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Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

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Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for FB itself during this controversy won't tarnish your resume anyway.

I will pass on a resume that includes Facebook.

That's a bit much, don't you think? This reminds me of that baseball coach who would refuse anybody from Colorado simply because marijuana is legal there.

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#62
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Facebook? The ones that help get TRUMP ELECTED?" I think that would be enough to get you blacklisted in certain California crowds.

Please don't be flippant. You know the what we mean here: the perception that those who work at Facebook are lacking in ethics or moral fiber. This isn't about politics.

Please don't tell other people what to do. As a Californian, the reaction he is describing is very plausible.

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#63
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Facebook? The ones that help get TRUMP ELECTED?" I think that would be enough to get you blacklisted in certain California crowds.

Please don't be flippant. You know the what we mean here: the perception that those who work at Facebook are lacking in ethics or moral fiber. This isn't about politics.

It's not a flippant remark - it's argument to extreme [1] (ie, paining those who question FB as only Trump-haters when many people have questioned FB long before CA/Trump entered the mainstream discussion).

It doesn't help FB that Trump is associated with them and that he's in hot water already.

[1] https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#64
post #5

I wonder how many new hires pass up Facebook because of ethical concerns. Whats scary is if even internally people are moving departments because of ethics, that basically filters so that the least ethical people are on the teams with the most ethical concerns. If there's a real net effect on their hiring, they'll have to increase salaries to lure people in, which will take in even more unethical people (of course, n…

I find this issue much more pressing in the defense industry. I (thankfully) have the freedom to choose where I work. I will never willingly work on weapon systems. There are those that do though. Engineers who design things to kill other people. What the actual fuck.

So the fact that Galkovskiy, the engineer who perfected the Katyusha rocket launcher, decided to work on a weapon that played a major role in defeating Nazi Germany offends you?

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#65
post #5

I wonder how many new hires pass up Facebook because of ethical concerns. Whats scary is if even internally people are moving departments because of ethics, that basically filters so that the least ethical people are on the teams with the most ethical concerns. If there's a real net effect on their hiring, they'll have to increase salaries to lure people in, which will take in even more unethical people (of course, n…

I am one. I didn't even reply to the many targeted requests I got from recruiters for FB positions.

I'd say at the time several years ago it had more to do with "I don't want to have to re-activate my closed FB just to join the company", never mind having to drink the koolaid.

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#66
> As it became evident that Facebook's core product might be to blame, engineers working on it reportedly found it increasingly difficult to stand by what it built.

What are they referring to here? That the code base has gotten unwieldy and has become hard to change?

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#67

This is sort of surprising information, from my view. The information about their business model and data practices which people seem to be so surprised by was/is common knowledge among people who work with these technology stacks. Going to work for Facebook seemed like it would have meant supporting and abetting those practices; they were very clear about what they were doing, and the roles were in no way ambiguous.…

We saw the same thing after Snowden, people were leaving the NSA in mass after the average person became aware of the situation.

Data collection is what enabled the Nazis to find Jews and homosexuals, the next mass percution can be more specific than race. Anti-vaxers, pizzagaters, people who don't watch anough TV.

As the world becomes more aware of the dangers of algorithms and AI, Facebook engineers are rethinking their career path.

It's clear to me that Zuckerberg was entirely too willing to abuse his power from the start, he doesn't seem to have good intentions at all.

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#68
post #5

I wonder how many new hires pass up Facebook because of ethical concerns. Whats scary is if even internally people are moving departments because of ethics, that basically filters so that the least ethical people are on the teams with the most ethical concerns. If there's a real net effect on their hiring, they'll have to increase salaries to lure people in, which will take in even more unethical people (of course, n…

I find this issue much more pressing in the defense industry. I (thankfully) have the freedom to choose where I work. I will never willingly work on weapon systems. There are those that do though. Engineers who design things to kill other people. What the actual fuck.

> Engineers who design things to kill other people. What the actual fuck.

The popular rationalizations are "it will help save lives of armed services" or "prevent the big terrorist attack". Ther are dozens of reasons people make up to convince themselves and others that it's ok.

Judgement as to whether their reasons hold up to the light of day are left as an exercise to reader.

Re: Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Switching Departments Over Ethical Concerns

#70
post #56
post #5

I wonder how many new hires pass up Facebook because of ethical concerns. Whats scary is if even internally people are moving departments because of ethics, that basically filters so that the least ethical people are on the teams with the most ethical concerns. If there's a real net effect on their hiring, they'll have to increase salaries to lure people in, which will take in even more unethical people (of course, n…

Count me as one. Who can say if I'd have passed their interview process, but I was recruited by them and immediately said "no thanks", and told their recruiter I didn't like that they subjected their users to psychological experiments without their knowledge[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinke...

There are a lot of reasons to dislike Facebook, but I don't think their (public) research on the effect of social media on their users is one.

You're exposed to psychological experiments on every large website you use, although typically the psychometrics are more limited to things like "did you click the button that gives us money?" instead of questions like "how does the emotional content of the news feed affect our users well being?"

Also the fact that they made this research public is, in my eyes, a sign of good faith (in this specific case), and an indication that at least some people in the company take the power they have over their users' health seriously.

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