and if someone sells you poisoned food, maybe you should raise this question with that vendor, instead of advocating for nationwide safety standards?

If they bought from a poison vendor and then sold it to me as food, then definitely they are to blame and "safety standards" have nothing to do with it - they knew what they are buying and selling, it's not some kind of mistake or accident. Facebook buttons and tracking scripts didn't just seep into sites by accident because of poorly maintained seals or rusty firewalls and weren't fraudulently sneaked in by spies sent by Facebook - they were deliberately installed by site admins, because they wanted to install this precise code, with full knowledge of what it is for. Site admins bear responsibility for them.

if someone uses emotionally charged but utterly inapplicable rhetoric to persuade you, should you dismiss them out of hand?

poisoned food indeed

Non-technical people don't necessary know that adding a Facebook button means tracking people. Because it's the complete opposite of common sense, Facebook buttons to a non-technical users are just buttons, and Facebook could have built them that way too.

> Non-technical people don't necessary know that adding a Facebook button means tracking people.

They should then hire people who understand it, or not put these buttons on their sites.

Docs for FB pixel say: You can use the Facebook pixel to understand the actions people are taking on your website and reach audiences you care about. "Understand actions" means tracking. Who is doing the tracking? Well, it's called Facebook pixel, how many guesses does one need to get that one?

Pretty much all other FB gadgets download content from Facebook. If site owner doesn't understand that means tracking by Facebook, maybe they need to educate themselves or ask for advice before blindly copypasting third-party content into their site? Facebook button is way not the worst thing one may copypaste from the internet...

I think though they realize it and they are completely ok with it, in exchange for the traffic that gives them.

> Because it's the complete opposite of common sense,

No, it's not - if you put a Facebook button on your site, you are bringing Facebook into your relationship with your site visitors. Then you learn Facebook is part of that relationship - what a surprise! Come on. If you don't want FB as part of the deal, don't invite them in.

You are talking about the Facebook pixel, not the Facebook button, they are not the same thing.

Facebook does not warn website owners that adding Facebook button with the official method tracks users (I wonder why...): https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/like-button

From the Facebook docs: "A single click on the Like button will 'like' pieces of content on the web and share them on Facebook. You can also display a Share button next to the Like button to let people add a personal message and customize who they share with."

I see no mention of tracking there. And "people should guess" isn't really a viable excuse to me, it should be stated that their button tracks people and might be unsuitable depending of what they want to do. The documentation should also offer other non-invasive methods to do it.