Meta: Mega Layoffs at Meta (2022)

One of 11,000 laid off employees

Abstract

Meta is a company that was originally founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. Initially known as Facebook, it was a social media site where people could gather online in one place to connect with friends and family, meet new people, join neighborhood groups, and share whatever they felt like sharing. The social media world was still somewhat new in 2004 but over the next decade it grew immensely with Facebook leading the way and buying out any competitor that threatened their position. In 2012, Facebook filed an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and joined the stock market with their initial value being assessed at 104 billion dollars. Over the years Facebook bought Instagram, and Whatsapp among other buyouts further solidifying their place as one of the world's most valuable companies. In March 2020 when the Covid global pandemic hit, Facebook had 48,268 employees. With a pandemic forcing millions of people to be online more, Mark Zuckerberg saw that as an opportunity for growth and he went all in. In October, 2021 Facebook was receiving 97.5% of its revenue from advertising and in that same month Zuckerberg decided to rebrand. Meta was the new name and now the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc. By September 2022, Meta had now employed 87,314 and surely a genius such as Zuckerberg prioritized his employees and put the health/happiness of his staff, and the privacy of his online user base ahead of any personal gain or success of his company. Or did he?

Ethics Case Controversy

Facebook was known as one of the Big 5 of American IT companies along with Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Zuckerberg was cruising along from the time he created the company in 2004 until the start of the pandemic. There were some controversies regarding Facebook and the 2016 presidential election that will be addressed later, but for the most part Facebook was thriving and Zuckerberg was loving every minute of it. When the pandemic hit and millions of people spent more time at home and online using Facebook, Netflix, TikTok, etc there was a huge influx of advertising money because the usage on these platforms skyrocketed. Mark Zuckerberg in his layoff letter to employees said "Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments.” (LayoffLetter) He later goes on to admit that he was wrong and takes ownership, but one has to wonder if this potential huge layoff wasn’t a fall back he was planning on. The pandemic was terrible and millions died but I don’t think anyone thought that the pandemic was going to last forever. Even at the height of the pandemic there were tons of people still denying its seriousness and wanting it to end. How then, did Mark Zuckerberg and a team he likely pays very well get this prediction so wrong. Did they really assume that online usage would remain as high during the pandemic as when it was over? Or did the company know they had to hire and sell quickly to take advantage of the increase during the pandemic and never worried or cared that at some point in the future they’d have to lay off a large percentage of their staff. 

The pandemic alone can’t be fully to blame for Meta having to lay off 13,000 or 13% of its workforce. The rebranding to Meta at the same time Facebook was seeing record profits also should be called into question. In October, 2021 Zuckerberg came out saying he was rebranding and created Meta which stood for the metaverse. He saw this as the future of social media but why now, when the company was so successful did he make this change. Two months prior, an ex-product manager at Facebook Frances Haugen became a whistleblower against Facebook. She produced tons of evidence and testified before the SEC (securities exchange commission) and the US Congress, and on 60 Minutes with information showing how unethical and shady Facebook and Zuckerberg had been. “The documents paint a picture of a company that is often aware of the harms to which it contributes—but is either unwilling or unable to act against them.” (Time) She showed evidence of how Facebook knew they were spreading misinformation throughout the 2016 election, misinformation throughout a deadly pandemic, and the mental health effects of Instagram usage for teens, among others. She also said how Facebook was lying to shareholders about the value and direction of the company. She made the claim and had evidence to support it that Facebook put profit over safety and that they willingly ignored the dangers of their platform in order to make money. Facebook came out and denied her reports saying that they spend five billion every year keeping their platforms safe. Eight other whistleblowers came out after Haugen did against Facebook. Facebook stock fell after these reports but within two months Zuckerberg “rebranded” but was that just a way to change names and hide behind the guilt that Haugen had already laid out. 

Another huge controversy that further declined Meta’s profits in 2022 was the reports that Meta had provided personal data information to a group of hackers posing as Law Enforcement. In March 2022 it was reported that hackers compromised emails of police and sent “emergency data requests” to Meta for users' home addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses and other subscriber information. This is troublesome if you’re a user of the platform because you trust a company like Meta to protect your information. “Facebook has been scrutinized for its handling of user data for years following reports that Cambridge Analytics obtained data on tens of millions of the platform’s users.” (Bloomberg) This is another example like Haugen said above where Meta puts profit over privacy.

Stakeholders

The main stakeholders within Meta are its individual users, its shareholders, employees both current and terminated, and its advertisers. According to Bloomberg as of October 2022, there are currently 3.71 billion users across all of Meta’s platforms. That’s a lot of personal data information that people trust Meta to protect. Shareholders are people that own shares of a company and buy into the company hoping to make money. Vanguard, Fidelity etc are large shareholders of Meta and likely if you have a retirement account you are also a shareholder of Meta since it's been a huge successful company for so long. At the end of September before laying off 11,000 Meta employed 87,314. This number would include Mark Zuckerberg himself but not ex-employees like whistleblower Frances Haugen and countless others. It is estimated that Meta has over three million advertisers that pay for ads across Meta’s platforms. It’s easy to see that a company like Meta has lots of stakeholders that trust Zuckerberg to lead both a  successful and ethical company. 

Individualism

According to economist Milton Friedman “the only goal of a business is to profit, so the only obligation that the business person has is to maximize profit for the owner or the stockholders within the law or the rules of the game.” (Salazar_Slides) He fully believed in a free market and capitalistic society where companies can make as much money as they want even when they don’t value their employees, or value their customers' privacy. Individualism prioritizes the profit of the owner and stockholders ahead of what could be morally right like creating a safe work environment. During the Covid pandemic, Mark Zuckerberg took a chance that social media use would remain high and advertising dollars would keep coming in. In a span of 2.5 years from 3/20 until 9/22 he increased his staff working at Meta by 80%. Meta hired more people to maximize his profit and the profit of his company. According to Yahoo Finance, each share of Facebook stock on 3/4/2020 was worth $163.90 and by 9/6/2021 it was worth $375.88. That is an increase per share of almost 130%. Safe to say that Zuckerberg and the shareholders profited a lot from his decision to double down on the pandemic. Zuckerberg took a risk knowing full well that the jobs he promised people might not last, but he needed their commitment to Meta in order for the company to make this huge profit. He swung big and missed though since the advertising dollars stopped rolling in after the pandemic both due to reduced online usage, competition from other social media sites, and negative publicity from ex employees like Haugen. By 10/31/2022 each share was now only worth $98.22 and within weeks is when Meta laid off 11,000 workers. What Zuckerberg did doesn’t violate any laws and he prioritized his own profit and the profit of his shareholders ahead of the jobs his employees depended on. An Individualist like Friedman would be ok with Zuckerberg laying off any amount he needed at Meta as long as it kept profits rolling in. 

Share price of Meta 3/2020 through 12/2022

Utilitarianism

    Utilitarianism is a theory that allows for actions that maximize the most happiness in yourself and others. “Happiness or pleasure are the only things of intrinsic value” (Salazar_Slides) Utilitarianism believes that you should always tell the truth even if it doesn’t create happiness and that lying is morally impermissible. Trying to figure out if each Meta stakeholder's happiness was maximized in Zuckerberg’s decision to lay off 11,000 is a hard one to determine. It’s been shown that Meta has over 3 billion stakeholders but not each person was affected in the same way with the layoffs. Firstly you’d assume that the 11,000 that were laid off and their families were affected the worst in that they lost their job and source of income and who knows how long it could take them to get employment equal to what they had. In their declining profit and news of layoffs millions of shareholders saw the money they had invested in Meta drop as the share price dropped so they would be unhappy with the layoff decision.  Utilitarianism would likely be ok with sacrificing the happiness of the 11,000 that lost their jobs and the profit loss for the shareholders that invested because laying off those workers could be needed for the future success of Meta. Utilitarianism would see that there are 3.71 billion users across Meta platforms that use social media which makes them happy. Online users' short term happiness isn’t as profound as losing your job. Since there are significantly more people receiving happiness from Meta’s platforms than those that lost their jobs, a Utilitarianist would see the layoff decision as a good one since it allowed for the most people to be happy. 

Kantianism

Meta’s layoff passed the Utilitarianism theory but it definitely does not pass the Kantianism theory. According to Kants, there is only one right motivation to do something and that’s because it is simply the right thing to do. Obviously laying off 11,000 workers 6 weeks before Christmas is not the right thing to do, especially when you’re still a multi-billion dollar company. Kant defined morality using three Categorical Imperatives which are laws of rationality or logic. One of these imperatives is Humanity which means that we should always be fair and respectful and never treat people as a means to get something. Zuckerberg hired thousands of people likely knowing full well that social media usage wouldn’t remain as high as it was during the pandemic. He treated these people as a means to bring him more money knowing full well he would lay them off the minute they didn’t bring him value. Another problem that Kantians would find with Meta and Zuckerberg is that everything he did was motivated by self-interest. Hiring people, laying off people, selling personal data was all motivated by how it would impact his profit. Universal Law says that “you can act for that reason while at the same time willing that it be a universal law that everyone adopts that reason for acting.” (Salazar) Meta didn’t pass the universal law since their reason for acting was for profit and society would say the same for any other company that valued profits over people. 

Virtue Theory

CEO-Mark Zuckerberg

In looking at virtue theory Mark Zuckerberg would be the person to focus on as he is the CEO of Meta and all decisions are made and approved by him including the one to layoff 11,000 employees. There are four major virtues consisting of courage, temperance, justice, and honesty and does Zuckerberg appease these virtues in his daily role as CEO. Courage virtue consists of taking risks and having the courage to take a stand for the right ideas. Zuckerberg definitely took big risks as CEO of Meta in thinking that online usage would remain high, he thought it would continue so he hired tons of people, he spent money on new programs and invested further in the metaverse. Zuckerberg wouldn’t be as successful as he is without taking risks and he did stand up to the ideas he had that he thought would succeed so therefore he passes the Courage virtue. The temperance virtue is one that forces self control and It holds us accountable for our work and actions. Temperance slows things down and allows you to look at the bigger picture beyond what might be happening today. Zuckerberg wouldn’t pass the temperance virtue because he showed no real self control in jumping to hire thousands during the pandemic. If he had thought long term he would have seen that it was more likely online usage would drop as the pandemic went away. He could have predicted a future where those hired employees weren’t needed if he had shown some self-control instead of only seeing dollar signs early in the pandemic. Justice theory speaks for itself, were you a leader that was just and fair in your treatment of people. Did you work hard and were you honest and in this virtue Zuckerberg failed. As a CEO and leader if you make the wrong decisions and hire thousands of people only to lay them off a couple years later then that is not just. As the CEO Zuckerberg needs to take the blame for getting his prediction so wrong. Finally the fourth virtue is Honesty and was Zuckerberg honest in his treatment and hiring of employees and his treatment of customers and other companies he dealt with. Zuckerberg failed this virtue also since he hired people only for personal profit as I believe he knew this usage increase was going to be short term. He also wasn’t honest in what he did with customers' personal information in giving it to hackers.  

Justified Ethics Evaluation

In my opinion Mark Zuckerberg has failed in many ways ethically in protecting his employees right to work, his customers right to privacy, his platforms right to view honest and trustworthy material. Meta is a billion dollar company that should be held to a higher standard when it comes to being honest and fair and treating people with respect. I believe that Mark Zuckerberg knew that the pandemic wasn’t going to last forever and he hired thousands of people with the promise of good stable jobs. He used those people for 2.5 years for his own personal profit before laying off 11,000 of them. The fall of 2021 whistleblowers came out against Facebook and Zuckerberg with evidence as to the wrongdoings of the company. Just two months after these reports came out, Zuckerberg thought that by “rebranding” it would give him a fresh start. He wanted to ignore the problems the company had instead of facing them head on and dealing with them. After rebranding in the fall of 2021 to Meta the company continued to lose money. They saw a huge reduction in advertising money throughout 2022 due to the pandemic slowly ending. Meta also lost public faith when in March of 2022 it was found that they had given users personal data information to hackers. Meta lost money throughout 2022 until in November when Zuckerberg announced he was laying off 11,000 workers. While he did take blame for being wrong in predicting online usage would continue I think he was wrong in blaming competitors like Tik Tok or the fact that Apple was charging them more. Meta has a lot of internal problems and until Zuckerberg can take ownership of the many faults they have instead of blaming it on other things I believe we can expect more layoffs in their future. One of the biggest ethical problems I have with his decision to lay off is that “in 2020, Facebook, Inc. spent $19.7 million on lobbying, hiring 79 lobbyists. Facebook was the largest spender of lobbying money among the 5 Big Tech companies in 2020.” (Bloomberg) If they are spending that much on wasteful lobbying they could have figured out a way to not lay off 11,000 hard workers 6 weeks before Christmas.

Conclusion

In conclusion Zuckerberg is one of the richest and powerful business minds of mine and likely most generations. He surrounds himself with some of the smartest people to maintain a company that almost 4 billion users rely on. I can’t talk to the complexities of how hard it must be for Mark Zuckerberg. I can however talk to the basic decencies of human interactions and treating people. Never should a person's well-being be second to your personal profit. Never should false information or science denying platforms be openly shared so easily that can hurt real people. Never should personal information be sold because it can make someone a profit. Zuckerberg might think the metaverse is the future of social media, but before we get there he has a responsibility to be moral and just and honest and truthful to all of Meta’s stakeholders, today, tomorrow, and in the metaverse. 

Facebook-Meta Timeline

Major events from the creation of Facebook to their rebranding to META to their layoff of 11,000

2/2004 → MARK ZUCKERBERG FOUNDED FACEBOOK

1/2012 → FACEBOOK FILED IPO, COMPANY VALUED AT 104 BILLION

2/2012 → FACEBOOK BOUGHT WHATSAPP FOR 19 BILLION

3/2012 → FACEBOOK BOUGHT OCULUS VR FOR 2.3 BILLION

4/2012 → FACEBOOK BOUGHT INSTAGRAM FOR 1 BILLION

3/2020 → COVID PANDEMIC BEGINS - CURRENT EMPLOYEES 48,268

10/2021 → FACEBOOK RECEIVES 97.5% REVENUE FROM ADVERTISING

10/2021 → FACEBOOK NAME CHANGE TO META PLATFORMS, INC.

2/2022 → META REPORTS BIG DECLINE IN PROFITS FROM Q4

2/2022 → META LOSES 230 BILLION IN MARKET VALUE

3/2022 → NEWS REPORTS META GAVE PERSONAL DATA TO HACKERS

6/2022 → COO OF 14 YEARS ANNOUNCED SHE’S LEAVING META

7/2022 → FIRST EVER REPORTED YEARLY REVENUE DECLINE BY 1%

9/2022 → META EMPLOYS 87,314, UP 80% SINCE PANDEMIC BEGAN

11/2022 → META LAYS OFF 11,000 OR 13% OF ITS WORKFORCE

Jake Harrison

Works Cited

Frenkel, Sheera, et al. “Meta Lays off More than 11,000 Employees.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/meta-layoffs-facebook.html.

“Mark Zuckerberg's Message to Meta Employees.” Meta, 9 Nov. 2022, https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/. 

Perrigo, Billy. “Why Whistleblower Frances Haugen Decided to Take on Facebook.” Time, Time, 22 Nov. 2021, https://time.com/6121931/frances-haugen-facebook-whistleblower-profile/. 

Person, and Katie Paul. “Exclusive: Meta Slashes Hiring Plans, Girds for 'Fierce' Headwinds.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 1 July 2022, https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-meta-girds-fierce-headwinds-slower-growth-second-half-memo-2022-06-30/. 

Turton, William. “Apple, Meta Gave User Data to Hackers with Forged Legal Requests (AAPL, FB).” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 30 Mar. 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-30/apple-meta-gave-user-data-to-hackers-who-forged-legal-requests. 

Wagner, Kurt. “Meta Freezes Hiring, Cuts Headcount, Slashes Budgets across Teams.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 29 Sept. 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-29/meta-announces-hiring-freeze-warns-employees-of-restructuring?srnd=premium#xj4y7vzkg.

Meta Incorporated: 11,000 Employees Left Jobless After Layoffs (2022)

ETHICS CASE CONTROVERSY 

The four cofounders of Facebook

On February 4th, 2004, “The Facebook” was launched by four college students at Harvard University – Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, would become one of the largest social media platforms in the world, amassing three billion user profiles in 2021, the most it has ever seen, half of which were using the site every day to share photos, post status updates, and for the promotion of businesses and political campaigns.

Every large company has its fair share of problems, and for Facebook, privacy issues were one of the major ones that often-caused users to question the platform’s credibility. One large scandal that put Facebook in the headlines for privacy concerns was the Cambridge Analytica Scandal in 2016. Facebook had exposed the data of close to 87 million Facebook users to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm which worked for the Trump Campaign. A Russian-American researcher who worked for CA at the time, engineered an app using the Facebook App that allowed users to take a quiz that would expose their data to CA but also the data of their friends when CA discovered a loophole in Facebook’s programming interface. This, in addition to many other privacy incidents have caused many users to delete their accounts and stop using the platform parent platform Facebook, and Instagram, another social media platform that was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion. 

From the start of the company, no one could have predicted the magnitude in which Facebook would grow. Zuckerberg made company history in October of 2021, when Facebook Incorporated changed its name to Meta Platforms Incorporated to reflect an emphasis on their newfound mission towards building the “metaverse,” which would eventually allow users to interact in virtual reality environments (Rodriguez, 2021). The company has made it clear that augmented and virtual reality would become a key part of its growth strategy in the upcoming years. With this being an extensive and costly project for the company, we begin to see it encounter massive hurdles that make the public and their shareholders question whether there is a company for this once high-flying company. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic, every person was forced to move online, and that meant increased time shopping online, thereby significantly boosting e-commerce, and more time browsing social media for hours on end – Meta and other platforms like it took full advantage of this. Over the course of the pandemic, the company underwent a massive hiring spree. The rationale for this was because the pandemic pushed everyone to accelerate online activity and the company had predicted this trend to be permanent. Because of this, not only did Facebook want to recruit and retain the brightest talent, but so did every other large company who followed Facebook in doing so – namely Twitter and Amazon. Facebook in particular needed to invest in numerous personnel to oversee everyday operations with work-from-home jobs and moderation for their platform (Frenkel, 2022). Over the course of two years, Meta continued to hire without deeming it necessary to do so. Little did they all know, Meta had miscalculated big time believing that this trend would be sustainable. 

This miscalculation would cost Meta, and many others big time, In October of 2022, Meta’s stock plummets after having a “dismal earnings report” (Yang, 2022) to end the third quarter, yet again. This caused Meta’s capitalization to be wiped off more than $65 billion by investors when it finally joined the economic slowdown. With rising competition from short-video platforms such as TikTok, falling sales and users, and rising costs, the company’s net income in the third quarter fell by 44% to $4.4 Billion, below analysts’ estimates for $5 billion with revenues also falling by 4%, depicting the slowest growth pace since going public in 2012 (Murphy, 2022). This caused low faith from investors and shareholders, as they all had a hard time seeing the vision for the Metaverse turning things around for the company. 

In September of 2022, Meta Platforms had amassed its largest ever number of workers, totaling 87,314 people – this is where they realize they would need to make major changes amidst the rising economy before they are unable to recover. On November 9th of 2022, Mark Zuckerberg announces layoffs and job cuts for 11,000 individuals, making up 13% of their workforce – a number that made history. Zuckerberg announces that the company is also taking steps to become leaner and cut spending as well as enacting a hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023 (Vanian, 2022). Although these layoffs were made across all departments and regions, most of them affected areas like recruiting and business teams. Less engineers were affected as they are an essential part of building up Zuckerberg’s vision of the “Metaverse.” 

STAKEHOLDERS 

Mike Schroepfer, former CTO of
Meta and top shareholder

The layoffs came amid a tough time for Meta and with the projections for fourth quarter earnings announced in late October of this year, investors were “spooked”, and this caused their shares to sink by nearly 20%. Investors have raised concerns about Meta’s rising costs and expenses, which jumped 19% year over year in the third quarter to $22.1 billion (Vanian, 2022). Analysts and investors are both losing confidence in the company because despite their decisions for cost cuts and hiring freezes, expenses in 2023 are expected to reach an all-time high at $96-$100 billion, a large sum compared to 2022’s total expected expenses, totaling $85-$87 billion. During this period, Meta was facing intense investor scrutiny for spending so heavily on the Metaverse project – Zuckerberg's vision of building an “avatar filled world” (Murphy, 2022). Zuckerberg continues to reassure them by warning that these promises of efficiency will take time and patience. Wall Street Analyst, Brent Thill sides with investor concerns and says: “There are too many experimental bets versus proven bets in the core.” Needless to say, investors are worried about Meta platforms and rightfully so, but according to Zuckerberg, these efforts will be “of historic importance” to create a basis for an entirely new way for humans to interact with one another and “blend technology into our lives” (Yang, 2022). 

INDIVIDUALISM 

Milton Friedman, an economist and a Nobel prize winner for economics rose to prominence in the 1970’s. His theory of Individualism states that a business’ only goal is profit. Therefore, the only obligation that a business has is to maximize profit for itself and its shareholders within the law. Generally, this theory holds true with some exceptions, some of which are the social identity of the company and of the leaders. There are many investors, customers, and employees who wish to be involved with socially responsible businesses meaning ethically sound businesses and those who profit within the law, seeing as social responsibility can generate profit. Just because something is legal, does not make it ethical and this is emphasized by Tibor Machan who believes that the direct goal of profiting may need to be met by indirect goals that are not aimed at profiting. Businesspeople may have other goals and social objectives but must prioritize profit-maximizing strategies. 

Under the circumstances, Meta was reporting growth rates at all-time lows since going public and declines in revenue and net income. These declines are dismal to their shareholders and the company’s growth, especially one of this magnitude. The aftermath of the layoffs was mixed – some former employees were glad and wanted to explore the next chapter of their lives, while others were devastated and immediately went searching for new opportunities, seeing as the cost of living only continues to rise, especially in highly populated areas in the country, where many have relocated for their position at Meta. Mark Zuckerberg and Meta set certain goals for the company, and to achieve those goals, this was the decision he had to make. There is no denying how empathetic and apologetic he was during the announcement of the layoffs, and he was saddened to let his talent go under these circumstances. This is ultimately the decision he had to make to maximize his company’s profit as expenses are only going to increase. This was in the best interest of his company and stockholders. 

UTILITARIANISM

What makes something good? When we think about something that is good, we are typically searching for some intrinsic value. Our attitudes and preferences influence our happiness and usually, all actions are aimed at something good and will bring us happiness. Utilitarianism, founded by John Stuart Mill emphasizes that we should bring about happiness and pleasure in all beings that can feel it. When there is a perfectly imperfect mix of egoism and altruism, we get utilitarianism, an ethical concept that wants humans to maximize happiness for ourselves and for others. Meta heavily contradicts this theory, as the company could have avoided a lot of the adversity that is currently being endured by his former employees. 

Meta layoffs provided a good example of ends not justifying the means – it is hard for utilitarianism to hold true in all cases, no matter how much we wish it could. Under these circumstances, the Meta layoffs could have been avoided if Zuckerberg wasn’t blinded by the social media boom amid the pandemic. The CEO should have looked into the future and considered his employees’ futures during his rapid hiring spree rather than making rash decisions dictated by greed. The employees that were hired at this time and were laid off, would have been better off finding a more permanent and stable career elsewhere. According to Mill, this decision was highly unethical and selfish of the CEO and shareholders, who should have found a middle ground with their employees, which would have been making other cuts outside of employment and provided employees the option to sever their relationship with the company peacefully rather than being forced to unexpectedly without warning. 

KANTIANISM 

Immanuel Kant was a German Philosopher and was one of the primary thinkers of the Enlightenment. The basic principles Kantianism consists of rational decisions through consistent behavior, and respect for individual autonomy, needs and differences. He pushes humans to evaluate whether certain actions are coming from good will. In the business context, this theory implies that businesses and businesspeople have an obligation to treat everyone with respect, and this treatment is an obligation regardless of one's goals or missions – meaning that the desire to make profit or for any other outcome cannot be a reason to treat people without respect and fairness. To help individuals reason with their decisions, Kant created the Categorical Imperative. The Formula of Humanity is one of the most prominent moral formulations within the categorical imperative which states that exploiting and using others in order to fulfill a desire is unethical and may involve manipulation tactics that deprive them of their rationality (Salazar 2014). 

In the case of the Meta layoffs, it was clear that there was a discrepancy between what Zuckerberg did, and the Formula of Humanity. In this case, we see that the intention behind the massive hiring spree that Meta underwent during the pandemic was so they were able to acquire the biggest and brightest talent – talent that they could use to get ahead of competitors. But the layoffs make it evident that these employees were dispensable, and their talents were utilized but once it became a burden to the company to pay them for what they’re worth, it was quite easy for them to just cut ties with these employees and because of this, there was a clear violation to the Formula of Humanity. There is a motive behind every business decision, whether the motive was to intentionally do damage or not, decisions that businesses like Meta make such as these layoffs will impact every component associated with the company. In the case of the Meta layoffs, the apology that was released by Zuckerberg to his employees and the CEO’s general reputation showed that there was no real intention to do any harm to the affected individuals here. Although, it would be difficult to argue the moral permissibility of Meta’s actions considering the former employees were not allowed to vouch for themselves so therefore, there was no respect for these individuals’ autonomy and rationality. 

VIRTUE THEORY

Snippet of Mark Zuckerberg from leaked 
video call where he apologized to those
affected by the layoffs.

When we take the time to think about our personality, we should take the time to ask ourselves if there are traits within our personality that positively contribute to our growth and our social responsibility. In an ideal world, we would all want to avoid viciousness or unfavorable traits. This virtue theory differs from the previous three ethical theories but lay the foundation for a business’ ethics and moral code. This theory is comprised of four main virtues: courage, honesty, temperance, and justice. 

One of the virtues that Zuckerberg demonstrates is honesty. Once he himself was able to come to terms with the fact that his company numbers were declining. Though, there is a gray area where we are unsure if Mark Zuckerberg only came clean about his company’s numbers because he couldn’t run from it, or if he genuinely wanted to be transparent with his team, shareholders, and users. Regardless, his display of transparency gained him and Meta a sum of respect, but unfortunately didn’t mask the decline in Meta’s numbers. 

Another virtue displayed by Zuckerberg is courage. He apologizes in the letter announcing the layoffs: “I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.” By doing so, he demonstrated that he had the ability to take accountability for his own actions without placing blame on others. This is a trait of a exemplary leader, which he possesses. 

In addition to this letter the CEO attempts to make things right post layoffs for the individuals affected, demonstrating justice. Zuckerberg did what he could to make this time as easy as possible by offering impacted employees 16 weeks of pay along with two additional weeks for each year of service to Meta. Plus, health insurance will remain covered for six months (Vanian, 2022). The CEO is aware of what this decision has done and how it would potentially affect his former employees, and he attempts to reconcile these wrongs. 

Although Zuckerberg demonstrates a majority of the four main virtues, he does not exemplify temperance. There was a lack of self-control throughout the course of two years leading to the layoffs. The CEO’s overambitious behavior ultimately led him to burn bridges with many people—his former employees, shareholders, many Meta users. The potential that he sees in the future of Meta and the formation of the “Metaverse” blinded him and motivated him to make decisions that were irrational and impulsive. Because of this lack of temperance, there are now 11,000 individuals fighting for their livelihood. 

JUSTIFICATED ETHICS EVALUATION

In retrospect, it is quite easy to shame Meta and Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook parent company, Meta for laying off so many employees. These employees are people who do work to make a living and are very dependent on their careers in the company. We look at Meta and how long they’ve been a prominent social platform, one that almost all of us use or have used at one point and it’s difficult for us to wrap our brains around the fact that they couldn’t keep the 11,000 people on their payroll. The reality is the state of the economy proving to carry rising expenses and costs will make this almost impossible for Meta to sustain while remaining in business. 

Meta’s active user count has been steadily decreasing for quite some time now and we are all aware of where Zuckerberg wants to take the company – to the Metaverse. This requires the company to invest as much time and finances into the project as they can sustain in order to execute this vision that Zuckerberg has for his company. When we have a vision for what is essentially our livelihood, we want to do what we can to help it come to fruition and this is what Zuckerberg did. In this case, it was evident that the CEO did not want to burn bridges with the people that contributed so much to his company’s growth and success.

After the layoffs, there is no denying that his decision has paid off. There were signs of growth instantaneously as Meta’s stock rose 5.2% by end of day November 9th, the day of the layoffs and closed at $101.47. While there is a huge deficit the company still must reconcile, it continues to persist and analysts, while skeptical, attempts to put their faith in the power and potential that Facebook holds. Not only was the CEO struggling, but there would be losses for his investors and other shareholders if he didn’t make this executive choice – Zuckerberg did so compassionately and with transparency. Therefore, his actions were ethical and justified. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Chang, Alvin. “The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Explained with a Simple Diagram.” Vox, Vox, 23 Mar. 2018, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram. 

Frenkel, Sheera, et al. “Meta Lays off More than 11,000 Employees.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/meta-layoffs-facebook.html. 

Kelly, Jack. “Meta Lays off 11,000 Workers-How to Cope with Being Downsized and Prepare for a Difficult Job Market.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 10 Nov. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/11/09/meta-lays-off-11000-workers-how-to-cope-with-being-downsized-and-prepare-for-a-difficult-job-market/?sh=5ca637862a80. 

Murphy, Hannah. “Meta's Value Plunges More than $65 Billion amid Falling Sales, Rising Costs.” Ars Technica, Financial Times, 27 Oct. 2022, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/metas-value-plunges-more-than-65-billion-amid-falling-sales-rising costs/#:~:text=The%20company%20estimated%202022%20total,costs%20and%20freeze%20most%20hiring. 

Vanian, Jonathan. “Meta Laying off More than 11,000 Employees: Read Zuckerberg's Letter Announcing the Cuts.” CNBC, CNBC, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/meta-to-lay-off-more-than-11000-thousand-employees.html. 

Yang, Mary. “Facebook Parent Meta Is Having a No-Good, Horrible Day after Dismal Earnings Report.” NPR, NPR, 27 Oct. 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1131705422/facebook-meta-earnings-stock-price-fall-metaverse#:~:text=via%20Getty%20Images-,Meta's%20tumble%20in%20share%20price%20on%20Thursday%20was%20the%20market's,the%20Facebook%20parent's%20bottom%20line. 

Capoot, Ashley. “Meta Shares Pop 5% as Wall Street Rallies around Layoffs.” CNBC, CNBC, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/meta-stock-up-as-wall-street-rallies-around-layoffs.html. 

Hall, Mark. “Facebook.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 18 Oct. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Facebook. 

Ingram, David, and Rima Abdelkader. “Meta Employees Post about Layoffs after More than 11,000 Jobs Are Cut.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-layoffs-lay-offs-mark-zuckerberg-jobs-employees-how-many-rcna56425. 

Rodriguez, Salvador. “Facebook Changes Company Name to Meta.” CNBC, CNBC, 29 Oct. 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/facebook-changes-company-name-to-meta.html#:~:text=The%20new%20name%20reflects%20the,playing%20in%20a%20virtual%20world. 

Salazar, Heather. “The Business Ethics Case Manual: The Authoritative Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Improving the Ethics of Any Business.” 2014.

Facebook Controversy on Misleading Information Regarding the Election (2016-2020)

Facebook Taking Action Against Misinformation and Fixing Past Mistakes 

    Facebook, created and developed by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has become one of the world’s biggest social media giants. However, exceptional growth does not come without backlash. Over the years, Facebook has had many lawsuits and allegations pressed against them and how they continue to operate within the world of social networking, social media, and the vast spread of news information. When it comes to the United States specifically, the comprehensive, widespread news of false information regarding the elections has taken a toll on the company's ethics and standing. This specifically happened during the 2016 election regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal regarding Facebook’s policy to protect its data. Facebook has the ability with its algorithms and data knowledge of users to know almost everything about them. Since more of this has come to face over the years through documentaries and new articles, more people have begun to notice the effects. Once the realization was brought to light during the 2016 election, Facebook eventually admitted to its wrongs and decided to step up the data protection and how things would move forward when it came to the next election. They had published an article regarding how they plan to do this, which developed a whole new mainframe regarding the election. They even opened “The Elections Operations Center” to oversee the postings and add the additions to each post concerning the election. Overall there are still some flaws within the system they created, and some things can pass by. Even with those flaws, Facebook always does its best to provide everyone with an equal opportunity for the election, and they are continuing to stop the spread of misinformation.

Case Controversy 

    Facebook, one of the major social media giants, has had some backlash over the years regarding how it handles the United States elections. This controversy majorly stemmed from the 2016 United States Elections, where everyone was caught off guard regarding information put out onto social media. At the same time, all social media networks and applications continue to grow. Facebook continues to grow heavily throughout the years, reaching over “223.03 million users” (Clement, J.)  only in the United States. The main issue brought to light is how do you manage what over 233.03 million users are doing every millisecond of the day? Individuals are posting, sharing, watching videos that are sometimes live, and liking posts, especially when it comes to such a sensitive topic as the election.

Timeline of Facebook's Events

    While there have been issues within the past with Facebook and another company Cambridge Analytica back during the 2016 elections, they did admit to their wrongdoings. They were adamant about correcting their mistakes from the past. The overview of the scandal back in 2016 was that Facebook was that the personal data of Facebook users was breached and violated by consumers. According to the Federal Trade Commission, “Facebook, Inc. will pay a record-breaking $5 billion penalty, and submit to new restrictions and a modified corporate structure that will hold the company accountable for the decisions it makes about its users’ privacy” (FTC) The fine was paid, and this is when Facebook set out to fix the wrongdoings in from the past. While there's always work to do and constant challenges present themselves with the evolving world, it has been proven through Facebook's efforts that they are trying to do what they believe is best for the individuals who use the platform. While also protecting the first amendment rights of Americans. The issue is shutting down the false information presented and determining whether it is indeed false or not. 

    Amongst all the other social media applications such as Twitter and Snapchat, Facebook is the only one that has put together a comprehensive plan across the applications it owns. Facebook also owns Instagram, so it is not listed as a different social media application above. Facebook developed a very in-depth comprehensive plan for the 2020 election, including but not limited to the displaying of information labels on posts about the election. Facebook stated, “In 2018, we launched our Elections Operations Center ahead of the US midterm elections…Through it, we bring together subject matter experts from across the company – including from our threat intelligence, data science, engineering, research, operations and legal teams – for real-time monitoring so that we can address potential abuse flowing across our network.” (Rosen, Guy)

Preview of what Facebook/ Instagram users saw during the 2020 Election.

This was proven during the few before the 2020 election; the warnings were posted on any posts pertaining to the election. Even during the election, Facebook and Instagram provided continuous updates, even before the news did. Please see the figures above and below for how this is displayed on their applications. Facebook has proven that it is trying to reduce the misinformation that can present itself within an election period. 

Preview of what Facebook/ Instagram users saw during the 2020 Election. 

    However, when it comes to this controversy’s opposing side, a recent CNN article spoke to how some misinformation is still presented. This article is based on activist researchers, claiming that “Facebook has failed to act on hundreds of posts that racked up millions of impressions and contain claims that the social media giant has previously identified as false or misleading.” (Fung, Brian) They claimed that these posts included false claims and information regarding President Donald Trump and the past Vice President Joe Biden. However, Facebook’s Guy Rosen, the VP of Integrity did refute this statement by saying that, “We remain the only company to partner with more than 70 fact-checking organizations, using AI to scale their fact-checks to millions of duplicate posts, and we are working to improve our ability to action on similar posts...There is no playbook for a program like ours, and we're constantly working to improve it.” (Fung, Brian) While Facebook does have a solid argument that they are one of the only companies to do this, they are still being questioned and pushed against in the media’s eyes. 

    Even without the election in general, Facebook has put up more priorities regarding false information.

Preview of what a Facebook/ Instagram user will see if they come across a post including false information.
Through an article published by Facebook by a few of its higher-up officials, they have stated numerous times how they plan to prevent the wrong information from being posted. The pictures show an example when a post includes incorrect information. In addition to the warning labels Facebook, “ For example, we reduce its distribution so fewer people see it — on Instagram, we remove it from Explore and hashtags, and on Facebook, we reduce its distribution in News Feed.” (Rosen, Guy, et al.) This is just another way that Facebook is working to protect its users, along with all of the other attributes mentioned before. 

Preview of what a Facebook/ Instagram user will see when they click on a post with false information.

Stakeholders

    The stakeholders in this controversy are individuals who use Facebook; they represent many stakeholders since there are 233.03 million users in the United States. The employees of Facebook, the stockholders, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It would also directly affect Erin Egan, the Chief Privacy Officer & Policy, and Guy Rosen, the Vice President of Integrity. Many positions have been created to serve the employee’s and consumers’ betterment, which is why positions such as; Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President of Integrity were developed to help the consumers better and protect Facebook's integrity.

Individualism

Over the years, Facebook has done its best to maintain profits while also being a social networking application and website. They have been able to make a profit through promotional ad campaigns and creating their advertising programs. This is all within the law as many different companies and people do digital advertising. With the usage of the Facebook platform, it is extraordinary the number of people another business can reach with Facebook Ad campaigns. However, there are many rules in place for someone to run an ad campaign on Facebook. Especially regarding the data and privacy policies. It’s simple if all the rules are not followed, then the ad will not be approved. This is one of the few ways Facebook makes money besides investors and stockholders in the company. Since Facebook is a free application to use, they had to broaden how they could generate revenues. The primary way besides some stockholders is the money they have in their Ad generation, which they are very strict with approving ads there is always a set amount of policies you have to adhere to and follow.

Utilitarianism 

When it comes to Utilitarianism and Facebook, not everyone will be happy with what others post online. Which frankly is the beauty of freedom of speech. However, this truly isn’t something Facebook can control unless it goes against their regulations and the effects that it has on the community guidelines. The main goal of utilitarianism is to maximize happiness in yourself (Facebook) and in others – do so impartially. Facebook has cracked down on the misinformation and false information being posted, which increased its position. Therefore the employees are taken care of, which doesn't directly affect them unless they are users of the application, but then again, they understand the restraint Facebook is going through. When it comes to Facebook users, Facebook has put out apologies and responses to past issues and how they are working to improve them. Such as the references above with how they planned to work on false information posts and election information. 

Kantianism 

Kantianism states that all rational decisions need to be ethical, and everyone should be treated rationally. In addition, when introducing the Formula of Humanity, which is to treat people as an end in themselves and not merely as a mere means. You should treat people as valuable and worthy of respect. Besides, you should never do things that inhibit people’s rationality, affecting their decision without them knowing. While with the news of misinformation back in 2016, individuals were affected by their data being shared, and that is not to be ignored; however, what needs to be noted is the clear and recent transparency of Facebook. Even back in 2016, they displayed all of their privacy policies and data on their website. In the past four years since then, they have made it even more evident on their website and posted several articles and messages from some of its higher-ranking officials. They have also taken action to protect the false information that users could be seeing, along with marketing information that pertains to the elections to make sure their users have full transparency. 

Virtue Theory 

Virtue theory is based on the four cardinal virtues; courage, honesty, temperance, and justice. While Facebook has genuinely displayed the courage to right their wrongdoings and to set the record straight on all accounts, they also continue to bounce back and right the wrongs which were unforeseen. When it comes to the virtue of honesty; to some, Facebook indeed might not have been honest at all points in time, while they have genuinely been entirely unaware or not of privacy issues before they were brought to the light; they did admit to being in the wrong, and they did make corrections from past mistakes. When it comes to temperance, Facebook has been quite patient and realistic when setting up privacy policies and verifying misinformation and false information. They have admitted that there is no playbook for what they are doing; they are listening to the users of the applications and making improvements as they continue. I believe that Facebook does display a majority of these virtues with a possible half and a half on the honesty virtue. We will never honestly know if Facebook knew it was an issue and left it unresolved or if they were unaware and the public brought it into their eyes. However, the social media giant understands the matters presented to the public and wants to fix them. 

Justified Ethics Evaluation 

In my personal opinion, I genuinely believe that Facebook was not in the wrong. Yes, I can fully admit that I think Facebook did some things that seemed somewhat strange or inappropriate. However, I believe that Facebook has done everything in its power to restore the structure of its privacy policies, protect people from misinformation, and to rectify the majority of the false information that has been posted. There is not a manual for the internet, social networking, or social media. How are individuals supposed to react to the ever-evolving world of the internet, let alone the companies operating within that space? Privacy issues happen every day in every company; hackers and other things are known for these issues. This is why when Facebook stepped back and rethought how to restructure things back in 2016, they did it to plan for involvement in the future. They brought on new positions, created a whole new development team, and created the Elections Operations Center specifically regarding the United States Election. They developed ways to identify false information through Facebook to warn the users about the inaccurate information. When it came to the election, they set up a whole system in the backend; that fact-checked information posted a warning on posts about the election. Overall I believe that to a majority over defaults that Facebook follows the ethical theories in play. 

Company Action Plan 

        The current issue with Facebook is the abnormalities of the world we are currently living in today. Twenty years ago, individuals wouldn’t have been worrying about the false information being posted or misinformation about an election. However, with the current world we live in, this has become a problematic pressing issue. Social media, in itself, is still a new dynamic with continually changing attributes. This is a first-generation problem for the companies in this dynamic, and one that no one has the answers to without trial and error. While it is frustrating that for false information to be remedied, it has to happen first, they eventually will, and it is a step in the right direction. Especially in Facebook’s realm, many other social media companies have not taken the initiative they have. While in the belief that Facebook has created the right building stones to continue protecting people's privacy while also saving them from false information. I do believe a few more steps can be taken. Such as surveying Facebook users to see if they are currently liking how misinformation is being addressed in the application. They are adding in additional staff to monitor the postings on the application. Besides, I believe holding an open forum or doing a live virtual event where users can ask questions and bring things to Facebook's attention, instead of the issues just building up without Facebook knowing. I believe a new way to uphold some of the proposed amendments would be for there to be a changed mission statement. One would be; To provide people with the power and individualism to come together on a platform to communicate with their friends, family and make connections. While also protecting privacy and protecting people from false information and misinformation sometimes put out into the world. Facebook would further expand its newly developed Elections Operations Center and develop newer operations and a new department for when false information is identified; they can promote how they diffused the issue. I believe they should also create an updated chart of a monitoring system, where Facebook users can see how many posts and organizations have been identified in releasing false information. As said before, I believe that they should start a program to hear out the users and acknowledge their problems, which would help Facebook understand and rectify some things that they may be missing. This would not only establish a greater strength with individuals' trust in Facebook, but it would also show them that on top of all the things Facebook does to protect its users. Facebook is willing to go one step further in ensuring everyone's happiness, trust, transparency, and ease of use when using Facebook.

References

Clement, J. “Facebook Users in U.S.” Statista, 19 Oct. 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/408971/number-of-us-facebook-users/. 

“FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook.” Federal Trade Commission, 28 Apr. 2020,  www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-imposes-5-billion-penalty-sweeping-new-privacy-restrictions.  

Fung, Brian. “Facebook Can't Catch Misinformation It's Already Identified as False, Activist Group Says.” CNN, Cable News Network, 9 Oct. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/10/09/tech/facebook-misinformation-loophole-avaaz/index.html. 

Rosen, Guy. “Preparing for Election Day.” About Facebook, 8 Oct. 2020, about.fb.com/news/2020/10/preparing-for-election-day/. 

Rosen, Guy, et al. Helping to Protect the 2020 US Elections, 21 Oct. 2019, about.fb.com/news/2019/10/update-on-election-integrity-efforts/.

Written By: MaryKate Caron