idea and creates his own website, then called thefacebook.com. “The Social Network” follows the lawsuits against Zuckerberg as well as the initial stages and release of Facebook. The film portrays Mark Zuckerberg as a dedicated and smart individual. And he is these things, however, this film fails to consider the views of the Winklevoss brothers who initially had the idea. In an interview with the Winklevoss’ by Bloomberg, more to the Facebook story is uncovered.
According to the Winklevoss brothers, Mark Zuckerberg not only avoided the brothers for 90 days to make thefacebook.com, he also copied their execution plan. Zuckerberg saw the Winklevoss’ plan to expand Harvard Connection and used it to expand Facebook by spreading it to surrounding schools. The Winklevoss’ also had to settle with $65 million from Facebook. Facebook claims that this money is worth more than 4 times the internal value. It was not.
Now look at Facebook. It is a social networking king. It has gotten so big that it is virtually impossible to overcome. Mark Zuckerberg has the money that the Winklevoss brothers deserve. I may have thought differently if the topic of ethics was not introduced in our class but I believe that it was very unethical of Zuckerberg to take the idea of Harvard Connection and create Facebook. The story of the Winklevoss brothers is just shadowed by the hype of Zuckerberg and his “creation”.