Call the news orgs out for doing the same reprehensible activity, yes. But let's judge the arguments about which activities are reprehensible on their own merits.
In this situation Buzzfeed is pretending that this tracking is bad to generate more clicks so that their ads can invade more privacy to generate more income, exactly like Facebook. If they actually thought it was bad, their business model wouldn't rely upon it.
Only suckers believe Buzzfeed actually thinks this is bad.
(1) Having good arguments out in the world is a good thing.
(2) Positive feedback tends to reinforce behavior - and we want to reinforce news orgs making good arguments against bad behavior.
(3) After you have acclaimed their argument, it's much more effective when you use it against them.
If you just constantly snipe at people and organizations, I think it becomes much harder to effect change.
In "Phaedo," Plato has Socrates give a lesson about misology - that is, hating all reasoning and arguments, and assuming they are bad because you can always find flaws and it's so difficult to reach certainty. It's the intellectual version of misanthropy. Socrates cautions strongly against misology. Just because there are problems with an argument, doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to try to improve and take the good parts from every argument we can find, no matter how flawed the other parts (or the speaker) are. I think this is an important lesson in these times. I think we should stop fighting over whether a person or organization is allowed to say certain things, and concentrate on what parts of what they say should change our behavior.
That's ridiculous. If Hitler once made a good argument about something, that doesn't invalidate usage of that same argument by other people.
I mean really. I can't even think of a hypothetical example where that would make sense.
And Hitler fucking sucked, fuck that guy.
Actually, no. The world is full of people who do bad things while believing they are bad.
For example, I engage in a lot of practices that I think are harmful for the environment. I buy food that I suspect/believe is causing the environment harm. I buy products made with packaging that I believe causes harm. But I'm still openly against those practices. And if a ballot measure comes up to ban products involving those practices in my city/state/country, I'll vote for it.
There's no inconsistency here. The notion that one is required to practice what they preach is a flawed one. Knowledge and practice are orthogonal. People do bad things because they get value out of them. Knowing it is wrong doesn't suddenly reduce the value one gets from them. My food tastes the same regardless of my knowledge on the harm it does to the environment.
Only if we already know they've murdered someone before they advocate against murder. Until we do find out, the murderer appears the same as anybody else, despite being a hypocrite.
A smoker who writes a column that smoking is bad is still doing good writing.
A charge of hypocrisy is a straight-up ad hominem. It might make you mistrust the person making the argument, but it doesn't say anything about the facts.
But: so what?
When I read the news, the last thing I care about is the mores of the news organisation. Reporting on a politician pilfering taxes? Couldn't care less if the reporter panama papered his way through life. Writing about a politician illegally snooping on citizens? Don't give a damn if you got that info by illegally snooping on the politician. Is the news true? That's all I want to know.
I read the news for the news. Are the facts solid? Good. Are you crooked? Don't care.
The comment I was replying to seemed to indicate that the Buzzfeed author's stance was incorrect. This is a fine point, but really important, and I think it gets lost in public discourse a lot these days: hypocricy does not invalidate an argument.
It doesn't make what they're saying automatically invalid, but knowledge that the person saying something is obviously a hypocrite is a form of evidence about how likely what they're saying is true.
I'm putting the quotes there because Buzzfeed is not a singular entity with a set of beliefs it identifies with. It's also not like a cult where everyone has to believe the same ideas. Which is why it is nonsensical to ascribe hypocrisy to a non-person entity ...
And that is exactly how you can get an article against adtech written for and published on a platform that is using said adtech similar to what the article speaks out against.
The worst part of it all is IMHO that the entire top of this discussion is dominated by arguing about whether Buzzfeed is hypocritical or not, instead of discussing the actual topic at hand.
No, but they might say: "Why should we listen to you!? MURDERER!" Then proceed to stone you to death, and see who dares get up on the podium to make an announcement about stoning.