[hn_throwaway_99]

> The labor pool of software engineers is very diverse in terms of backbones, ethics and morals.

This is exactly my point. The same is true for other engineering disciplines, too, but by codifying their ethical responsibilities (and, in some cases, assigning liability to engineers who forego those responsibilities), other professional engineering organizations help to ensure a bare minimum for what is and isn't allowed in their profession.

I'll give another example that has much less dire consequences than the OP's. 90% of "scarcity marketing", e.g. "Act now! There are only 2 rooms left!" or even "8 other people are looking at this property!", is complete and total bullshit. I've even seen A/B tests where they developers were like "yeah, the data here is not real, we just want to see if it has an effect." Why is this even in the realm of acceptability? There is no gray area here - it's not just a "dark pattern". It is 100% outright lying. Yet I never heard someone stand up in those product reviews (myself included, so I'm no hero either) and say "How can we spend so much time on our 'company values' when this is obviously bullshit and slimy?"

I wish there were a "software engineering code of conduct" that said that outright lying to end users is verboten, and that software developers can be held personally liable if they are aware of the lie and still implement it.