I disagree. I think getting angry as hell at having one’s legal rights knowingly stomped on is appropriate, and acting cool about it implicitly validates FB’s behavior.

You coolly negotiate with business partners; you get pissed off at being screwed with by conmen.

What stood out to me is that the author does have an inflated sense of self importance

> And let’s not pretend that it’s a big cost to you: getting the listed data about a single person is about the simplest query you can write. (Did I mention I’m a data scientist?)

And that particular trait emerges quite a bit throughout the correspondence. Where the author labels things as reasonable, I open the link only to find anything but.

Since the author is happy to put words into Facebook's mouth, I may venture as well that the author was _looking_ to pick a fight.

Trust me, I don't take myself too seriously ;-)

Facebook responds with an overload of legal nonsense to discourage people from replying. I overload them with a lot of non-legal nonsense. In the end I just want my data—it's my legal right.

Thank you for taking the fight and making a scene! I tell myself that I will send Facebook my GDPR letter one day, but just thinking about the time and brainpower I’d have to spend to understand exactly what my rights are and how to exercise them, makes me dread it.

This is just ad hominem.

That is fine though - I doubt they would have made any further headway if they were calm and polite.

Maybe he wants it to be easily understood by politicians who are very skilled in the manners of sarcasm and slinging invectives.

Yeah, I enjoyed the story telling but the sarcasm watered it down as a ragey customer who was being unreasonable—and it made it really hard to read. If you want to get a company to ignore you, all you have to do is get pissy, and it's clearly what's going on here.

How does tone policing the author offer any insight into the argument at issue here?

One person's 'tone policing' is another person's 'advice on how to most effectivly get your point across'.

It's not helpful advice. The post above attacks the author's writing credibility due solely to its emotional tenor. That's essentially an ad hominem.

> he should create a second, more black-and-white version that comes off as more credible and is less easily dismissed.

Its absolutely not ad hom. It's saying that the writing style chosen isn't optimal if the author wants to be seen as credible. It says nothing about the author, his credentials, or expertise and does not attack him as a person.