[buran77]

There's a bit of a problem here because cognitive dissonance is harder to apply to companies, they are not a single mind even if they almost act like it. I doubt the people under the company's umbrella hold the 2 ideas in their head concurrently, they just put aside any moral aspect and let "the company" bear this moral weight, they just have a job to do regardless of personal preference.

Perhaps hypocrisy would be a better term to describe them. They'll say something is bad but they'll do the very same thing depending on how this suits their agenda.

[fogetti]

Not at all. Hypocrisy is the act of criticizing OTHERS for something, while engaging in the same behavior. That's completely beside the point and no-one talks about that here.

[buran77]

I simply went by the official definition [0].

> : a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel

> especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion

Seems to me that this is exactly the point of what we're talking about here. It started from the "cognitive dissonance" which applies less effectively to a "hive mind" like a company than the above given definition for hypocrisy.

That feigning is exactly the difference between feigned and real values or behavior. And no matter which feigned/real pair you choose from this story (real values, claimed values, values and behavior towards themselves, or towards users, etc.) you will find evidence of hypocrisy.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypocrisy

[skinnymuch]

I haven’t come across hypocrisy meaning one is criticizing others. I don’t think that needs to be a pretense for hypocrisy.

it would be hypocrisy for some one to be for small government always, but spend 1 trillion a year on a complex tax system beyond what any one else is doing. Regardless of any critiques they make or don’t make.