That doesn't prove anything though: employee at biggest surveillance machine in the world considers working at the 2nd biggest surveillance machine in the world.

A lot of us software engineering types lack integrity and are perfectly happy to work on socially harmful projects as long as the pay's right and there's opportunity to grow one's skills.

> A lot of us software engineering types lack integrity

This is pretty insulting, working at Facebook doesn't necessarily mean you don't have integrity. The majority of the company is engaged in development efforts that aren't related to the odious part of the business to do with brokering personal data.

Additionally, I'm sure Facebook would move away from that if there was a viable way to get people to pay directly for social media. It's not like they're selling data because they're moustache twirling villains, they're doing it because it's the only business model anyone can make work for social media.

Further, it's interesting how Google is in exactly the same business at Facebook, yet receives a small fraction of public hatred for it.

Working at the company which is responsible for making election manipulation easier, facilitating murders and manipulating billions of people into giving up their private information is not ok, even if one actually works on some cool JavaScript library and not the evil bits themselves.

By this definition, anyone working for any platform that facilitates communication could be responsible for this unless they're policing literally every message, in which case they're grossly violating the privacy of users. This is a ridiculous standard to hold engineering staff against.

No it's not ridiculous. If Facebook is paying you to work on anything, they are getting more value out of you than your salary in their tracking endeavors.

Would you justify working for the Nazis if it was on open source libraries to better enable tracking people?

>employee at biggest surveillance machine in the world considers working at the 2nd biggest surveillance machine

Thats the most typical HN look at it

I've been visiting this website for almost 10 years.

Firstly, only in the past year have Google's or Facebook's reputations taken a turn for the worse. There are critics but there are many more cheerleaders, excuse-finders and whataboutists.

Secondly, this is not an HN bubble thing. Major publications in both the EU and US have written about the damage companies like Google and Facebook do to democracy, society and individuals. And even if it were an HN bubble, it's about time HN woke up to the malignancy of these corporations.

I don’t work on anything I consider socially harmful, FWIW. Before you ask, I don’t think most people would consider what I do socially harmful either, if they knew what it was.

Whatever you're working on, you're helping Google maintain their dominance and continue their abuse, otherwise you can be pretty sure they wouldn't be paying you for it.

I dont accept the premise that a large fraction of Google’s actions are abuse.

I seriously don't get why Google and Facebook got that brand name. 95% of engineers there are part of the pack and do mainly mindless jobs with very little impact. They are the mot "Sheep-ish" people I know, convinced that working for Google/Facebook give them something to brag at dinner parties.

The top 5 rockstars % (the ones they really want to attract with big money) are the ones taking all decisions.

I don’t know if I’m a sheep or a rock star but I do know I enjoy my work and probably get paid more than I could get anywhere else.

What do you think of Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple? Are they worthy of your talents as well?

They're good companies, but not as nice to work for as Google and Facebook.

Would you think less of me as an employee of Apple instead of an employee of Facebook?

??? You seem like you’re trying to find a fight here for reasons I cannot fathom. All I think of you as an employee of one of these companies is that you’re probably less well compensated than you could be.

Of course, although all to a lesser extent, since they are widely believed to pay less.