I’m far from the biggest fan of Facebook, but I’m absolutely a fan of playing devils advocate in an organization if for no other reason than to solicit reactions and get people engaged. As someone who will use this device sparingly when appropriate, that’s really what this post looked like to me (as opposed to someone who was in it to get terrorists signed up to fb... really?). I honestly feel sorry for the guy

On the other hand, have we really gotten to the point where we have to try to provoke others into a debate? Why can't we state what we mean, what we think, what we're uncertain about, what questions we'd like to discuss in order to foster discussion instead of provoking it. Playing devil's advocate is fine when it's understood what's going on and why you're playing devil's advocate, but when there's ambiguity you play this game of "yes I said that I didn't mean it though" which ends up sounding weak as it does in those case. Devil's advocate is a great cognitive strategy for exploring an issue together, but it's a very poor conversational strategy.

No, I don't see anything that says provoking others into a debate is the only means of conversation, just one possible way of prompting a discussion. I imagine a straightforward discussion as your described is the norm, and this could be one case where they were provocative and so was selected to be leaked. But I agree with your second point that this does not appear to be such a case.

You don't inspire this sort of debate by putting up a straw man.

You inspire this sort of debate by thought exercise and ask about actual application - you couch the conversation to direct your staff to stronger ethics.

If this conversation were at Uber, in their self driving car division the consequences of this would be human life. The way to have that conversation, with context would be to couch it in the "trolly problem" - because that would keep the framing.

Ethics, the word is ethics - Facebook is clearly lacking them. Were "dumb fucks" according to FB's chief - and the fish rots from the head down.

And the staff's response "find the leakers" -- funny how many groups of people I find despicable seem to chant this.

It’s really not a good idea to play the devils advocate as a high ranking individual in a company without being super extra explicitly clear about that. People might mistake it as the companies position, especially if no other high ranking individual contradicts or clarifies he companies position.

I do believe he meant it when he was saying unethical behaviors and negative effects on society were worth the greater good of connectivity.

When I play devil's advocate I clearly state what I'm doing up front. This smells like an attempt at rewriting history.

You are mistaken. At Facebook, the devils advocate would argue in favor of government regulation.

Memos like this allow for open discourse within the company. Leaks only encourage companies to be even more closed off. Facebook could easily hide their language in corporate speak if they really want to encourage people to drink the corporate Kool Aid.

That's not what the memo was, it was not a case where "bosses tell their employees what they should do".

It was a case of starting a debate by voicing an extreme opinion.

No it wasn't.

The memo is exactly and clearly telling employees what to think and do. No questions allowed.