Executives can make the actual illegal and horrible plan, and divy up the work in pieces, so that labor is not aware of exactly what they're constructing. Executives have the complete picture. Its their idea. They know what's going on.
The microphone? It could be a voice interaction tool.
The spyware? Thats logging and monitoring of bugs for patches.
Automated image recognition? Again, more sketchy, but legal, and used to optimize those avenues of usage.
Its only the pieces used *in illegal ways* as ordered by executives that are the problem. If you're not a C level yourself, not sure why you're simping for them.
And the Samsung violating criminal statutes with wiretapping laws is the problem. I would rather blame the company, C levels first. 50 million years (5 years per, 10 million devices sold) of jailtime should be sufficient with dissolution and disbursement to all affected buyers of hardware. And, jailing of the C levels. But instead, you want to go after the electronic engineer who designed a PCB with a microphone. Yeah, im sure *he or she* had plans on creating spy devices across the world.
Maybe not the engineer who designed a microphone, but certainly the ones who integrated it into the spying platform. The TV doesn't accidentally send that data back. The data doesn't accidentally store itself, and it doesn't accidentally send itself to partners or feed into an ad model. The CEO is also probably not personally working the sales funnel. There's an entire line of people who all knew exactly what was happening.
1) Those who gave the order (position of power). Often a chain of command.
2) Those who planned it (usually the same or merged with group #1).
3) Those who implement the plan. The engineer, the soldier, the distributor (all down to the line of the logistics driver who delivered the evil TV), etc.
For some strange reason group #1 is called executives. They do not execute much though; they order others to, but execute sounds like they work hard, I guess. Those are indeed the most liable, and we must explain the why. Think Hitler, Himmler, Stalin, Mielke, etc. Lower down the line you get the Einsatzgruppe commanders.
The soldier who executed Jews (among other minority groups, mind you) with a gun is liable, but part of a power structure. If he refuses, he can and will get in trouble. Mass murder generates trauma, so it is executed by pawns or pawns of lieutenants. NKVD solved this by using others to execute.
Ergo: the higher up the chain, the more liable these people were as they had more power to say no.
That someone else would say yes is a red herring excuse. An engineer is in a position of power. They're an educated specialist in their field, they get paid for their job (not forced to implement in West), can say no. They can even blow the whistle. If those in power cannot find a fool to do their errands, they must do it themselves (and they cannot as no expertise), or lay down the idea.
The gas used to gas people in concentration camps didnt magically end up there. They weren't lied to that they'd get a shower by people who didn't knew what would happen. They knew or could've known, but they chose not to act.
(I'm using older examples of genocide as they are established and well documented; I am aware of more recent examples, but 1) this hasn't been solved legally, 2) I leave that comparison as an exercise to the reader.)