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While I like the idea of a tech pledge to identify what Right is, and then do the Right Thing, I can't help but feel that this particular implementation is extr

While I like the idea of a tech pledge to identify what Right is, and then do the Right Thing, I can't help but feel that this particular implementation is extremely narrow in how it was designed and how it ended up scoped out. It seems very specifically about managing how the US govt. has interacted with specific companies holding user data, and also the current trends expressed by Trump regarding immigration. These are both important issues, but it's hardly what I'd consider The Tech Pledge, being so narrow. I'd love to see a version that talks about, say, security practices, and endeavoring to put consumer privacy above business needs.

hkon 9y ago
catered to the current winds of buzz
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Yeah, this has been specifically tailored so that people at companies like Facebook and Google can sign it. Things like... not being able to ad-target depressed youth (ex. Facebook in Australia), not paying to fabricate "independent" academic studies that claim you aren't violating antitrust law (Google's Joshua Wright), or operating software explicitly designed to help your service avoid government regulators from being able to find it (ex. Uber's Greyball), or other similarly immoral actions of Silicon Valley today clearly aren't covered here. This appears solely based on how tech companies should deal with the government, not themselves.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Employees at Google outnumber those of any other company on the NeverAgain.tech pledge. I don't know what Google's management can sign, but Google's rank and file broadly opposes turning over big data to the DOJ, or assisting in mass deportation. Obviously, the YC pledge is weak sauce compared to what NeverAgain says: no matter what legal process is involved, NeverAgain signatories pledge to leave a job that involves helping mass deportation. I think we shouldn't care about what Google's management thinks, but rather focus our attention on getting some pledges written that the rank and file can sign on to. If even 1/5th of the engineers at a company publicly pledge to something, their employers can't ignore it.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    I'm not seeing how your comment addresses my point. The neveragain.tech pledge does have a very vague term about "misuse of data that's illegal or unethical", but the majority of that pledge also refers very specifically to government overreach. It was in response to questions about if any of the companies would help Trump create a database of Muslims, and cites a variety of examples that all are about government abuses and overreaches that involved technology to implement. While agree with the statement others have made that neveragain.tech has a stronger pledge, I still don't feel it has much to do with extremely unethical practices in the companies themselves so much as insisting those companies don't help the government with it's unethical practices. If an employer is reading these pledges and taking note, they're going to see that they should resist government actions to use their data, not that they should make any consideration how they use that data themselves.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      I may have misread your comment; the subtext I got from yours was that the YC Pledge had been watered down to make it possible for Google to sign on to it, and I just wanted to say that the (much stronger) NeverAgain.tech pledge got a surprising amount of Google support, including from pretty senior people at Google. If you weren't implying that NeverAgain.tech needed to be watered down to make it palatable to Google, my comment indeed wasn't responsive to yours. Sorry!

hkon 9y ago

catered to the current winds of buzz

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

Yeah, this has been specifically tailored so that people at companies like Facebook and Google can sign it. Things like... not being able to ad-target depressed youth (ex. Facebook in Australia), not paying to fabricate "independent" academic studies that claim you aren't violating antitrust law (Google's Joshua Wright), or operating software explicitly designed to help your service avoid government regulators from being able to find it (ex. Uber's Greyball), or other similarly immoral actions of Silicon Valley today clearly aren't covered here. This appears solely based on how tech companies should deal with the government, not themselves.

tptacek 9y ago
Employees at Google outnumber those of any other company on the NeverAgain.tech pledge. I don't know what Google's management can sign, but Google's rank and file broadly opposes turning over big data to the DOJ, or assisting in mass deportation. Obviously, the YC pledge is weak sauce compared to what NeverAgain says: no matter what legal process is involved, NeverAgain signatories pledge to leave a job that involves helping mass deportation. I think we shouldn't care about what Google's management thinks, but rather focus our attention on getting some pledges written that the rank and file can sign on to. If even 1/5th of the engineers at a company publicly pledge to something, their employers can't ignore it.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  I'm not seeing how your comment addresses my point. The neveragain.tech pledge does have a very vague term about "misuse of data that's illegal or unethical", but the majority of that pledge also refers very specifically to government overreach. It was in response to questions about if any of the companies would help Trump create a database of Muslims, and cites a variety of examples that all are about government abuses and overreaches that involved technology to implement. While agree with the statement others have made that neveragain.tech has a stronger pledge, I still don't feel it has much to do with extremely unethical practices in the companies themselves so much as insisting those companies don't help the government with it's unethical practices. If an employer is reading these pledges and taking note, they're going to see that they should resist government actions to use their data, not that they should make any consideration how they use that data themselves.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I may have misread your comment; the subtext I got from yours was that the YC Pledge had been watered down to make it possible for Google to sign on to it, and I just wanted to say that the (much stronger) NeverAgain.tech pledge got a surprising amount of Google support, including from pretty senior people at Google. If you weren't implying that NeverAgain.tech needed to be watered down to make it palatable to Google, my comment indeed wasn't responsive to yours. Sorry!