To me that's more ethical than killing of billions of animals, and the latter is considered ethical. I wouldn't do that because that would feel weird, but not unethical.
That sounds strange. I cannot comment on your particular case without seeing the test artifacts.
Generally speaking, there is nothing wrong with tests that ensure bad input doesn't break the system, as this can easily lead to incorrect system states, damage to the environment, loss of data, money, reputation, and even lives - although most systems are not critical enough to threaten lives.
You wouldn't need QAs if you only needed to validate that the product meets the requirements. In a typical company, many people are involved in that process. This includes the developer who wrote the code, the developer who reviewed it, and the people who conduct acceptance testing, among others. If your developers produce code that doesn't meet the requirements, you're in trouble.
I'm not saying that QA shouldn't validate whether the system meets the requirements, but you don't want them to do just that.
He's trying to make money, he doesn't care about the platform or its future. The Boeing's CEO during the two 737 MAX crashes had to resign... with $62.2 million in his pockets. These people live in a different world.
Why do you think these people are idiots? I believe Twitter promotes content posted by paid users. Last time I was on Twitter (about a year ago), they were planing to exclude regular users from the "smart" feed. Plus, people could write longer posts instead of threads. Unlike with reddit gold, I see real benefits for content creators.
You are talking about the id card reader, not independent 2FA devices that generate codes. Also, in some countries you can get a SIM card with special certificates that can be used for identification and document signing, they work on virtually any modern phone. I think that feature uses the SMS protocol underneath, but I couldn't find the confirmation.
To me that's more ethical than killing of billions of animals, and the latter is considered ethical. I wouldn't do that because that would feel weird, but not unethical.