Meta has been the subject of a lot of news lately. And unfortunately, it has been for all the wrong reasons.
The company, formerly known as ‘Facebook’, has been in legal spotlight for years- regarding ad revenue prompts and being a weapon to spread political agenda- but they have defended it to be an instrument until now. In almost all lawsuits, their defence has been continuing to be of a tool that can be used however one wishes to use it.
Unfortunately for them, policy-makers are slowly realizing that this innocent tool can be malicious in the hands of the wrong people and Meta’s open distribution and profit-centred approach has already made it look irresponsible in social constructs.
Frances Haugen, a former employee working in the integrity organization responsible for making Meta safer, has declared war on the organization by going on record to say that the top bureaucracy knew about the negative effects of the social media platform on young people- based off on various studies undertaken over the course of a few years, but decided against doing anything about it. These documents have been liberally quoted by the biggest journals in the world like The Wall Street Journal and The Verge. Meta’s only defence has been that these documents are cherry-picked to smear the company name.
Introduction Of “Integrity Umbrella”: Fixing The Leaks
Meta has always run on the motto ‘be open’- transparency within the organization regarding new tech, designs and plans for the collective future of the organization. Mark Zuckerberg had believed in the philosophy that informed people will make better decisions regarding actions that will ultimately affect the company’s future. Clearly, this has worked for lesser number of employees, but now as Meta nears around 68,000 full-time employees, openness means a lot of opportunities for sensitive information to leak out.
This new Integrity Umbrella works on a hierarchical basis- a few, selected employees have access to workspace documents and will only disclose them if absolutely required. Principally, it sounds leak-proof and you can easily refrain extra people from accessing important internal information. But is it leak-proof in practical, day-to-day office bearings?
Information sharing is an essential part of any organization’s routine jobs because it not only helps employees in moulding their future plans for the company, but is also vital in knowing how the firm has impacted the society at large. For an organization like Meta, which is one of the leading names in digital space, that has and continues to shape the culture and perspectives of many young people around the world- the social responsibility becomes even more because of its ethical impact. Not only is it necessary, but it is crucial that sensitive information and trends should be shared in a way that is constructive, forward-looking and positive to people.
Winding Up
We, at Kinex Media, think that to condemn Meta is a personal choice because the sensitive information that is now public, is something that the world leaders have to deal with. Putting barriers on social media at a personal as well as social level is a choice we all make.
The question of internal information sharing and how is something Meta will have to re-structure because, in the end, their employees are human with human traits like conscience, morals and decision-making powers. It will be interesting to see how they work around this problem in the long term.
