Your example is somewhat fallacious in that sexual assault is, in fact, criminal, and running a platform that encourages and rewards it is potentially an accessory to that crime. Hacking it may in fact be more ethically (though not necessarily legally) justifiable if its demise in fact contributes to the reduction of violence against the site's users' victims.
Cheating, morally reprehensible as it may be, is not in the same ballpark.
Regarding the "delete your information" fee, I am quite confidant that the lawyers made sure that the service sold was the deletion of your application profile, not the wiping of all traces that you ever did business with the company. To call it fraud is probably premature.
> In most states, including New York, cheating on your spouse is considered only a misdemeanour. However, in others like Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, it is a felony crime. Prosecutions are rare, but they do occur and punishments can range from a $10 fine in Maryland to life imprisonment in Michigan, according to Mother Jones.
Only sorta true: "The United States is one of few industrialized countries to have laws criminalizing adultery... Adultery remains a criminal offense in 21 states, although prosecutions are rare." [0]
From skimming the rest of the article, it seems adultery is otherwise only criminal in some parts of Asia and Africa. So while I suppose your statement is strictly true, it's not usefully true as a rebuttal of the parent's argument.
(I was actually shocked to find that the law is on the books of 21 US states. I know in the US we have some ridiculously stupid laws, but... c'mon. Adultery is reprehensible to me, but... criminal?)
My point is more that judging moral issues by whether there's a law against them is a facile argument, and that the GP needs a better one. I think we can all agree that cheating is morally reprehensible, and thus its facilitators are not morally justified.
I'm not sure Asbostos doesn't want to see the perpetrator of this on trial, they're just saying that the victim was immoral (and I'm not terribly sorry for them either).
I am also not convinced that vigilantism is always wrong. I can't blame the villagers who, after seeing a restaurant owner entice a dog with food only to kill it with a chair, never stepped foot in the restaurant again, effectively bankrupting it.
I am also not convinced that vigilantism is always wrong
'Wrong' is subjective so that statement is a truism. For a given act of vigilantism there will be a proportion who condone it and a proportion who don't. Who decides?
That's what the law is for. It's so we can't all just wander about dispensing 'justice' without accountability. What happens if someone commits suicide because of this hack? Can their kids sue the people responsible? No, they're denied due process.
I'm not convinced that law enforcement conducted by the proper authorities is always right, but at least we have some semblence of oversight and accountability and the opportunity to learn from mistakes and improve things.
Don't you think it's inconsistent that the hackers themselves are hugely critical of the company they breached for not properly deleting customer data on request; and yet those same people have already started publishing that exact same customer data? They're not even accountable to their own definition of right and wrong.
I can't blame the villagers who, after seeing a
restaurant owner entice a dog with food only to
kill it with a chair, never stepped foot in the
restaurant again, effectively bankrupting it.
I don't think that fits the definition of vigilantism. Vigilantism is law enforcement undertaken by those without society's authority to do so. What you described above is simple consumer choice, a boycott at worst.
> 'Wrong' is subjective so that statement is a truism
Morality is subjective, so dismissing the statement as a truism means that we can't talk about morality at all.
> For a given act of vigilantism there will be a proportion who condone it and a proportion who don't. Who decides?
Same goes for a given law.
> What happens if someone commits suicide because of this hack?
"I'm not convinced vigilantism is always wrong" is not the same as "I condone this hack".
> Don't you think it's inconsistent
I do indeed.
> Vigilantism is law enforcement undertaken by those without society's authority to do so.
I suspect we'll have to define our terms more strictly if we're going to debate this. My definition of vigilantism includes any action in response to an injustice that isn't performed by the executive branch of government.
I can see how anyone taking the law into their own hands can lead to innocents getting hurt, but the other side of the coin is guilty people walking away. As a society, we've decided to err on the side of the innocent, which is commendable, but that doesn't mean that we've completely and utterly solved the matter of justice, making vigilantism obsolete and always unjustified.
... dismissing the statement as a truism means that
we can't talk about morality at all.
I just think we need to be more careful with words, as you point out.
Same goes for a given law.
Yet with laws there is an opportunity for debate and reform, as well as some degree accountability. You can be reasonably confident that at least a strong minority think any given law is reasonable. For vigilante actions that support will be a lot smaller and the debate, accountability and opportuity for reform drop to zero.
"I'm not convinced vigilantism is always wrong" is not
the same as "I condone this hack".
Sure. Apologies if it sounded like I was accusing you of that. Wasn't my intention. I just wanted to highlight the lack of accountability.
My definition of vigilantism includes any action in response
to an injustice that isn't performed by the executive branch
of government.
Sure, well in that case there are plenty of actions that are reasonable, such as undertaking a consumer boycots, or passing a gun control law in response to a school massacre. I was using the regular definition, hence the misunderstanding.
Yes, I think I agree with you on everything. I'm mostly influenced by the fact that I saw a man hit a stray dog with his car right after I fed it (it was emaciated) even though he was on a mile-long straight stretch and the dog was standing on the street for a while. Not only did he hit the dog and ran while onlookers yelled for him to stop, but he ran a stop sign in his attempt to speed away and caused a truck to veer into the opposite lane to narrowly avoid him.
The police told me they couldn't do anything because a police officer wasn't there to witness any of this, which is reasonable as far as laws go, but I don't think such behaviour should go unpunished, even if it's just people thinking less of the perpetrator.
While that's true, I think it's a little misrepresentative. Obviously it differs by state, but as a whole the US take on adultery is (broadly) religious, so aligns it more closely with other strongly religious countries like Pakistan than with Europe, Japan, etc.
"The United States is one of few industrialized countries to have laws criminalizing adultery"
Cheating, morally reprehensible as it may be, is not in the same ballpark.
Regarding the "delete your information" fee, I am quite confidant that the lawyers made sure that the service sold was the deletion of your application profile, not the wiping of all traces that you ever did business with the company. To call it fraud is probably premature.