Apologies and Responsibility Avoidance: Case Study of Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Apology

ONDRÁČEK, Tomáš. Apologies and Responsibility Avoidance: Case Study of Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Apology. In WILL TWO: Workshop on Informal Logic and Linguistics: Language and Argument. 2018.

Basic information

• Original name: Apologies and Responsibility Avoidance: Case Study of Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Apology
• Authors: ONDRÁČEK, Tomáš (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: WILL TWO: Workshop on Informal Logic and Linguistics: Language and Argument, 2018.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 50204 Business and management
• Country of publisher: Poland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14560/18:00102728
• Organization unit: Faculty of Economics and Administration
• Keywords in English: argumentation; apologies; responsibility avoidance; Facebook; Mark Zuckerberg

Abstract

At the end of the March 2018, a full-page ad in seven British newspapers and three American with an apology by Mark Zuckerberg was issued. The ad was a reaction to ongoing data privacy scandal connected to Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. The scandal provoked users and it even led to public statements of prominent persons who appealed to left Facebook altogether. The Facebook value of stock market got rapidly down and Zuckerberg and other CEOs were asked to testify in front of the US Senate and UK parliament. There are several reasons at hand, but I would like to focus on the main hypothesis that the primary goal was to avoid future criticisms and possible responsibility for the way the Facebook handled data privacy. Thus, I will be addressing five main questions: Who was the author of the apology? To whom was the apology addressed, what is the audience? What channel and why was used for the apology? How was the apology crafted?What was written and what can we know from a context? To address these questions discursive and argumentation analysis will be used. It will be shown that answers to each of these questions are not trivial and the analysis of the apology seems to present cases of strategic maneuvering and possible attempt to a liability avoidance. The case study of Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Apology is timely and important. The better understanding of how the apologies are crafted can enable us to a better understanding how they can be used as a tool to avoid a possible conflict or liability.