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Comment by puredemo | Hacker News Reader

Personally, I disagree that Facebook did anything wrong here. As they've stated, there were simply publicizing widely available, factual information.

Politicians run negative attack ads all the time. Why shouldn't tech firms?

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>Politicians run negative attack ads all the time. Why shouldn't tech firms?

Politicians run negative attack ads because they work, but unfortunately by manipulating the uncritical public's fears, prejudices, and ignorance.

Id like to think most of us in the tech industry aspire to exactly the opposite - succeeding and winning by hard work, merit, and perhaps luck, and whatever other positive forces of which humanity is capable.

That's a great way of putting it.

Claims about how the "real world" supposedly works aside, I know that if I were a Facebook engineer I wouldn't be feeling good today, and a large part of that would be the feeling that my hard work was devalued and, in terms of that list of ideals, kind of betrayed by a decision I would never have made.

Thanks. There's a fine line these days between heated competition and underhanded/sleazy/unethical. It's especially easy to accidentally cross when you're trying to 'be naughty' but not evil. Hopefully, crossing that line is mistake rather than a strategy or pattern.

I'd like to think negative ads wouldn't work for tech companies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siSHJfPWxs8

But I don't.

Consider the words "Legal" and "Ethical." Are they synonyms? Or are there some things that are legal but not ethical and other things that are ethical but not legal?

Jump on the "funethical" bandwagon when faced with something shady but potentially profitable. All the cool kid are doing it.

This is where HN shows its Reddit-esque Hivemind mentality that I thought I'd escaped. While I don't agree with your opinion, and while I'm not surprised that this stuff happens, I don't think it's right that your views are silenced. Dissent is the seed of progress. Here's an upvote.

Puredemo is offering his personal opinion, and an analogy to political ads.

I am not saying that what the PR firm did was right (It was certainly stupid)--and my friends at Facebook are surprised of what happened--but I don't think we should silence those that we simply disagree with.

Rather, HN should be a forum for open discourse.

I couldn't agree with you more. It's sad that there is an "I disagree with you therefore your idea is worthless" mentality that rears it's ugly head here every now and then.

Politicians running negative attack ads generally have to indicate that they're the ones paying for the ads.

Because it's sleazy.

Because it's extra sleazy considering facebook's behaviour since its inception.

So why hide their involvement to begin with until the story broke out? If Facebook really did not think it was wrong, they should be able to do it openly and not via proxy.

Politicians have the basic decency to sign their smears openly. Though it helps that they're legally required to do so, at least in the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_approve_this_message

Secret smearing is a whole other beast.

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