Given the sheer number of people involved in Facebook's decision-making, I would believe it if they told me there was an internal consensus that differed from Zuckerberg's earlier college-age views. So I want to know if there is such a consensus, because if there is, then to my mind it would override that chat snapshot.
Also, yes, you can generally trust people to tell you what their real policies are. They might not be good policies, or well thought-through, etc., but there are very few people in the world who make it their business to lie and cheat every day.
Well said. Just look at conservative estimates of the number of psychopaths and sociopaths (2%) still gives you 140 million people that lie and cheat because they have no conscience and want to manipulate people.
Add some plain greed on top of that, and you'll end up with a lot of people. Grandparent is very naive.
Indeed, there's a whole host of reasons why sociopathic / psychopathic traits (such as the ability to lie credibly and manipulate others generally) enable people to ascend to positions of leadership in businesses (and hence, are represented in these ranks in higher numbers). See e.g.:
Strongly disagree, though I'm not completely certain: people use all their powers of rational thinking to convince themselves (if nobody else) that what they're doing is quite alright. So if you spot somebody lying, chances are it will show up in their reasoning if you question them about it at length—and they'll tell you about it, directly, because they've convinced themselves they're right. I think that's one way to explain why you should believe things people say about their own beliefs in interviews (while being skeptical about whether it's actually right).
Also, yes, you can generally trust people to tell you what their real policies are. They might not be good policies, or well thought-through, etc., but there are very few people in the world who make it their business to lie and cheat every day.