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Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

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Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#21

Post by jacques_chester »

ex3ndr wrote: post #7

This was my first question at job interview to Facebook. Luckily i got an indian developer and i knew about how aggressive facebook in his home country (does everybody remembers free basics?) and i asked about what he thinks. Answer was simple - this is a form of a competition. I think "competition" can easily justify doing shady things - any of your competitors eventually will do the same and because of this there a…

Two wrongs don't make a right.

"Aw, but everyone else is doing it!" has never been the basis of a respectable system of morality. It's playground ethics.

Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#22

Post by brepl »

golergka wrote: post #8

Facebook employees and tech workers in general have a much wider spectrum of opinions that what echo chambers like HN allow. I personally know a lot of Facebook, Apple and Microsoft employees who voted Trump. Palantir employees who are very proud about their jobs and believe that they're making a positive impact on the world. Uber employees who believe that they're engaged in a good fight against regulation and burea…

Which of these opinions would be surprising?

Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#24

Post by pavlov »

knowThySelfx wrote: post #19
pavlov wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly San Francisco needs an annual Surveillance Capitalism Pride Parade.

What will happen if you don't tow the line? Will there be tolerance?

You’ll be patiently explained how your genetic layout or gender makes it harder for you to understand things. You’ll even get a printout of that personalized 10-page memo so you can study it at home.

Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#25

Post by Vinnl »

yodsanklai wrote: post #10

I'm interested in the answers. I'm having upcoming interviews with Facebook, and I wonder if the recent events should be addressed in the "culture fit" interview. My personal opinion is that the problem is not so much with Facebook but with the legislation. Corporations like Facebook are there to make profit within the rules defined by society. I hope there will be stronger laws to protect our privacy and data, and g…

> My personal opinion is that the problem is not so much with Facebook but with the legislation. Corporations like Facebook are there to make profit within the rules defined by society.

This holds true as long as those corporations do not influence what the law looks like (i.e. they are the results of a democratic process). The question is whether that is the case for Facebook.

Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#26

Post by knowThySelfx »

pavlov wrote: post #24
knowThySelfx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will happen if you don't tow the line? Will there be tolerance?

You’ll be patiently explained how your genetic layout or gender makes it harder for you to understand things. You’ll even get a printout of that personalized 10-page memo so you can study it at home.

Oh how I mistook them!

Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#27

Post by tomelders »

yodsanklai wrote: post #10

I'm interested in the answers. I'm having upcoming interviews with Facebook, and I wonder if the recent events should be addressed in the "culture fit" interview. My personal opinion is that the problem is not so much with Facebook but with the legislation. Corporations like Facebook are there to make profit within the rules defined by society. I hope there will be stronger laws to protect our privacy and data, and g…

> Corporations like Facebook are there to make profit within the rules defined by society

They seem to be having their cake and eating it. You hear the term "disruption" all the time from tech companies, and you'll hear tech leaders wax lyrical about their vision for society and how their work/product/service is shaping that.

Recent events have outed these people for what they are. Self serving profiteers who only care about how society can help them, and have little regard for how they can best serve society.

While shady corporate megalomaniacs are a problem, they are by no means unique. What leaves such a bad taste in my mouth however, is the way tech billionaires are so eager to project the idea that they're benevolent agents of progressive change, when really they're not and they're not even trying. They've been dining out for free on goodwill for too long. Now it's time to start paying the bill.

Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#28

Post by jacques_chester »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #12

Imagine that software development / engineering was a profession along the lines of law or medicine - no one could "practise software" without belonging. Now imagine we are drawing up the ethics code for that profession - is what facebook did something that could reasonably be banned? Is there direct harm involved? In my (very personal) view Facebook is just an example of an externality - this loss of control over da…

The IEEE Computer Society and ACM jointly adopted just such a code of ethics.

https://www.computer.org/web/education/code-of-ethics

None of it gives Facebook engineers any comfort.

They are responsible for the fruits of their efforts. Recent revelations are of degree, not kind. The consequences of engineering work were reasonably foreseeable and the consequences were not at arm's length. Facebook's business model has been clear and well-understood for years and years now. This is not technology being misapplied by someone several steps removed from you. This is technology misapplied by Facebook and Facebook's immediate customers and Facebook engineers enabled it.

Technology work has dimensions beyond "it's interesting" and "they pay me a lot". I hold us as professionals. We have duties which go beyond our own self-regard.

I am unsympathetic to anyone at Facebook feeling moral disquiet. I think you know what you ought to do.

Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

#29

Post by jacques_chester »

cornholio wrote: post #11

I think the way this problem is framed succumbs to an outdated world view, an image of the samurai computer hackers that put themselves in the service of the corporate lords - but are ultimately responsible for their actions against society and can choose to rebel. They are rare and prized and thus their collaboration is valued by the lords. This is a romantic vision that the companies themselves like to perpetuate,…

Ethics and economics are separate concerns.
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