Similarly, Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and the third party who obtained user data from Facebook all lied in different ways regarding their actions. Facebook refused to accept that claims that data of its users had been accessed by unauthorised third parties and there was no guarantee that the obtained data was secure. On the contrary, Facebook knew that its user data had been obtained by Cambridge Analytica and tried to engage in private negotiation for have this company delete the data. Cambridge Analytica lied that it did not have Facebook user data, a factor that was denied by one of its employees who noted that the company had hundreds of gigabytes of Facebook data on its servers, and that the servers were noted secured in any way. Therefore, by lying to the public, the parties that were involved in the data breach were engaged in unethical behaviour.
类似地，Facebook、Cambridge Analytica和从Facebook获取用户数据的第三方都以不同的方式对自己的行为撒谎。Facebook拒绝接受关于其用户的数据被未经授权的第三方访问的说法，也不能保证获得的数据是安全的。相反，Facebook知道其用户数据是由Cambridge Analytica获得的，并试图与该公司进行私下谈判，要求该公司删除这些数据。Cambridge Analytica谎称其没有Facebook用户数据，但其一名员工否认了这一点。该员工指出，该公司的服务器上有数百GB的Facebook数据，而且服务器以任何方式都是安全的。因此，通过向公众撒谎，参与数据泄露的各方都参与了不道德的行为。
Key Ethical Issue(s) and/or Concern(s) 关键道德问题和/或关注点
There are a number of key ethical issues and concerns that arise from the article. To begin with, one of these issues is corporate governance issue. Notably, from the perspective of corporate governance, businesses and organisations are supposed to act and be controlled by certain rules and practices and as such, be able to balance the interests of its stakeholders (Machold, Ahmed and Farquhar 2008). This means that the interests of one stakeholder should not violate the interests of other stakeholders. Whereas this is the case, it is clear from the article that the interests of the customers of Cambridge Analytica, that is, politicians, violated the interests of other people, particularly in the American community. In this case, whereas politicians that were connected to the presidential candidate Donald Trump wanted him to win the elections, the actions of this company violated the rights of the normal American citizens with regard to making political decisions.
这篇文章引发了许多关键的道德问题和担忧。首先，这些问题之一是公司治理问题。值得注意的是，从公司治理的角度来看，企业和组织应该采取行动并受某些规则和实践的控制，因此能够平衡其利益相关者的利益（Machold、Ahmed和Farquhar，2008年）。这意味着一个利益相关者的利益不应侵犯其他利益相关者的利益。鉴于情况如此，从文章中可以清楚地看出，剑桥分析公司客户（即政治家）的利益侵犯了其他人的利益，特别是在美国社区。在本案中，与总统候选人唐纳德·特朗普有关联的政客希望他赢得选举，但这家公司的行为侵犯了普通美国公民在政治决策方面的权利。
Another element of ethics that is present in the article is integrity and trust. Arguably, both organisations and individuals need to promote the highest level of integrity in their work and as such, manage to present themselves to their stakeholders as people and organisations that can be trusted. Whereas this is the case, an argument by the CEO of Cambridge Analytica that they were capable of framing or implicate politicians across the globe indicates that as a CEO, he lacked integrity and therefore, cannot be trusted. In the same way, the third party who obtained data from Facebook because he wanted to use it for academic research cannot be trusted too since he lacks integrity. Note that rather than using the data he had obtained for his research purposes, he shared this data with Cambridge Analytica, which used it to make its own profits. According to Mont, Pearson and Bramhall (2003), individuals and organisations should maintain the highest possible level of integrity and trust when using personal data of their users or customers.
文章中的另一个道德元素是诚信和信任。可以说，无论是组织还是个人，都需要在工作中提升更高水平的诚信，并以此向利益相关者展示自己是可以信任的人和组织。鉴于这种情况，剑桥分析公司首席执行官提出的一个论点，即他们有能力在全球范围内陷害或牵连政客，表明作为首席执行官，他缺乏诚信，因此不可信任。同样，因为想将Facebook数据用于学术研究而从Facebook获取数据的第三方也不能被信任，因为他缺乏诚信。请注意，他没有将自己获得的数据用于研究目的，而是将这些数据与剑桥分析公司分享，后者利用这些数据赚取了自己的利润。根据Mont、Pearson和Bramhall（2003），个人和组织在使用其用户或客户的个人数据时应保持尽可能高的诚信和信任。