I am very glad to see such a discussion taking place within the FP community. I will not dive into the complexity of the minerals, simply because I do not have the knowledge for it - though this discussion has been very instructive for people who knew nothing about conflict-free minerals like me.
However, one thing that came up in many different comments is that we shouldn’t be so harsh on FP because the company has a small team without the capacity, time and resources to investigate issues like conflict-free minerals as deeply as we would hope. The truth is that there is a straightforward solution to this: involving the FP community in the process.
This forum is great (I genuinely mean that) but it doesn’t go nearly far enough if the objective is to create a ‘social movement’. The FP community can and should be effectively involved in the investigative process, in the brainstorming process on how to reach FP’s stated goals and even in the decision-making process. This forum and this thread in particular are proof that there is a willingness by FP users to get actively involved in those processes. But as for now, FP doesn’t seem interested (there was already a beginning of conversation on this topic here but there was no official response from FP).
Creating formal mechanisms to involve the community is crucial because a) it would greatly multiply FP’s capacity to conduct research and come up with creative solutions and b) a company that gives a voice (beyond a mere forum) to its constituency is in itself more ethical.