It's not about 100% purity. Just not doing this one little, tiny, fundamental-to-their-entire-business thing.
And FB-the-social-network is also great in theory: groups help you make friends and go deep into very niche interests. Without it, I would be a more normal, less interesting person. Now, with the join of a group, you can immerse yourself in a hobby even if absolutely nobody in a hundred miles shares that interest. It helps people go deeper on what they care about, thus becoming 'weirder' or a more fulfilled version of themselves. And helps people get ads they care about.
Let me give you another point of view:
Ads benefit the already wealthy corporations above small businesses that cannot pay billions for ads and add another lay on to inequality.
"Reinventing the wheel" is sometimes necessary for innovation, often called disrupting the market.
Also, I believe that endless consumerism is actually killing the planet and ads (no only banner ads but also product placements) play a huge part in making people feel insecure and less worthy just because they don't have the newest gadget.
I kinda agree on the consumerism thing, but that's more a reflection of our society than evil genius advertisers.
It's never that simple.
What corporations are okay to work for, in this unidimensional worldview? Exxon Mobil? Philip Morris? Pfizer? Dupont? Boeing? Nestle? BHP? Fox News? Volkswagen? Nike? HSBC? Is it okay if your employer's owners or executives have appeared in the panama papers? Are or have been on the boards of FAANG companies or own stock in those companies? Are you allowed to buy Google or Apple products and use their services?
What about companies that collect and trade on the personal information and habits they collect about their customers, just not on the scale of Facebook or Google? Are they okay? Even if they would like to be able to sell more personal information but don't presently have the means to would that be okay?
So where do you work? What products and services do you buy?
I'd personally love to know what everyone actually works on. In real life I know people who work on guided missiles and ICBM-adjacent tech who manage to sleep well at night.
Note this wasn't the poster I initially asked the question of. It was someone else just coming in and trying to tell me "it's that simple". My reply was not whataboutism, it was explaining why it's not "that simple".
And it wasn't a rhetorical question, I really want to know, from someone who does have this very simple "line", whether it's okay to use Apple or Google or Facebook services or products, whether it's okay to work for companies whose owners or executives own stock? Whether it's okay to vote for politicians who take money from them or who themselves own the stock?
This isn't whataboutism, it is exploring the consequences of this moral position.
Putin would love to be as evil as the US or even China, but hasn't got the scratch. Russia has its billionaire oligarchs, but the US has probably a hundred times as many. China murders more innocents every day than Putin does rabble rousers in a year.
Zuck isn't Putin. He isn't Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs. He isn't even Bolsanaro, or Duterte. He would like to be.
What about Rupert Murdoch and Fox News? Anti-vaxxers are why we are still in this mess. Yet I constantly see Covid misinformation on Facebook. We could discuss the genocide in Myanmar, Cambridge Analytica, Facebook's psyops campaign against their users, etc.
Maybe Zuck isn't the devil. But he sure as hell is irresponsible at being the CEO of Facebook. If you can't tame the scale of your operation then you shouldn't be that size to begin with. The collateral damage is too significant.
> pure as the driven snow
There are degrees. There are literally thousands of places that are not Fox News, Exxon, Nestle, or Facebook. Especially in the tech world. You can't toss your resume out on the street in Silicon Valley without it landing in the lap of a recruiter. I'd start with "didn't contribute to genocide" or "didn't think a psyops campaign on our users was okay" is a good place to start. I've certainly never worked at such a place.
I don't think he's the devil either. I do know the nature of their game though. It's to divide people. They're doing a great job of it.
> Anti-vaxxers are why we are still in this mess. Yet I constantly see Covid misinformation on Facebook. We could discuss the genocide in Myanmar, Cambridge Analytica, Facebook's psyops campaign against their users, etc.
I don't personally like the company or Zuck or some of the things it does very much, but they aren't the devil. I could say the same about probably most corporations. Where do you work that's pure as the driven snow?