Facebook, the Social Network and the Law

David Fincher’s the Social Network poses some important questions about the online social

networks that the young generation is so involved in. Based on a script written by Aaron Sorkin from

Ben Mezrich's 2009 nonfiction book the Accidental Billionaires, the film delves into the life of Mark

Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. It gives a dramatic presentation of the creation and a profile of

a handful of friends who were key in fueling the idea of social network. On a Fall night in 2003,

computer programming geek Zuckerberg sits down at his computer after breaking up with his girl

friend. His fury makes him blog and write programming. Suddenly, this leads him to develop a social

network site where friends at Harvard can rate the undergraduate females according to their

attractiveness. This idea spreads across campus. But, the heavy internet traffic crashes the campus

network and Zuckerberg has to face the hearing board. He is given a six months academic probation.

Zuckerberg later expands the idea of social networking to hundreds and thousands of people.

Meanwhile, the input of a handful of friends that he got during the start puts him in some legal

issues. These legal issues take center-stage with hearings as the legalities are faced head-on by the

partners.

In the movie the Social Network, a legal issue that provides the frame is the one brought by

twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Dibya Narendra from whom Mark Zuckerberg

allegedly stole the idea of a social network site that would later become Facebook. Specifically, these

founders of Connect U, which was originally called Harvard Connection, claim that Zuckerberg was

recruited by them to develop a part of ConnectU. They claim that they discussed the idea with

Zuckerberg after hearing about him in the Harvard Crimson, the Harvard University newspaper. They

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even have a record of 52 email exchanges and three meetings of the discussion. However,

Zuckerberg doesn’t respond to their emails and stays away from the trio. In the mean time, he works

day in day out working on coding and launches theFacebook.com. Zuckerberg says that he voluntarily

agreed to contribute six hours of coding for the ConnectU site, but denies that he had knowledge of

it being a social networking system.

The trio accuses Zuckerberg of stealing their idea and sues him. However, Zuckerberg claims

that he didn’t use any of their codes and all the codes essentially are his own and the trio should stop

messing with him. “If you had invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook,” Zuckerberg

sneers at one point, dismissing the Winklevoss twins’ contribution to the existence of Facebook. The

case raises a question of the claim of idea of the social networking site. A point to be noted is that

Zuckerberg was a bit inspired by the idea of social networking from the trio. However, it is he, who

did all the hard work, sweated working on the codes and found investment money to take it live on

the internet. The ideas are abstract and intangible that don’t exist in any physical sense. If the trio

had the idea, but didn’t shape it into reality, it shouldn’t be Zuckerberg’s problem. He shaped his own

initial idea of social networking and it’s immoral for the trio to claim that Facebook is their brainchild.

It’s like saying somebody in the world gets an idea of a magnificent table and the next day, somebody

else makes the table and launches in the market. He, who launches the table in the market, shouldn’t

be accountable to all the people who had the table in their minds but never worked on it. The one

who made the table shouldn’t be doling out money to anyone from the profit gained from the sales.

Another case that stands out in the film is the case brought by Facebook’s initial CFO and best

friends Eduardo Saverin, who is eventually pushed out of the company by Silicon Valley venture

capitalists. Saverin is the one whose algorithm helps Zuckerberg start FaceMash that eventually

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evolves into Facebook. He also gives Zuckerberg financial support to launch the website. Moreover,

when the Facebook expands and the company is in need of more money, he is the one to provide it.

However, after meeting Sean Parker, the Napsters.com co-founder, who pushes Zuckerberg to take

the site to new heights, Eduardo, who is busy in New York for advertising support, is made to believe

that he has a considerable share in the company. But at the end of the movie, he finds out that he

doesn’t even have one percent share in the company and sues Facebook. Throughout the movie,

Zuckerberg and Saverin, although are partners, are shown to have dissimilar views about the motives

of the website. While economics major Saverin believes that since the website is expanding,

advertising should be done on it that could yield profit to the company; Zuckerberg is reluctant and

takes side with capitalist Sean Parker. So, to put in a nutshell, Zuckerberg uses Saverin’s money to

run the website, while Zuckerberg, Saverin and the company rip the benefit, which Saverin doesn’t

like and sues the company, which is obvious.

The third case that stands out in the movie the Social Network is the invasion of privacy issue.

Zuckerberg hacks into the Harvard database to find pictures and information of the undergraduate

girls and posts them online for the users to rate their attractiveness. In the hearing board, he is

accused of breach of security and is held at academic probation for six months for doing this. The

whole idea of Facebook seems to revolve around the issue of privacy. The users can make up their

profiles online, which is then shared by hundreds of friends on the online community. In the movie,

even his girl friend Erica tries to stay away from him after Zuckerberg blogs some things about her.

However, since the website involves voluntary membership, Zuckerberg claims in the movie that it’s

not an invasion of privacy. He says that the users are updating their profiles on their own. The case is

in line with the US privacy law that allows an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual

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who unlawfully intrudes into someone’s private affairs, discloses their private information and

publicizes them for one’s personal gain. Nonetheless, no one seems to have sued Zuckerberg for this

particular case in the movie despite it being an important issue.

The film poses an important case against intellectual property right. It asks the audience the

question of who owns any idea. Is it the one who came up with it and does nothing or someone who

takes inspiration from the idea and takes it to whole new level? Since the movie is deemed

“controversial” by some reviewers, who point out the film plays loosely with the facts behind

Facebook’s founding and much of the film story is actually fictional, the underlying plot of the story

gives the audience a chance to think about the social networks with which we are so engrossed. The

audience can see how legal cases like the one included in the film progress in an actual event and

what kind of role the plaintiffs and the defendant play during the legal procedures. For a law student,

this could be a great source of knowledge and entertainment at the same time. The founding of

social networking sites like Facebook also meant a new kind of revolution of people who came in

touch through computers but actually lost actual social connections. My friend, who goes to Harvard,

recently pointed out that in the film, the Harvard college life is depicted with so many social activities

going on and is flawless. But I bet in the days leading to the rise of Facebook, the social activities like

going to social clubs and going to bars have gone down and people have found a new way to keep

themselves busy on a Friday night, i.e., Facebooking. However, seeing the story behind the invention

of Facebook that is going to shape the future of many youngsters, I recommend people watching it

and be inquisitive about the law and the power of an idea that brought a whole new community

together.

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