It's understandable that people go to work for Sauron to get paid big money. But starting a "human-orc ethics think tank" because you have relevant experience in the field is a bit rich.
We need to be able to forgive those who have done evil, if they truly repent. If they’re trying to do good now, we shouldn’t hold it against them that they worked for a monopoly spreading lies that incited violence, created online addicts, and took the pieces of silver happily. No, it only matters do good now.
I wholeheartedly agree. But, to be frank, I really don't see any amount of contrition in the Founders' Letter here, https://integrityinstitute.org/founders-letter. Primarily, I don't see anything here that says "You know what, we're sorry, because we were part of the problem, despite working on 'the inside' trying to improve things." I'm not asking for the founders to fall on a proverbial sword, but I don't see any acknowledgement of how the entire Facebook "machine", which causes all the problems they point out in their letter, is only possible because legions of really smart people choose to work there.
Repenting is indeed a major step on the way from evil to not evil, but I do not see any sign of repentance in their materials. Repenting means recognizing you did wrong, recognizing and admitting, sincerely and honestly, what was wrong in what you did, and then building a corrective action on top of that. I do not see any of that. I only see a bunch of platitides, which I could find in any corporate "our values" binder, we're all for everything good and against everything bad. "Strive to be a good, honorable person" - ok, sure, who doesn't? Are there many people striving to be bad and dishonorable? That's not doing anything.
It's also a bit rich to tell people "from the start, the Institute has been funded out-of-pocket by its founders. But that can’t last forever." -- even though you were only incorporated a month ago on September 29 -- and start asking for donations before you have received approval for tax-exempt status[1].
Jeff and I have been working on this nonstop since January-February. Formal incorporation happened way way after the work started. This has been my full time (unpaid, volunteer, only) job since February, and I have burned down much of my savings in that time.