[cybernautique]

I have one caveat: people whose immigration to the USA was conditioned on their employment in Silicon Valley.

Aside from that, I think _every single person_ that works at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. (the uncivil technology corps) is morally bankrupt. Every last one of them is fundamentally compromised by their work.

[tomrod]

Weird. I know a lot of people who work in that space. None of them are morally corrupt.

What kind of people are you seeking out?

[forgotmypw17]

At the risk of making a No True Scotsman argument...

Can someone deriving income from such a business model, while other options are almost certainly available to them, NOT be considered morally corrupt?

[cybernautique]

"Seeking out" in which sense? As in, "who are the people that I seek to condemn?" Or, "who are the people that I seek out to speak with?" Or some other sense?

I'm not asking this to be obtuse; I'm genuinely interested in engaging on this topic, so I want to be sure I'm not speaking past your meaning.

"Who are the people I seek to condemn?" The information workers that find employment with massive, human-rights-violating corporations. I condemn these people for their willingness to dedicate such talent and intelligence towards actively making the world a more user-hostile place.

"Who are the people I seek to speak with?" Generally, everyone and anyone, including you or any of your acquaintances that happen to be reading this thread.

With respect, I think this speaks to a difference in our ethical values. I 100% believe that Facebook employees are fundamentally compromised by their employment. Don't get me twisted: I'm not accusing them of being Nazis, nor any such equivalence; these specific condemnations are very prevalent in our modern discourse. I'm not saying anything like this.

I'm also not saying that such people are necessarily unpleasant, or that their company might not be enjoyable. However, at the end of the day, they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with, and (in my opinion) the people of the world at large. For these reasons, owing to my ideological commitments, I remain firm in my position.

Facebook employees are ethically compromised.

[tomrod]

> Facebook employees are ethically compromised.

Again, I disagree heartily. I know FB employees who aren't ethically compromised, which serves as a counterexample to your claim. I can't think of any legal, large employer with whom people are ethically compromised simply by employment.

Also, your original claim was that they are morally corrupt. How do you distinguish between these two?

> they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with

As a gentle reminder, a single person isn't the world, and your life being assessed by you as worse (without mention of baseline) is not a huge price to pay for free connections, central marketplace, and not to mention the groups that have been extraordinarily helpful for the marginalized. I've been in that place (marginalized), and finding support through groups facilitated by FB's platform was essential to my well-being. So again, counterexample to the totalizing claim.

Am I a fan of FB? No. But it's a really hard stretch to assume that everyone is compromised for being involved with them. Such claims aren't novel, but seem to be histrionics in most cases.

[cybernautique]

I consider "ethically compromised" and "morally corrupt" to be the same thing.

I will accede to your claim: this is largely histrionics. I don't disavow my position, but I certainly do regret having so casually made these "totalizing" claims. It's a position I'm still working on formalizing well, but posting pure rhetoric is not that well-formalism.

You are correct that a single person isn't the world; however, my singular personhood is my entire world, and I do think it's fair to use the data point of me to make judgments about the world and others.

I think I specifically need to work on how I convey my notion of "ethically compromised," because I think it's probably far weaker than it's likely to be taken.

Perhaps I should say, instead, that I can not say any Facebook employee is ethical; or that, if Facebook employees were to share my ethical values, they could not view themselves as ethical actors (although I'm certainly not contending they ought to have my values). More generally, however, I believe this of every employee of Microsoft, Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. (the uncivil technology corps) Saving only for those employees whose immigration to the USA was conditioned upon their employment.

To me, the question is very much similar to "Were the employees of IBM during the Holocaust ethical?" The reporting goes, that IBM helped Nazi Germany design the computer systems that tabulated inmates at concentration camps. I really hate this particular formulation, because I definitely do not want to draw parallels to Nazism; nor do I wish to imply that they are on the fringes of such. However, at their most extreme, the uncivil technology corps has contributed a lot of tech and a lot of data to the CCP. I believe the reporting that the CCP is arresting Uighur Muslims and others, and placing them in concentration camps. Again, I do not wish to imply that this is the same _in scale_ as the Holocaust, nor even necessarily _in kind_ (yet), but it certainly rhymes to an uncomfortable degree. This is where I specifically stake my claim that these employees are unethical for human rights violations.

I don't see how someone can claim any degree of ethical standing if they directly aid an endeavor which profits from such malady.

I am glad to hear that you've found benefit from using Facebook, but I contend that whatever positive values Facebook might have are far-and-away outweighed by the definite societal ills it wreaks.

Again, just to clarify, I'm not saying that you need share my opinion: just as I am my own yardstick for the universe, I respect that you do the same.

I sincerely appreciate the engagement we're having. It's easy to look at someone you perceive to be displaying histrionics and snub them; thank you for our dialogue, and I hope it can continue.

EDIT: If you'd wish to continue this dialogue via email, my inbox is in my profile; else, I definitely welcome continuing this thread here publicly.

[uxcolumbo]

Great dialogue.

Why Microsoft though? Not sure they can be compared to Google or Facebook. But maybe I'm missing something.

If Microsoft - why not Apple?

I think most of us are morally corrupt however or let's call it applying a flexible morality.

When it comes to pleasure or money, e.g. going to McDonalds, buying fast fashion, or working for these massive ad companies, it's not always easy to do the right thing.

It's a systemic issue and we need to address the 'profit uber alles' value system.

How would you address this problem?

[cybernautique]

Microsoft and Apple both provide tech and data to the CCP, which makes them unethical vis-a-vis human rights violations in much the same ilk. They're definitely included in what I refer to as the uncivil technology corps. Generally, any tech company that enforces their product be used in only certain ways is a company I'd consider unethical and uncivil. The end-user is the only individual apt to decide how a tool is best used. Trying to subvert that, or make an end-run around the user, is a societal ill in my opinion.

I'm not sure how I'd obviate the problem entirely. I would propose a new tax on companies, commensurate to the degree they lock down their tech. This tax would be ear-marked towards a granting program for groups and individuals in the US, with the sole purpose of enabling grantees to publish new technology for the community.

That is, a grantee would be a non-corporate interest. The work of the grantee would be released as a public good, possibly competing in the same space as the companies from whom the tax came. As an example: Apple, having locked down their ecosystem so tightly, would be taxed highly under this program. The tax goes into a grant. Interested software developers apply for the tax, possibly to contribute work towards an OS or a command-line utility or sundry other projects.

I don't know if this would help. I feel that it would because it ideally helps convert technological rent from the rent-seeking corporations into tangible public goods.

[vlovich123]

How many people with prior experience at these companies have you worked with or know on a personal level that you're drawing this conclusion from?

[cybernautique]

This is a good question! I've known only applicants to Google, never anyone that's worked at or meaningfully aspired to work at Facebook.

I'm not making this judgment on a rational basis; my stance is based purely on my ethical values and ideological commitments.

If you find this silly, or think that it invalidates my opinion then: power to you! I do not believe that my ethical values are universal statements, nor that my ethics must be shared by anyone. I simply don't care to qualify every one of my statements with "it seems," "in my opinion," etc.

I genuinely wish to engage on this topic, so I welcome any further reply from you.

[vlovich123]

I happened to have worked at Apple, Facebook and Google. I’ve found all the people there to be generally pretty morale people who try to positively influence decisions. Sometimes it’s a losing battle and decisions get made that you disagree with. However that’s broadly true of any group of people so saying all members of a group are morally compromised seems unhelpful. You could say the same about anyone working on the government or any business or even generally associating with people.

I disagree with the position taken that you can evaluate a person’s principles solely by their choice of employment or association. It’s only one factor and usually an unhelpfully reductive way to look at the world IMO.