Judging from other comments this is an unpopular idea, but why does business get to be some sort of quasi morality-free zone where nobody has to take responsibility for anything? If a friend works for a company that engages in activity that I find morally reprehensible, why shouldn't this affect our friendship? I think our society could really benefit from a little accountability, so in lieu of regulations and laws protecting us from corporations I think protecting our social circles from people who endorse the bad actions of their employers because "it's just business" is perfectly okay.

I see other comments talking about personal responsibility, but in the case of FB the notion of a company selling their data is too abstract to clearly understand the risks/consequences for many. Should we put no responsibility on corporations to act civilly or at least legally? Should one not have a personal responsibility to engage only with corporate entities that behave civilly/lawfully/etc? I really don't understand this mindset.

Or maybe people could learn again "personal responsibility" and realize that everything they give to facebook is exactly like giving oyur life to any compagny like Coca Cola, and that these compagny can do pretty much anything with it within the limits of the "laws that are actually enforced", whose number is pretty much 0.

Stop complaining, start taking responsibility.

You're right and I appreciate your comment. You probably noticed taking responsibility is extremely unpopular nowadays in all aspects of life, most noticeable in politics probably.

Not everyone has the luxury to be able to discard their health insurance or work visa on a whim to suit your opinion of their employer.

People aren’t entitled to commit cyber crimes, just because it’s a convenient way to pay the bills.

So far as I can tell, this was Facebook exceeding authorized access to a computer system — at scale. If you or I did this, we’d be looking at felony charges.

I would never friend someone again who dropped me because of my employer

I wouldn't say I necessarily agree with doing this when it comes to Facebook, but is there really no circumstance in which you think it'd be justified to cut off contact with a friend because of where they work?

For instance, if I had a friend whose job it was to design missiles that are used to bomb innocent people (Lockheed-Martin for instance) I would seriously reconsider my friendship with that person. Yes, it's "just their job" but choosing to have a job which requires having such warped ethics would make me reconsider whether I want to continue associating with them.

Nobody is forced to work at such companies. Yes, effectively all companies do things which we don't agree with on some level (unimaginably large amounts of tax avoidance being the most obvious example). But if a company's ethics are completely antithetical to your own, then I don't see how you could morally justify working for them.

(Obviously there are some understandable exceptions to the above -- the most obvious being that in the US employees are effectively blackmailed into working for their employer because they'll lose their heath insurance otherwise.)

On its face the statement is true. LM does design missiles, and some non-zero number of them have been used to kill innocent people.

I'm curious what part of the statement is important to you in making that decision though. Is it that LM is part of the military-industrial complex, full stop? That the weapons are used by the US military? That they are sold to and used by other governments? Would LM be acceptable if they created weapons that magically never harmed the innocent? What if they occasionally harmed the innocent but were always used by people with good intentions who were doing things you supported?

Never worked in that industry, just curious.

I was using Lockheed-Martin as an example of a "clearly immoral" company, you could replace it with any other example you can think of and the point would be the same (that at some point you have to accept that ignoring your morals in order to get a paycheck means you don't really have those morals).

As for my personal view, it's fairly clear that Lockheed-Martin props up (through lobbying) and profits (through government contracts) from the US war machine -- which in turn has killed millions of innocent civilians. And then there's the contractors that Lockheed-Martin has provided to government agencies to further strengthen the surveillance tools of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and so on. So, I think Lockheed-Martin was a good example of a "clearly immoral" company.

EDIT: You changed your comment after I responded to it. I don't think the ethics of hypothetical magic missiles is a super useful conversation to have (changes in technology don't change our underlying ethics, they just change what ethical questions are being asked).

On the question about unintended consequences, obviously in wars you can't guarantee zero civilian casualties and innocent bloodshed is inevitable (though still unjustifiable). But the US is currently engaged in several illegal wars of aggression (which is a crime under international law) and clearly planning to engage in several more. Personally, I think the "unintended consequences are inevitable in war" defense isn't available to you if the war itself was illegal from the outset.

It was while you were responding to it. I thought I was fast enough to edit that in. Sorry for the confusion, I appreciate your response.

Suppose we reverse that sentiment a little bit: I would never friend someone again who knowingly manipulated me to suit their employer and ultimately themselves. Which, once you remove all the layers of abstraction, is what it boils down to.

"Suppose you were bereft of morals, and suppose you were working at Facebook; but I repeat myself."

Have fun working for arms dealers/defense contractors.