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Are atrocities of war the only things that can be called evil? If so, then clearly nothing Facebook does is evil. However, Facebook does alot of things that by

Are atrocities of war the only things that can be called evil? If so, then clearly nothing Facebook does is evil. However, Facebook does alot of things that by any other definition are evil. They perform questionably ethical experiments on their users, prey on users' ignorance of the data Facebook can see and use, are at the forefront of manipulative advertising (using fabricated social proof of friends, for example), and show a continual disregard for ethics that suggests worse in the future. This is a company that has essentially tricked people into handing over a treasure trove of data that is unprecedented in human history, and they're only starting to figure out how they can take advantage of that. How can any good come of it? No one here is comparing this to actual war crimes, but the fact remains that they are in a position to take advantage of over a billion people. Even if in a small way, that adds up.

liamcardenas 11y ago
OP's point was that using the term "horrifically evil" is horrifically hyperbolic. What do you mean by "tricking people" to hand over a treasure trove of data? Ignoring the many benefits that FB provides (reconnecting with old friends, easy group communication, meeting people, convenient logins for newer applications, discovering good content, etc....), what they are doing with advertising isn't "evil" in any sense. Facebook is a /free/ service that delivers targeted ads. Would you rather ads be untargeted? Millions of people benefit from having advertisements displayed to them showing stuff that they actually want to buy. Also, millions of businesses benefit from being able to target niche markets due to FB's data collection. People WANT to find products that are relevant to them, and so many businesses have become successful by being able to reach those customers through FB's platform. Facebook doesn't actually sell the data to advertisers. They just allow customers to blindly target demographic groups through their platform. It doesn't violate people's privacy in the slightest. Have they done some unethical psychological experiments? Yes. But come on, I wouldn't call that evil... especially when they do so much good. By that measure, any university that has been around for 50+ years must be evil too! > are at the forefront of manipulative advertising (using fabricated social proof of friends, for example) Source?

liamcardenas 11y ago

OP's point was that using the term "horrifically evil" is horrifically hyperbolic. What do you mean by "tricking people" to hand over a treasure trove of data? Ignoring the many benefits that FB provides (reconnecting with old friends, easy group communication, meeting people, convenient logins for newer applications, discovering good content, etc....), what they are doing with advertising isn't "evil" in any sense. Facebook is a /free/ service that delivers targeted ads. Would you rather ads be untargeted? Millions of people benefit from having advertisements displayed to them showing stuff that they actually want to buy. Also, millions of businesses benefit from being able to target niche markets due to FB's data collection. People WANT to find products that are relevant to them, and so many businesses have become successful by being able to reach those customers through FB's platform. Facebook doesn't actually sell the data to advertisers. They just allow customers to blindly target demographic groups through their platform. It doesn't violate people's privacy in the slightest. Have they done some unethical psychological experiments? Yes. But come on, I wouldn't call that evil... especially when they do so much good. By that measure, any university that has been around for 50+ years must be evil too! > are at the forefront of manipulative advertising (using fabricated social proof of friends, for example) Source?