I have a close friend who works there. He's a moral person and disagrees with the social changes that Facebook has caused.
But if you ask him why he works there, he has a few standard responses:
- Most of the employees at Facebook are good and push back against Zuckerberg's harmful decisions.
- If all the good people leave, who will be left to push back?
- If I don't do this work, someone else will.
- These decisions have nothing to do with me.
All of these things are true and (I'd argue) bullshit. But history's greatest crimes and genocides were perpetrated by organizations of people who made many of these same excuses.
The core problem is that any large organization is guaranteed to be psychopathic. It's large and therefore powerful, which means small ethical compromises can cause a lot of harm. And also because it's large, every constituent can say, "Well, I didn't decide to do this." It's like a massive ouji board or a firing squad, where everyone is contributing to a concerted action, but no one feels responsible.
When they announced that they would be cracking down on leakers, that announcement leaked immediately. Imo it shows that they don't have popular support within Facebook at all.
Of course this doesn't excuse implementing features that you know are unethical, but it does help, and hopefully government will step up and attach consequences to Facebook's deceitful and malignant practices.
This is correct. There's a huge amount of internal dissent. There are internal protests and letters to the CEO.
But the dissent means nothing (except, as you say, in the rare instance of a leak) because Zuckerberg has 100% control of the company. There are even reports that Sandberg has been sidelined over time as Zuckerberg has consolidated decision-making for himself.
Well any large organization is, to a certain point, very successful and you can't get to that position with morals. Doing the ethical thing is very often not the thing you need to do to succeed or profit.
REI has 2x revenue and 6x employees compared to Palantir, but it would be impossible to argue that REI is more evil.
Be it a Psychiatrist, Chiropractor, Attorney, Priest, entrepreneur, or tech worker, they are all the same with morality.
If it affects Their Financial Security, or Financial Future--They Become Sheep. (sorry about the caps.)
When I was younger I walked out of a Chiropractic school. I knew the crux of the profession, the Subluxation, was very rare, and if people got better through manipulation of bones---it was all placebo. I was alwready in debt for 10 grand, and had a A- average.
I used to think how can all these people sit through this, and not question the profession.
I'm no hero though.
I dropped out because I developd a huge anxiety disorder, and had some kind of breakdown.
If my mind was stronger, I probally would have graduated, and hung up a shingle and go into denial over my worthiness. (I would have never done a Rotary on even my worst enemy.)
My point is many people like to belive they have morals. I sometimes think the only people left with true morality might be the Amish.
Sure people like to believe they have string convictions, and ethics; but when it comes to financial security they are followers. They might disagree internally, but really taking a stand is very rare.
You would think a wealthy man who could afford to be moral, and ethical, would take advantage of their privileged situation?
No----they are the worst offenders.
There are plenty of jobs available that don't involve moral compromises (beyond those inherent to existing) if you don't go out trying to create them.
If my employer buys wood and converts them into staircases, we make a good quality product at a fair price, our working practices are safe, and our suppliers, workers and customers are all working with us by choice - whence comes the moral compromise?
If I'm a surgeon fixing broken arms in a country with single-payer healthcare, I'm doing my job competently, and I'm not getting anyone addicted to pain meds - isn't everyone better off for me having done my job?
If I'm a gardener and I make people's houses look nice, as long as nobody's hiring me to bury human bodies, once again, what's the problem?
For readers who want a job that doesn't require you to shelve your morality, there are options out there :)
I guess you need to be a bad person from the get-go to be able to keep a smiling face in that place. I mean, it is not even that Facebook employees are forced be necessity to work there. They have plenty of options. It is just that honest work, like say a weapon manufacturer, pays so much less than ratting out your friends and family to Zuckerberg.