While it is obvious that the only ethical frameworks the former eBay employees were using were anger, pride, and self-interest, it is beneficial to look at the eBay stalking and harassment case through an ethical perspective. Corporations face many ethical dilemmas, especially in today's world. Nevertheless, it is absolutely critical for a company to act ethically, as the press will make any ethical misbehavior known to the world, thus ruining the company's reputation.
For the ethical dilemma eBay faced and addressed unethically, there are two ethical courses of action that eBay could have taken to address the issue:
1. Leave the Steiners' blog alone. Listen to what they have to say and improve with hopes of receiving more favorable coverage in the future.
2. Do something really good as a company to receive more favorable media coverage, drowning out the Steiners' negativity.
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| David and Ina Steiner, the Victims of eBay's Unethical Behavior |
Notice that neither of these solutions involve tampering with the Steiners. This is because under any ethical framework, infringing on someone's human right to freedom of speech when they are voicing a nonviolent opinion is unethical. The way eBay did this was just horrendous. Drowning out the Steiners' articles with positive eBay content is in the ethical grey area, which will be discussed later. The three types of ethical frameworks that one can and should use when pondering an ethical dilemma are teleological, deontological, and virtue ethics.
Teleological ethics focuses on the outcome. It takes a "the end justifies the means" approach which means that an action is ethical if it produces an ethical outcome, regardless of the means it took to produce that outcome. In the case of the eBay stalking scandal, the desired outcome was to have the Steiners take down their negative coverage of eBay and create more favorable content. It is ethical to want the Steiners to post more favorable coverage of the company. However, manipulating them into doing it is unethical because it violates their dignity. Also, putting unfair pressure on them to produce favorable content is unethical because again, it results in content that is not entirely truthful. All the same applies to trying to convince the Steiners to remove content that criticizes eBay. The only way for changes in their reporting to be ethical would be for the Steiners to post more favorable content and remove negative content out of their free will, without eBay's influence. The best way for eBay to get the Steiners to post positive content about the company would be to make improvements based on what the Steiners said about the company (because other people must feel the same way) and/or do admirable things that deserve favorable reporting.
Another theological framework is ethical egoism. Its premise is that self-interest is ethical if it benefits others along with the self. People naturally act out of self-interest. Therefore, someone is more likely to do something ethical if it benefits them as opposed to the unethical alternatives. We should encourage people to act in their self-interest if it benefits others because everyone wins and people are more willing to act ethically this way. Manipulating the Steiners into producing favorable coverage of eBay would have been in eBay's self-interest, but it would not have been in the interests of anybody else: the Steiners, the press, and the general public. Doing this would mean that the coverage of eBay is not wholly honest, which means that everyone reading it would be deceived, which does not work in their best interests, as they deserve to know the truth. Believe it or not, letting the Steiners continue to generate honest content about eBay is in eBay's best interest, despite what it may seem on the surface. First, having too much positive content about a company causes people to trust them less because they know that it is natural for companies to have a fair amount of criticism, especially a Fortune 500 company like eBay. Also, if people find out that eBay was using coercive pressure in attempt to manipulate the Steiners, more negative content about eBay would be released than what the Steiners released alone, creating the opposite effect of that their plan intended. My second suggestion aligns with ethical egoism because by doing good things, eBay is benefitting others, and they would receive the positive coverage they selfishly desire, so everybody wins.
One of the best-known teleological frameworks is utilitarianism. The main utilitarian principle is that ethical actions product the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Not reacting to the Steiners' blog posts and allowing them to freely write would in theory produce more good than pressuring them into changing their content because everyone who reads the blogs will be reading the truth instead of biased content. Forcing the Steiners into making favorable content for eBay would only benefit eBay, which is a limited number of people. Even then, the benefit per person would be minuscule, and there is no guarantee that positive content on the Steiners' website would significantly benefit eBay. It is not proportional to the harm it would cause the Steiners. Nevertheless, if eBay does something good, then everyone would benefit. eBay would benefit from the positive media coverage, the people they are helping will be positively affected, and the Steiners won't even be involved. Sedwick's Dualism, which stresses how if your "happiness is desirable and good," the equal happiness of any other person must be equally desirable" ties into this as well.
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| Immanuel Kant, the mind behind many ethical frameworks |
Another critical ethical framework is deontological, which focuses on duties and rules as a guideline for ethical behavior. One deontological framework is known as Kant's Ethics, which encourages people to ask, "If everyone acted this way, would it be acceptable?" If every company stalked and harassed its critics, the world would be a mess. Obviously, the eBay employees involved in the scandal did not even consider Kant's Ethics. In the United States, it is law that everyone has a right to freedom of speech and freedom of press. While this is not true in all parts of the world, it is in the United States, which makes it more of a societal truth. It is expected that companies do not use coercive pressure to get people to say positive things about the company, so in the words of Kant's Ethics, "everyone is doing it," and there are no serious issues, so it therefore must be ethical. This relates to the "social contract." Corporations are functioning bodies in society and therefore must adhere to their own social contract. One of the elements of this is respecting the dignity of stakeholders and acting in a way that is civil. What those eBay employees did was completely uncivil, perhaps even barbaric. Violently terrorizing the people who do not like you is not tolerated in a civil society. In contrast, accepting criticism as a fact of life is expected and therefore ethical. In addition, if every company that received criticism did something good in attempt to compensate for it, there would be much more good in this world. Therefore, it is ethical. The only concern with this approach is that the proportion of positive to negative content about companies could become off-balanced, causing people to think that they are better than they are.
Another perspective to take on eBay's ethical dilemma is The Principle of Ends. Kant stated to "Never use others solely as means, but also an end in themselves." Basically what he is saying here is to not use people as tools to achieve an ethical outcome, as people have intrinsic value, not instrumental value. eBay used the Steiners as a means to get more favorable coverage, which is not ethical, especially since they terrorized them as they used them. Letting the Steiners freely report and perhaps taking their suggestions does not use them in a way that is unethical. They still maintain their rights and dignity, and if eBay makes improvements, then they will arrive at an ethical outcome. However, doing good with the intent of inspiring positive media coverage is in the ethical grey area when taking a Principle of Ends approach. If the good that eBay does involves people, one could argue that eBay would be using them to get favorable media coverage, which would veer on the side of being unethical, even if eBay helped them. In this case, the intent is quite selfish and almost lowers the dignity of the people eBay would help.
The Principle of Rights is what most journalists referred to in their reports of the eBay case. The freedom of speech and freedom of press came up often. As Americans, the Steiners have a right to freedom of speech. Their commentary of eBay was not threatening or violent- they were simply stating their opinion of the company. As reporters, they are also members of the press. Not only was eBay trying to infringe on their rights, they were attempting to censor the Steiners, which completely goes against what Americans believe in.
Virtue ethics focuses on long-term character development. Being in the public eye, companies need to manage their reputation. If eBay did not bother the Steiners as they continued to write negative content about them, it would show people that eBay can take criticism. It would also show that eBay is an honest company and a company that respects the rights of others. Even with the criticism, people are more likely to do business with a company that lives up to its values than a company with less criticism but more corruption. What eBay did was show that they cannot take criticism and are violent and immature- traits that nobody wants to be associated with. As for my second suggestion, by doing good to get good coverage, eBay would be showing the public that they care about their impact on their community. Even though eBay may have different intentions, the public would see what eBay is doing as good.
Another solution that was proposed in the case was having eBay create a lot of favorable company content, so EcommerceBytes would go down in search engine results pages, causing less people to read it. This is unethical however because they are deceiving the public into thinking that people think more positive things about the company than there really are. It also puts eBay's needs as a business over the needs EcommerceBytes, which is considered unethical under Sedwick's Dualism. This solution essentially covers up the truth with a bunch of lies.
Of my two suggestions (doing nothing to stop the Steiners from posting and listening to what they have to say instead, and doing good things to receive positive media coverage that will drown out the Steiners' criticisms), which one is more ethical? According to my analysis of both with different ethical frameworks, I believe that listening to what the Steiners have to say about the company and perhaps making improvements with hopes of them posting favorable content in the future is the best solution. The main shortcoming of the other solution was that eBay's intentions were not to do good to whoever they would help, but rather to do it just for shows. Under some frameworks it is ethical, but under others it is questionable. The first solution was considered ethical under all of the frameworks.
I believe that The Principle of Rights was the best ethical framework to use when considering this issue because it is the easiest to digest and most well-known in the United States. The Steiners have a right to freedom of speech and freedom of press and those rights cannot be ethically infringed upon, especially since as reporters it is their job to state their opinions.
Even though it was obvious that terrorizing the Steiners was unethical, companies do face the ethical problem of how to deal with critics, especially those who make personal attacks and harm the business. In this case, it is probably most ethical for companies to strive to do business in a way that people would approve of and allow them to voice their opinions, as it gives the public honest information about the company and shows the company what they can improve on.
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