Organizational analysis paper negotiation

Running head: CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AT FACEBOOK
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Conflict management at Facebook
Introduction
Facebook is one of the most popular and fastest-growing social networks. It was created
by Mark Zukerberg in 2004. On this website, the user will register with an account that contains
a username and password. By creating this Facebook users can fill their information and personal
details in their profile. They can upload their whereabouts, status, photos, and videos. It brought
more craze in the younger generation as connecting with friends became very easy. People from
different countries are users of Facebook and communication has been maintaining all the time.
There was a conflict raised in Facebook which was about a psychological survey conducted on
Facebook without the user permissions. It has been working for many years with social scientists
to understand the social behavior of the users. In this paper, we are discussing about the
background of the conflict and how it got raised in the company. We also discuss the conflict
resolution that took place on Facebook (Deschaux-Dutard, 2016).
Background
In 2014, a psychological survey took place on Facebook without the knowledge of the
users. Nearly this experiment was conducted on 700000 users without any proper permissions.
To this Facebook faced widespread criticism from many people. In the study, it was revealed that
social researchers manipulated the user moods by exposing them to more positive and negative
posts than any other usual posts. From the initial stages, Facebook has been engaged in a more
kind way and always it asks for a psychological experiment before it conducts (Hadjipanayis,
2019). It always offers users the options about the surveys it takes and also provides options to
report the content also.
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There are many kinds of situations in Facebook developers for conducting psychological
tests. There has been very much cyberbullying in Facebook and to address the issues it offered
the users to violate the terms of the service. The company was under constant pressure about the
cyberbullying act among the younger people. They want to understand it deeply and conducted
the survey. They did it on purpose to look for ways to help the users and address their conflicts
and disputes.
Escalating the conflict
This psychological survey issue was first revealed by the scientific paper published in
March (Kanwal, 2019). They published like Facebook was hiding a small percentage of the
emotional words from the user’s news feed without their knowledge and the proper permissions.
To test this, the effect took place on the statuses or the likes when they posted or else reacted for.
They said that this was one of the ongoing research that usually companies do for testing their
company products and this incident was similar to it. But the thing is it was poorly
communicated and this statement was said by Facebook’s chief operating officer Sandberg. She
even apologized for the poor communication on these psychological experiments.
When the incident revealed through a paper, the company said that it was never meant to
upset the users as Facebook always works on giving the best for their users and provides a better
place for communication. This incident created an impact on the users and competitors used this
for doing negative abuses on Facebook. As the company is not caring about the emotions of the
people and doing the surveys without their knowledge (Kyriacou, 2016). Once it got revealed,
Facebook immediately responded by passing the apology statement and mentioned that their
intention was never to hurt the users but it was due to poor communication. One deputy
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executive to Zukerberg said that this experiment was covered by the terms and services which
took place on Tuesday.
For conducting these secret tests, the company faced an inquiry by the UK’s information
commissioner (W, 2018). But the publishers of the paper who revealed the incident said that they
will investigate whether any ethical breaches took place in this incident. But these psychological
tests on the human subjects should be performed with the proper permissions from the
participants. But this was disagreed by the researchers and Facebook as it will depend on the
terms and policies. The first public comment on Facebook is about the experiment that came out
on the social network as it tried to attract the Indian advertisers as a part of its efforts to correct
the advertisements which are from outside the U.S.
Conflict Resolution
Facebook apologized for conducting the psychological survey but it also mentioned that
it was not to hurt the users and happened due to lack of proper communication. For many several
years, social networking websites have been working with social scientists to bring up better
methods for dispute resolution in cyberspace. The site has started to offer some tools to the users
for resolving disputes with one another in case of any offensive posts and insulting photos or
videos. The technology has increased so far and the social website is providing a space for
cyberbullying. The main aim of this psychological survey is to study whether positive or
negative words in the messages will lead to positive or any kind of negative content on their
status updates (Deschaux-Dutard, 2016).
The researchers in the company decided after changing the news feed content of the
people where there was some emotion is involved across the social network. In which people say
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that if one emotion was expressed then they would express similar emotions. The deputy chief
executive said that they handle the security and privacy at Facebook which is really serious as it
includes allowing people to share something which might be their emotions or opinions. The UK
data protection investigated this incident to know whether Facebook crossed any UK law like
ethical breaches (Hadjipanayis, 2019).
To resolve this issue, Facebook created message templates that allow the users to explain
the objective of particular posts. For example, in case of any cyber incidents, they can select the
options like it’s embarrassing, or else it’s a bad photo, etc. There will be different options and the
users can select according to their wish. They were also asked to state about the offensive posts
and how they will make them feel. Facebook said that the new dispute resolution will be
effective and convenient to the users. They also included service for online dispute resolution in
case of major cyber issues, which is e-mediation. It also added a research policy to its terms and
conditions after four months of the incident. So in case, they conducted any research it will be
included in the policies themselves.
Other approaches to resolve the conflict
For this psychological research, the company also faced huge criticism from the other
companies, commentators, and researchers for handling this experiment that was not explained to
the users and conducted without their permission. They referred to this as a creepy, evil, and
terrifying incident. Even though they have done this research on the behalf of the security issues
raising in Facebook in terms of cyberbullying (Hadjipanayis, 2019). They took this survey to
analyze the positive and negative aspects of the users. But this went completely wrong and faced
many challenges.
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AT FACEBOOK
The knowledge I gained so far from this concept, is the duty of the company to
understand the circumstances that come out of the issues. They have to analyze before and
should take care of it. Because we know how popular Facebook is and how this survey
questioned the ethics of the company. So priory if Facebook asked access for the survey, it
would be in another way. In the time of resolution also, it would be good if Facebook sent a
message to the users and explained about the survey taken. Because the survey was conducted
for the good deeds of the users (W, 2018). The researchers and social scientists always need
some points to do a survey and here it went with the user’s emotions which created a negative
impact. Adding research on the terms and policies is good work done by Facebook. Because in
future also there will be no issues if any survey took place.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, we understood that Facebook conducted a psychological
survey in 2014 on 700000 users without their permission or any prior intimation. This raised an
issue in public and a scientific paper revealed the issue acknowledging that Facebook is playing
with the emotions of the users. But the intention of Facebook was never wrong or hurt the users.
It has done the survey just to know about the positive and negative posts on Facebook as
cyberbullying is increasing a lot. But the only thing that happened is it did not take any kind of
permission from the users. This case was investigated by UK data protection to know whether
the company crossed any privacy laws. Even the scientific paper that revealed the issue wants to
investigate the case to know any ethical breach took place. But they found later such kinds of
things did not happen. But the company immediately apologized for the inconvenience caused
and explained that their intention is never bad. It happened just because of some poor
communication. But later on, it resolved the conflict by including some security options for any
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kind of offensive posts and also added research options in their terms and policies (Kanwal,
2019).
References
Deschaux-Dutard, D. (2016). Cyber security in the European Union: resilience and adaptability
in governance policy. By George Christou. International Affairs, 92(4), 1009–1010.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12677
Hadjipanayis, A., Efstathiou, E., Altorjai, P., Stiris, T., Valiulis, A., Koletzko, B., & Fonseca, H.
(2019). Social media and children: what is the paediatrician’s role? European Journal of
Pediatrics, 178(10), 1605–1612. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-019-03458-w
Halim W.(2018) Young Islamic preachers on Facebook: Pesantren As’adiyah and its engagement
with social media. Indonesia & the Malay World. 2018;46(134):44-60.
https://doi:10.1080/13639811.2018.1416796
Kyriacou, C., & Zuin, A. (2016). Cyberbullying and moral disengagement: an analysis based on
a social pedagogy of pastoral care in schools. Pastoral Care in Education, 34(1), 34–42.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2015.1134631
Kanwal, H., & Jami, H. (2019). Exploring Modes, Strategies, and Psychosocial Consequences of
Cyberbullying Perpetration and Victimization Among University Students. Pakistan
Journal of Psychological Research, 34(4), 787–817.
https://doi.org/10.33824/PJPR.2019.34.4.43
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