[lyu07282]

What are you even saying? It's like getting upset at somebody who criticizes a criminal because they once helped some grandma across the street. I'm not upset at the criminal because they helped a grandma across the street obviously that's not the fucking point.

[celsoazevedo]

I'm not upset, I just don't think we should criticize someone for doing something good. Maybe they're a terrible org, maybe they deserve criticism most of the time, but not in this instance.

It's not like you can't point out that they did a good deed, but that they're still in the shitty business of fingerprinting users.

Also, if people only get the stick no matter what they do, then eventually some will embrace the dark side and at least make money out of it. And that's not good for you.

[lyu07282]

The inverse is also true, letting them whitewash their image by pretending they care about your privacy and seek to protect you will be good for their public relations, but only if we let them. I refuse to be this gullible and run to their defense for no apparent reason.

[celsoazevedo]

They can pretend all they want. I know what their business is, my opinion on the practices haven't changed.

And yet, they did a good thing. I will criticize everything else, but not what they did right. It doesn't mean I'll go out of my way to praise them either... if it wasn't your comment, I wouldn't have said anything at all.

[diydsp]

This isn't a someone. It's a corporation, a legal fiction explicitly designed to dissolve responsibility.

[celsoazevedo]

And like a broken clock that is right twice a day, sometimes a corporation also does the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons.

Nothing wrong with pointing out hypocrisy and bullshit, but criticizing something they did right? That's not how I operate. You are, of course, free to do things differently.

[Vinnl]

It's more like criticising a criminal when they are helping some grandma across the street, thereby treating them more harshly than the criminals that don't do that.

(Also known as the "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics": https://gwern.net/doc/philosophy/ethics/2015-06-24-jai-theco... )