This is beside the point. You should rather ask about what we would think if selling cigarettes to kids was allowed.

If the outcome is some flavour of "cost of doing business" then it's a win for Meta: they can keep on preying and profiting. What society needs is for them to stop doing that.

If by "has gotten" you imply "in the past thirty years". In that whole time it has been about controlling rather than empowering the customers. Things like overwriting the MBR without asking, the existence of the registry, changing the control panel, generally ruining things that work and that people are used to, fostering monopoly of other Microsoft products, *checks notes* upgrading Windows to the next version without asking for consent. Maybe these things didn't affect you, but they are all real and not new.

Have we read the same article?

I disagree. The accused's computer was searched and nothing was found. A person owning the account from which the messages were sent is not enough evidence to send that person to jail, not in any sensible justice system. What even is the point of the search, if the outcome of the search does not matter? What difference would it have made if they had found evidence on that computer? This is not a rhetorical question.

Also, the accused shouldn't have to prove that he got hacked, especially not in the absence of any evidence on his computer. The burden of proof is on the accusation.

More generally, a judge needs to know that identity theft is a thing, because it is very much a thing. A judge who doesn't know that is incompetent. Incompetence is not a valid excuse for ruining someone's life. If your argument is that we should accept that judges are ignorant and tech-illiterate, and not expect that they fulfill their mission, then it is a bad argument. The judge decides which evidence is admissible, and bears the responsibility for that decision. I am not arguing that judges cannot make mistakes, they are humans and so they make mistakes all the time, it is inevitable. I am however arguing that this mistake is so gross, and with such consequences, that it warrants punishment.

Society does not say to convict without evidence, so I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

Also, you have not answered my question.

Ad hominem is unnecessary by the way, using it to attack me only says something about you, and what it says isn't great.

Are you saying that judges should have great power but without great responsibility, that they should not be accountable? If yes, how do you justify that they, unlike most of us, shouldn't be accountable for their grave mistakes? Otherwise, what are you actually saying?

Police made a mistake, it sucks but they're humans, mistakes are bound to happen. As much as I distrust and dislike the police, i don't blame them for the outcome here. The prosecution worked with what they had. The real issue here, in my opinion, is declaring someone guilty without evidence. Whoever made that judgement shouldn't be allowed to make judgements, and should be punished for having done so.

Isn't there a professional judge involved? There should be one, and they should bring up the absence of evidence. It could as well have been the correct username but a case of identity theft, the accused should only defend themselves against evidence, which apparently did not exist. This is absurd and would also have been absurd with the correct username.

Regardless of underscore count, this is a real issue:

So they just assumed he must be the guy despite having no evidence that he was the guy, then sent him to jail, essentially ruining his life. Shouldn't this have been a big issue already then? Shouldn't there be consequences for the person(s) who made that judgement?

The mental gymnastics you go through are astounding. You have cornered yourself into a silly stance. If a rabid dog charges at a kid, do we watch to see how they handle it? How extreme an example do you need until you finally admit that your position is untenable?

Same, I don't think this hurts anyone's bottom line significantly. Either people can afford to see it in a theatre and they will, or they can't and this doesn't make a difference because they were never going to spend that money anyway, let them have the bootleg.

Even if you do that, you still reward people with bad intentions. In the scenario you describe, they only change their behaviour because they got caught. Rest assured that they will cheat again but more carefully or with different teachers. If that is how things work in our society, then we have collectively failed (and I believe we have). We can't base a society on "you will be caught and there will be consequences" because quite often people do not get caught. We fail at fostering good intentions, and no amount of surveillance will fix that.

An idea can be both technically correct and pointless at the same time. If we ever make contact with extra-terrestrial intelligent life, will you have a similar take? The exciting thing is not that it exists, but that it's observed by humans.

Things don't have to be as one-sided as you present them. It is clear that the people responsible for Trump winning the election are the people who voted for him. It is also clear that the DNC favoured Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.