The Social Network: An Ethical Response

I felt like the movie brings up a clear ethical dilemma. There was a debate about whether or not Mark Zuckerberg stole a portion of his idea from the Winklevoss twins. This is an issue of intellectual property. If somebody comes up with an idea, then they are entitled to that concept and any financial gain that comes from its use. Often times, multiple people will have the same idea and only one implements the idea. If those people never communicated with each other about their idea, there is no moral dilemma. The rule of first come, first serve applies. The problem arises when one individual knowingly uses another individual’s idea.

The Winklevoss twins came up with The Harvard Connection and asked Zuckerberg to partner with them. He never did, but decided to create his own site called The Facebook. The debate revolves around how similar the two sites are, if at all. It is proven that the sites do not share any coding, so from a programming standpoint Zuckerberg is in the clear. But that could be argued as physical property. This is a question of intellectual property. If Jim invents the chair using maple wood, and Alex invents the same chair using oak, it is still the same idea.

So in order to determine if the idea was stolen we have to compare the concept of the two sites. The Harvard Connection was intended to help people connect, as was Facebook, but its purpose was geared more towards dating. Facebook’s intentions were to capture the entire social experience, not just dating. The Harvard Connection wanted to capitalize on the feeling of exclusivity, which is certainly the route Facebook took in its early launching period. We can see that the ideas are both very similar and, at the same, fundamentally different.

I believe Zuckerberg does owe them something. It would appear they were his inspiration and they paved the way for his idea to take hold. I also think the original settlement of $65 million dollars and some stock in Facebook is reasonable considering their apparent contribution. I believe the most ethical scenario would have been for Zuckerberg to approach the Winklevoss twins and explain the direction he wished to go. If they didn’t like it, they could have parted ways and they wouldn’t have had any claim to the Facebook concept.