Ethical Theories Assignment: Political Advertising On Facebook

Question

Task: In task 1 you will create a simple argument visualisation using the MindMup software and you will produce a report in task 2 which details the argument you construct in your argument visualisation.
Choose ONE of the following media articles or case studies:
1. The Ethics of “Giving People a Voice” and Political Advertising on Facebook
2. The federal government’s response to the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry is a let down
3. Countries Debate Openness of Future National IDs
4. Weaponization of Social Media by Authoritarian States
5. Do We Want Robot Warriors to Decide Who Lives or Dies?
Now follow the instructions given below to complete the assessment task:
• Use the title of the article/case study as the title of your argument visualisation so that the lecturer knows which article you are analysing.
• Undertake further research about your chosen case and the ethical issue involved, to assist you in analysing it in your argument visualisation (and in your report in Task 2).
• Identify some logical arguments and construct an argument visualisation using MindMup software. Your visualisation should contain the conclusion, and all of the reasons and objections leading to that conclusion.
• Your argument visualisation should present a logical argument for your subsequent report in Task 2. Your report will develop these arguments based on a deeper analysis of the ethical issue(s).
• Your report should contain all of the arguments contained in your visualisation, and you should not introduce new arguments in your report that are not in your visualisation.
• When you have completed your visualisation, download it as a .pdf file and submit via Turnitin.
Task 2 (17%): Applying Ethical Theories
Follow the instructions given below to complete the task.
• Write a report based on your argument visualisation created in Task 1 and the media article or case study you selected in Task 1.
• Undertake further research about your chosen case and the ethical issue involved, to assist you in analysing and discussing it in your report.
• Analyse the ethical issue applying the classical ethical theories, including utilitarianism, deontology, contract, and virtue. Your report should present well-reasoned arguments, logically leading to appropriate recommendations.
• You should not introduce new arguments in your report that were not contained in your argument visualisation, and your report should contain all of the arguments contained in your visualisation.
• Write an overall conclusion that justifies your recommendations made in your report.
• Include a Reference list at the end of your work, using the correct APA referencing style, corresponding to in-text citations. The word limit for the report is 1500 words +/-10%. Headings, citations, references and appendices do not count towards the word limit, but quotations do.

Answer

1. Introduction
This report on ethical theories assignment contains a brief discussion about the ethics of giving political and voice advertising to people on Facebook. In this ethical theories assignment, it was discussed that this type of advertisement is ethical or unethical. Some theories related to ethics are also discussed in the ethical theories assignment. This ethical theories assignment analyses the concept of giving political and voice advertisements to people on Facebook by applying some ethical theories like Deontology theory, Contract theory, Virtue theory, and more. Ethical and unethical behaviors are also discussed in this ethical theories assignment. This report contains a diagram related to argument visualization. The analysis of this ethical theories assignment is done with the help of some ethical theories.

Background
In the year 2010, the researchers of Facebook published a result related to the trial of delivering messages related to political mobilization to millions of people during congressional elections of U.S. From this research the researchers of Facebook found that this type of messages influences the real-world voting, political self-expression, and information-seeking behavior of people. This type of massage also influences friends of Facebook users. In the year 2014, an article was published that explains How Facebook decides the results of the elections. How the algorithms, policies, and design of Facebook put an impact on the elections. After the election of 2016 Mark Zuckerberg says that the fake news related to election on Facebook had influence directly the election. From the research, it was found that the voice advertisement that enables communication directly with the candidates to help people vote was put a major impact on the election. The misinformation spread through Facebook ads or post has a bad impact on the election. Facebook improves the business successfully by helping political candidates through targeted advertising. After the controversy of 2016, the Facebook organization shares a success story that highlights the impact of Facebook on elections of the whole world. The ads of Facebook have unique capabilities to target different types of people. In the presidential election of 2016, some targeted messages are successfully reaching to some particular sub-groups that are designed to suppress the voting of those group people in the election. A blog was posted by the executives of Facebook that mentioned protecting the elections of the US in 2020. This blog has a section named as "Fighting Voter intimidation and Suppression, it describes different topics like misrepresentations of voter registration, flatly states, and voting. The political and voice advertising giving to the people on Facebook somewhere put a good impact on the voting decision of people and somewhere it puts a bad impact on the decision of people. The wrong information and misrepresentation spread through Facebook posts or ads can put a bad impact on the decision of people regarding voting. This is the brief discussion about background of this ethical theories assignment that describes the impact of giving people political and voice advertisements on Facebook and also analyses this topic using different types of ethical theories to show this type of advertisement supports the rules of ethics or not.

1. Argument Visualisation Diagram
2. Analysis Applying Ethical Theories: Now the analysis provided in the ethical theories assignment was done with the help of some ethical theories. The ethical theories analyze the different aspects of this ethical theories assignment. The analysis by applying the ethical theories was discussed in the following paragraphs of ethical theories assignment. The analysis done in this report on ethical theories assignment gives the ethical or unethical behavior of the different aspects of this report.



3. • Utilitarianism Theory: Utilitarianism theory is an ethical theory with the help of this theory the analysis of a different aspect of this report was done. According to this theory discussed in this context of ethical theories assignment shows that how the political and voice advertisement puts a good impact or bad impact on human life and also describes how this action was helpful for the people (Akrivou & Sison, 2016). From the analysis with the help of this theory it was clear that this type of actions that means this type of advertisements is required or not for the people, it was decided based on what amount of good impact or the bad impact it puts on the people or what amount of good or bad impact it puts on the voting system or thinking of people related to voting (Tenenbaum, 2017). It decides this type of action are needs to be approved or not according to the result of this action, if the result of this action puts a good impact then this action was approved or the results of this action put a bad impact then this type of action was not approved. From this type of analysis, it was clear that the utilitarianism theory decides the need of actions according to the final result of the action (Neubert & Dyck, 2016). The analysis of this report with the help of utilitarianism theory shows that the action that is the political and voice advertising that was given to the people on the Facebook was good for the people or not and it shows that how much this action supports the ethics and how much breaks the rules of ethics (Chou et al., 2017). The ethics of this type of advertisement on Facebook was described in this analysis and it shows a good impact and as well as the bad impact of this action on people and the election.
   • Deontology Theory: According to ethics, deontology theory uses some rules to differentiate the right thing from the wrong thing (Rathi, 2019). Deontology theory does not analyze any action according to its final result or its impact on people. It advises to not break the rules of ethics. In this ethical theories assignment, the analysis of the topic that is the political and voice advertising giving to people on Facebook was done by applying the deontology theory. In this analysis, it was trying to analyze that this type of advertising on Facebook was to follow the rules of ethics or not. Deontology analyzes the actions and if any actions seem to be violating the rules of ethics then deontology advises to not violate the rules (Beckerman, 2017). From the analysis, it was found that some ads and some posts that have some wrong information related to the election can violate the rules of ethics and put a bad impact on the thinking of people regarding the election, voting registration, and voting. The analysis with the help of deontology theory helps in finding the actions that violate the rules of ethics. The posts on Facebook have wrong information about the election and spreads unwanted things that violate the rules of ethics and also put a bad impact on the voting (McCulloch & Reiss, 2017). This type of posts and ads has to be ban for violating the rules of ethics and badly influencing the people regarding the election. The analysis of this report by applying the deontology theory it was found that some advertisement on Facebook spreads valuable information's and provides smart decision making ideas that influence different types of people, with the help of this type of influencing advertisements people are improving their thinking regarding the election and takes write decision while voting (Lipschultz, 2017). The posts that are violating the rules of ethics and the posts that are influencing the people in a written way both are detected in this analysis.
   • Virtue Theory: Virtue theory is defined as one of the major approaches to normative ethics. Initially, virtue theory was defined as the theory that emphasizes moral characters, virtues according to the approach which emphasizes the rules or duties or the approach which emphasizes the actions results or consequences (Chun, 2019). The analysis of this report by applying virtue theory was done to give importance to the results of this action and the rules or duties of Facebook. In this analysis, the importance of providing political and voice advertising to the people on Facebook was taken into consideration. From the analysis of this report on ethical theories assignment, it was found that the advertisement helps to influence many people about elections and voting (Meyers, 2018). This analysis emphasizes the importance of giving political and voice advertising to people on Facebook and shows the positive side of this type of advertisement that means how this type of advertisement influence the people and how this type of advertisement spread the importance of voting and election among the people of US (Zamir & Medina, 2017). From the analysis of this report by applying the virtue theory it was found that this type of advertisement helps in influencing Facebook users and also influences the friends of Facebook users (Caragiannis et al., 2017). This type of analysis emphasizes the rules and duties of Facebook by providing political and voice advertisements on Facebook that influence the people, it also helps people to make a better decision regarding voting. In the analysis of this report virtue theory emphasizes the results that happen due to this type of advertisement given by Facebook regarding the election, it highlights the importance of this type of advertisement in voting and election (Gamlin et al., 2019). From the study developed in this ethical theories assignment, it was found that any type of posts and ads on Facebook that influences people that must follow the rules of ethics and do not provide any information or data that is against the rules of ethics.
   • Contract Theory: Basically contract theory that explains how the organizations and people develop and construct legal agreements. Contract theory analyzes how different parties with conflict interests can build informal and formal contracts (Fleischmann et al., 2019). The ideal world contract theory provides a clear understanding of requirements and responsibilities and helps in eliminating the risks and misunderstanding. From the analysis of this report by applying contract theory it was found that how Facebook and political parties and the companies develop and construct legal agreements for showing their ads on Facebook to attracts the users (Salvador et al., 2017). By applying contract theory in the analysis of this report it was clear that how different parties with different conflict interests can build informal and formal contracts. From the analysis with the help of this theory it was clear that this type of actions that means this type of advertisements is required or not for the people, it was decided based on what amount of good impact or the bad impact it puts on the people or what amount of good or bad impact it puts on the voting system or thinking of people related to voting (Bai, 2017). From the analysis of this report, it was found that the advertisement helps to influence many people about elections and voting. The ideal world contract theory provides a clear understanding of requirements and responsibilities and helps in eliminating the risks and misunderstanding.

3. Conclusion

From the above report on ethical theories assignment, it can be concluded that the political and voice advertisement that is given to the people on Facebook helped in influencing the people regarding the election. In this type of advertisement, some unique strategies are applied to influence the people for voting. From the study of this report on ethical theories assignment, it was found that this type of advertisement put good impacts on people and also puts a bad impact on people. Sometimes Facebook posts that contain misrepresented or wrong information about the election can put a bad impact on people. With the help of this type of advertisement, it was easy to influence people regarding the election and voting process. With the help of this type of advertisement, Facebook users are influences and the friends of Facebook users are also influenced. The Facebook organization has to secure its community guidelines to stop the spread of wrong information that may put a bad impact on people. Facebook organization has to take action against the use those are spreading wrong information on Facebook via post and influencing people in a bad manner. With the help of the above report, it can be recommended that there is the need of political advertisement in Facebook that will help the people to clear their thoughts regarding the elections and different parties. The political advertisements will also help to produce a huge impact on the election processes and society. 

 
References
Akrivou, K., & Sison, A. J. G. (Eds.). (2016). The challenges of capitalism for virtue ethics and the common good: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Ethical theories assignment Edward Elgar Publishing.

Bai, F. (2017). Beyond dominance and competence: A moral virtue theory of status attainment. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21(3), 203-227.

Beckerman, W. (2017). Utilitarianism and Its Constraints. In Economics as Applied Ethics (pp. 105-116). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Caragiannis, I., Nath, S., Procaccia, A. D., & Shah, N. (2017). Subset selection via implicit utilitarian voting. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 58, 123-152.

Chou, E. Y., Halevy, N., Galinsky, A. D., & Murnighan, J. K. (2017). The Goldilocks contract: The synergistic benefits of combining structure and autonomy for persistence, creativity, and cooperation. Journal of personality and social psychology, 113(3), 393.

Chun, R. (2019). How virtuous global firms say they are: A content analysis of ethical values. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(1), 57-73.

Fleischmann, A., Lammers, J., Conway, P., & Galinsky, A. D. (2019). Paradoxical effects of power on moral thinking: why power both increases and decreases deontological and utilitarian moral decisions. Ethical theories assignment Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(1), 110-120.

Gamlin, J., Dong, P., Labroo, A. A., & Robinson, A. (2019). Evoking Goals to Be Responsible: When Political Cues Increase Utilitarian Choice. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 4(1), 87-96.

Lipschultz, J. H. (2017). Social media communication: Concepts, practices, data, law and ethics. Taylor & Francis.

McCulloch, S. P., & Reiss, M. J. (2017). Bovine tuberculosis and badger culling in England: A utilitarian analysis of policy options. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 30(4), 511-533.

Meyers, C. (2018). 8 Deontology. Communication and Media Ethics, 26, 139.

Neubert, M. J., & Dyck, B. (2016). Developing sustainable management theory: goal-setting theory based in virtue. Management Decision.

Rathi, R. (2019). Effect of Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook ads on the 2016 US Presidential election. Towards Data Science.

Salvador, P., Vivar, P. C., de Vera, E., Inocian, R. B., & Rosaroso, R. C. (2017). Influence of Facebook to Voters’ Political Practices. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Arts and Sciences, 4(1), 15-23.

Tenenbaum, S. (2017). Action, deontology, and risk: against the multiplicative model. Ethics, 127(3), 674-707.

Zamir, E., & Medina, B. (2017). Ethical theories assignment Deontological Morality and Economic Analysis of Law.