Then regardless of disgruntled employees, they can defend and discuss their behavior and any mistakes with a majority of consistent internal and external communications.
And maybe avoid doing most really bad things.
This consistency of purpose and avoidance of causing surreptitious harm is called “integrity”.
This isn't to excuse Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, or anybody else in a decision-making position. The first time your business model is widely seen to have played a determining role in a genocide [1], the ethical decision is unambiguous--it's a good time to step down and take your billions to lobby against that business model. There's no moral excuse for doing otherwise.
[1] https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violen...
That's literally illegal.
I have a relative who processes digital intakes for a CA ACLU chapter, and they get a huge number of interview-related complaints, which get referred directly to legal assistance who are interested in such cases.
My opinion is we likely don’t hear about it because each case is small, and companies have no incentive to publicize settlements.
I’m … not young and follow the “blank slate” approach. Was just wondering if the world had changed while I wasn’t paying attention.
I don’t think anything really changed there — those of us who think their opinions are worth other people hearing about (and I’m generally in that camp) have been around since time immemorial, and I doubt we’re growing as a percentage.
It’s just that social media has provided us a big new platform, much more visible than Usenet or whatever. I think generally companies don’t care what you write online as long as it won’t come back to bite the company.
I was wondering if social media has become so ingrained into the lives of the younger generations (and maybe even the elderly) that it’s effectively as much a part of their public identity as their choice of clothes and academic/career accomplishments.
That sounds likely to cause a lot of employee blowback, and negative news articles somewhat similar to this one.
I can see the headline now: "[Tech company] wants employees to be sheep" "Afraid of fallout from whistleblowers who report all the bad things it does, [tech company] has put measures in place to prevent job candidates with any morals from being hired."
Who would be the ones doing this? Currently regular employees are the ones conducting interviews. Would there be required interview questions along these lines?
Its what they are programmed to do.
When the work environment is exploitative in nature triggering people within the org happens all ths time.
The difference today is people who get triggered woke or non woke, can take advantage of networks effects like never before to do serious damage. Companies cant do shit about it.
Look at the people she connected with Andrew Bakaj, Jeff Horwitz, 60 minutes etc.
It's interesting, I know a bunch of people who work there as I'm sure many on this site do.
Nonetheless, none of them have a problem with Facebook or its role in our society.
I don't know what to make of it really.
It's really that simple. I also think Facebook is a net negative for humanity, but if I was willing to subject myself to leetcoding interviews and passed theirs, I'd work there in a heartbeat because they pay senior engineers with ~6+ years of experience about $400k as a baseline. Quite a bit more if you're particularly good, have competing offers and negotiate well. I have principles, but frankly I care about securing my and my family's future more than standing up for them. The same is probably true for most.
It means either (1) they don't give a shit about the harm their employer's business practices cause to society, or (2) they do care, but the large amount of money they get paid outweighs their moral compass.
Anyone with the skills and expertise to get a job at Facebook has many, many other choices of employers, many of which are at best morally neutral or less damaging than facebook.
There's no amount of money I'd accept to work at FB.
Oh man, do I hope my entrenched competitors do this. Give me your crazy ones.
It would seem that they actively select for it.
> It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade.
To be fair: Blue Team straight up hit the panic button when Trump was elected in 2016.
From a non-US perspective, Trump was... grating? Talked a big game, but clearly didn't have the leadership chops. His "Law and Order" tweets during all the rioting were absolutely pathetic. Blue Team, however, has clearly gone quite insane.
At this point, I'm sort of politically homeless, which puts me in good company. Republicans talk hard about winding the clock back but don't actually seem to do much of anything, Libertarians pretend there is no clock, and Democrats evangelize that we'll finally escape the oppression of time itself once we've burned the clock to cinders.
What a time to be alive.
During the riots, Trump kept tweeting out "LAW AND ORDER!", like a crippled old man furious at the neighborhood kids for trashing his roses. He's angry, but doesn't have the means to do anything about it.
This made Trump look weak and impotent. All he did was hide in his bunker and shake his tiny fist on Twitter while chaos raged.
The rioters placed Trump in a dilemma action. Smart. If Trump does nothing, he looks weak. If he responds with sufficient force to quell the riots, he looks like a tyrant.
Off the top of my head, a better play would have been something like: "As President, I am bound by the Constitution to respect the sovereignty of each State. To any state Governor that requests assistance to restore peace, I will put all necessary Federal resources under your direct command."
Repeat variants of that, over and over. An offer of assistance demonstrating clear respect for the Constitution.
This very diplomatically throws the ball to mostly blue-state governors. Now they either have to be seen as doing nothing, or as collaborating with Trump. Moreover, if they do accept assistance and pull a Kent State, it's on their heads.
And I'm some clown on the internet. I imagine somebody that really does statecraft could do better.
Trump is a showman. Good at reality TV. Clearly didn't understand how to lead a country.
The whole thing failed cause Pence wouldn’t play ball, the Trump rabble started hunting for him (and Congresspeople on both sides) in the Capitol building, and there was no backup plan.
The statement about how Trump was “like a crippled old man furious at his neighborhood kids” is hilariously off the mark. He was furious that Pence didn’t back him up.
Maybe? I didn't get the sense that Trump had a game plan at all. Looked like pure reaction the entire time.
The optics from the outside were "angry old man clutching his cane, shouting at the neighborhood troublemakers".
In many cases, although perhaps not this one, whistleblowers have had an extremely active and political Twitter account when hired, or are literally being hired _because_ of their wokeness.
Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? They certainly don't seem to. Political views and ideological values are subjective, so in a large enough organization you can't avoid some people getting very upset. It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade.
I think it's only a matter of time before people who are militantly political or ideological -- on either side of the spectrum -- are going to be seen as toxic by any company big enough to care.