A quick test of ethics

I've often thought that a quick way to test how ethical people are would be the following series of questions: 

1. Are you on facebook? 
2. If yes, are the personal details (address, date of birth, etc) you provided actually correct?
   

I know quite a few people who - in response to valid privacy and online security concerns - don't provide the correct details, or change the details after they join. 

In terms of privacy and online security, that is good, but facebook has a question where you specifically have to state that your details are true and correct / accurate (it's been a long time since I started joining up to facebook, so the wording may be different, but the intent of the question is not). If you lie to that, you are showing that there are situations where you place personal convenience about strictly ethical conduct - don't forget, you can do as I did, and choose not to sign up. 

At the time I declined to continue, I also objected in principle to a for-profit company having the level of information they sought - I still object to providing any more information than is actually necessary. There have been some truly dreadful breaches of privacy - including charities that gave utterly specious lies about reasons for wanting (they had the utter gall to say "needing"!) personal information such as birth dates and then put the online identity of those people at risk by incompetent security. 

This also, incidentally, applies to digital signatures - and the reckless incompetence of those who use them carelessly is something I've written about before. A lot of people mistake basic level of information on online security, including liking simple options that superficially seem potentially good (e.g., putting all emails into the junk folder unless you've personally okayed the email address), for competence. 

Similarly, a lot of mistake conforming with societal/parental biases / expectations for "having thought deeply" on matters - which is an affliction particularly prevalent in many transphobic/homophobic bigots I've known. 

And people who think cheating an online system is "good" in some way are guilty of one or more of many such flaws, including being unethical. 

The standard you walk past is the standard you endorse. There is no credible alternative to facebook in terms of market penetration, and little apparent interest in trying to promote an alternative (whereas there is such interest with regard to Microsoft's market penetrations of operating systems, for instance), so not signing up will cost you (not being on facebook has certainly limited my access to online resources - including publicity for my blogging, etc), but that is the price that has to sometimes be paid for being ethical.