Yeah, I agree. People these days just seem to want to pile on people's comments (sometimes said in a very casual setting) by twisting them and taking the most uncharitable reading. As has happened with your comment too.
What's the charitable reading of "all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices." ? That's not admitting that others are misusing FB, it's admitting that FB itself is doing questionable things under the umbrella of "the end justifies the means".
>That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide.
>So we connect more people
>That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools.
>That's not admitting that others are misusing FB,
You're only quoting one part. He addresses that in the quote above. It's the opposite of what you're saying.
>it's admitting that FB itself is doing questionable things under the umbrella of "the end justifies the means".
What is there to "admit"? Its a piece of code running on a smartphone. Any moderately skilled engineer can figure out what its doing. Calling something questionable doesn't make it illegal or immoral. "the end justifies the means" implies that the entity has purposefully employed illegal or immoral actions. That is clearly not the case here. Although it is clear that the author is torn between seeing those actions as legitimate business actions. Whether you think Facebook using your contacts is a breach of trust is up to that individual person and their views on privacy. A person choosing to create an account on Facebook and installing their app is a voluntary action. Privacy is defined by choice. A choice that is in your hands. It is also not an absolute, because at times the choice can be taken away. For e.g. You don't need to go up-to every single person and ask their permission before taking a picture at a tourist spot. But you can't take a peek inside someones bedroom.
You're only quoting one part. He addresses that in the quote above. It's the opposite of what you're saying.
I don't agree. He's saying two things. One is that others will abuse FB; that's reasonable. Other is that FB is using questionable practices.
What is there to "admit"? Its a piece of code running on a smartphone. Any moderately skilled engineer can figure out what its doing.
So there's nothing to admit as long as moderately skilled expert can eventually figure it out? That's an interesting perspective. Since a moderately skilled portfolio manager could figure out that Madoff was running a scam[1], there was also nothing for the latter to admit? If there was, what's the difference?
Regarding it being up to someone's view on privacy, that's true - and we're discussing his views on privacy, and he says it's questionable.
As for your whole argument that an admittedly questionable action is clearly not immoral, I'm at a loss. Clearly we're using different dictionaries, because all of mine associate the word is dubious morality.
