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Originally Posted by ToothSayer
Research units that dig up personal dirt on public critics in order to silence them is pure Scientology.
The extent to which they're going to avoid government investigation of their actions is pretty weird. Going to mobile phone stores to find the hardware IDs of recently bought cheap phones? Scouring FB based on the credit card names of new users, to see if they're government employees? That doesn't strike you as shady?
This is more what organized crime does, than legitimate businesses. Combined with the rest we hear, it says very worrying things about their corporate culture.
Digging up dirt on public critics is shady, but protecting itself from the government is only shady if you come from a perspective where you believe in the system. If you believe in the system, you believe the government protects your property, and is the best agent capable of doing it. If you do not believe in the system, you tend to think that you are the best agent in defending yourself from the government. I do not see anything morally wrong about using FB to not give rides to government officials for any reason. I certainly don't think you've shown any kind of "cultish devotion" akin to "Scientology", which is just insane hyperbole, which wouldn't even make sense if I had several martinis.
This is of course, a business strategy, essentially competing with the government, that may turn out to be unwise, because the government is the biggest protection agency in town, but it is not in any way immoral. It is not as though Uber is digging up it's own dirt on it's own employees like Scientologists do, which you know, you are kind've out there sometimes with the "connections" you make.