Question

Identify at least three torts or crimes that Mark Zuckerberg may have committed when he created the Facemash website. (Your essay should contain at least 500 words.)

Answer 1

Please use the following points as reference and elaborate these to answer the essay question:

Firstly, state what is a tort and crime. Give an example of both.

Then explain about the website under discussion. The explanation should consider the details regarding what type of website it is, what is the purpose of such a website, what is it that website requires from its users i.e. the data users are required to insert to move ahead with the website. State the environment under which the website works. Environment here refers to criticality of the data, end user information, use of the data for intended or unintended purposes.

Try to quote certain a few examples regarding these points to make it clearer for the reader.

Explain a bit about the monitoring authorities. For example, in this case would be the governmental IT cell, in house team of the website developers, users may also be an example since they can report certain activities from their end.

Now, for a better understanding, state some examples if possible, regarding the unintended or purposeful crimes that may have happened on similar platforms.

There may be cases when one cannot find exact examples. In such case one can take related examples. For example, the given website was first of its kind which got popular among the internet users. However, there were similar platforms like Orkut which could be used as an example.

Now after giving the possible crime example, relate them with the given website.

1. For example, it can be said that the data purporting to user preferences could have been sold to various companies for some money. This could have been a violation of Federal Information Security Management Act.
2. The data provided by users could have been used for individual targeting for wrong intentions.
3. The website could have been an easy target for stalkers if proper firewalls would not have been incorporated in the website database. The students especially teenagers may have become a victim of cyber frauds or other social conflicts.
4. One can even say that Mark could have fallen prey to terrorists for obtaining the personal data of people.

The question seeks three possible torts/crimes that Mark may have committed. One can give as many reasons like the ones mentioned above. For a better understanding, one can state the ill effects and remedies to deal with certain unwanted cases.