I develop with React but I do not have a Facebook account. I just don't get the uproar about Facebook, if you don't like what they do, you are not forced to use their product. You can choose to engage with a company or not. In my case I choose to engage with them in regards to their development contributions, but absolutely refuse to engage with them as a user.
Now don't get me wrong, I find Facebook and particularly Zuckerburg to be detestable, but no one is forcing me to utilize Facebook. I have a free choice to not engage. There has to be some amount of personal responsibility. Now I get that many times, as was the case with Sony, the consumer does not know about misdeeds until after the fact but with Facebook, at this time, their misdeeds are well know.
It is my opinion that those who continue to engage with Facebook are OK with Facebook's intrusion into their online affairs and that is fine, they see the value proposition different than I do. What Facebook offers is more valuable to them than their online privacy.
When Sony put a root kit on their music CD's and hacked millions of computer and got nothing more than a slap on the wrist, I made the choice to not engage in business with Sony. To this day I have not bought a Sony product, it has been painful at times (my boy wants a Playstation) but I don't have to engage in commerce with them and I won't because I do not agree with their ethics. If they had an opensource project that fit my need I would consider using it, as that is a different kind of engagement with the company. The same goes for a business relationship, I would not preclude Facebook or Sony from places that I would enter into a business relationship with, but they would be on mutually agreed upon terms and if I did not like the ethics of the contract (say I was contracted to develop a rootkit) I have the freedom and personal responsibility to disengage.
I think this gets to a deeper issue with society, in that if we don't like something, we are told/trained to whine about it until it changes, but the reality is people like Zuckerburg don't care about whiners and therefor nothing ever changes. Whereas when society valued personal responsibility more, it directly affected companies because people see it as their duty to disengage, which also means taking your money elsewhere. This is something the Zuckerburgs of the world understand. (please don't take this as I said you where whining. that was not the intent)
> I just don't get the uproar about Facebook, if you don't like what they do, you are not forced to use their product. You can choose to engage with a company or not.
If only that was true. See e.g. [1] but I suppose there are much better articles about this issue as the concerns are widespread.
Again, I don't see the problem, I don't get in a vehicle that I don't know how to drive and just start driving. To do so would be unsafe. The world and the Internet in particular is an unsafe place, there is some onus on the individual to take personal responsibility (in this case educate oneself about the dangers of the internet). If I leave 10 grand laying in the street and someone takes it is it their fault or mine? Did I have expectation of privacy and security for my money? If I leave my money in my house with a locked door, does the fault change? The Internet is a public place, if I take no precautions to secure myself on the Internet is it not the same as taking no precautions in public? In this cause, the precaution is simple, don't take cookies from untrusted sites.
Now I know there are the technically illiterate on the Internet but that is no excuse, if I get into a crane and start poking buttons (levers, hell I don't even know what controls a crane), I should expect the full ramification of injury to myself and the liability for injuries to others. Because I embarked on doing something that I should have gained at least a rudimentary education on before I just jump on.
I'm a bit disappointed here, because on other occasions developers in this community tend to be all in uproar over ethical matters.