No they are not. For example, it is now common knowledge that Mark Z bought off all nearby houses in every direction to get more privacy. [1] Do you and I have similar access to resources?

Suppose your identity is stolen and you find yourself penniless because someone hacked into Facebook which also affected your friend who works at Facebook. Who is more likely to be in great financial distress the next day? Who is more likely to know the full impact of the situation?

Also, if someone in Facebook were to be negatively affected in some way, they probably have friends inside who can help them out. Do you and I have a direct line to a similar friend? In fact, we are likely to be the very last people to know of any such exploitation.

Besides, the closer you are to the algorithm, the more likely that you know how to circumvent it, even exploiting some simple bugs that others are not aware of.

And how about opting out? As a technologist, how hard do you think it would be for an insider to add himself/herself to the opt-out database, and also make sure that there were no hiccups in the process? Contrast that to something as simple as opting out of junk mail - have you been 100% successful?

I just made four observations about how you and I do not possess the same advantages as an insider at Facebook. What are the odds that, something can slip through four different test cases you set up and still turn into a bug in production? Minimal, don't you think?

You make really good points about not countering immoral action with more immoral action. But your notion that FB employees could somehow become unwitting victims of their own technology sounds seriously far-fetched to me.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.in/Mark-Zuckerberg-Just-Spent-Mor...