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I'm surprised by the sheer amount of blind loyalty at Facebook. I mean, I consider myself to be a loyal employee but I'm not blind to ethical violations. The w

I'm surprised by the sheer amount of blind loyalty at Facebook. I mean, I consider myself to be a loyal employee but I'm not blind to ethical violations. The way these employees are defending a global multi-billion dollar organization it's almost like they were executives. They'd rather sell out the rest of the world for what? To be a FB engineer until they retire? It's like Facebook indoctrinates it's employees somehow. I can't think of a single non-managerial employee at my company that wouldn't speak up if we deliberately started violating agreements with our customers and coming closer and closer to breaking the law, and I'm comfortable with that.

fbthrow8795 9y ago
The vast majority of these people signed onto what they believed was a sure tradeoff: They knew FB wasn't the most ethical company around, and that they at times would have to pinch their nose. In return they would be handsomely financially rewarded. What we are seeing now is not the response of cult members - it's the response of lots of pragmatic employees/"investors" being protective and worried about their investment. In the worst case they would have irrevocably stained their personal reputations for a relatively small gain. So to repeat, no - this is not a cult - the employees knew what they were getting themselves into. We should not feel sorry for them.
- Maro 9y ago
  As a former FB employee, I say "bullshit". I didn't go to FB because I thought it's unethical but "money". I went there because I wanted to work on a product that I and every one of my friends/family uses, that helped me a lot when I was getting divorced, etc. Money was OK, but you can make more money than at FB, eg. in Finance, or other special places. I've never worked at a company that takes data protection as seriously as FB, or has the caliber of people protecting data. Also impressive was that _every_ week there was a 1-hour QA where any intern/employee can ask Zuck a question (it's open mic). In my time there I've never seen Zuck really duck a question. He stands behind what his company does and believes in the mission, as do most employees. "it's the response of lots of pragmatic employees/"investors" being protective and worried about their investment" > sorry, this is just silly...
  - mephitix 9y ago
    >> I've never worked at a company that takes data protection as seriously as FB, or has the caliber of people protecting data. I don't doubt this, but I think Facebook has a flawed culture that allows and encourages employees to use this mindset as a rationalization for unethical things like: - run emotional experiments on news feeds - silently logging all Android users' calls and texts - allow proliferation of fake news - allow buying of propaganda ads from state actors - zero safeguarding of data to ensure it wasn't sold by app creators/devs. Data is central to facebook's business model and the ability to collect, analyze, and sell lots of data (a natural result of the 'big data' hype) became an infatuation for facebook employees. The Boz memo supports my point - except he cleverly hides it as 'grow at all costs' rather than the underlying 'collect/analyze/sell data at all costs'.
    - Maro 9y ago
      "run emotional experiments on news feeds" > I believe this happened once, for the advancement of science. Personally, given that FB is the only place where such real social science can happen, I wish they'd do it much-much more. I don't think any social scientist can perform an A/B test outside of Facebook. "silently logging all Android users' calls and texts" > I also don't like this. "allow proliferation of fake news" > I think the "allow" part is disingenuous. It's not like FB people are able to guess all the bad vectors in advance and have advance alerts set up. Also, remember, 2B people are on FB, so there will be a lot of shit, because that's what people are like. I actually think they reacted pretty quickly, after the first time there was a credible attack. "allow buying of propaganda ads from state actors" > Not sure what you mean? US elections are okay to use ads, right? You're saying other countries shouldn't, if you don't like the gov't? This is a lose-lose on FB I think, either people like you bitch that they're enabling a bad gov't, or they're seen as a censor. Believe me that a lot of smart ppl are trying to figure out what the "least wrong" thing to do is on things like this. "zero safeguarding of data to ensure it wasn't sold by app creators/devs" > bullshit, they stopped this is 2015. But I agree, the way it worked before was really broken and asked for this to happen.
      - frankzinger 9y ago
ikeyany 9y ago
These employees are people who are pulled straight from college, given salaries higher than most of their contemporaries ever dreamed of earning, and are told they are special and are changing the world. Why wouldn't they be blindly loyal to the sociopathic machine they helped create?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
erobbins 9y ago
It's kind of culty here, but I don't think that's out of the ordinary for silicon valley. There is a lot of internal debate and discussion about things, as well. It's not a hive mind.

fbthrow8795 9y ago

The vast majority of these people signed onto what they believed was a sure tradeoff: They knew FB wasn't the most ethical company around, and that they at times would have to pinch their nose. In return they would be handsomely financially rewarded. What we are seeing now is not the response of cult members - it's the response of lots of pragmatic employees/"investors" being protective and worried about their investment. In the worst case they would have irrevocably stained their personal reputations for a relatively small gain. So to repeat, no - this is not a cult - the employees knew what they were getting themselves into. We should not feel sorry for them.

Maro 9y ago
As a former FB employee, I say "bullshit". I didn't go to FB because I thought it's unethical but "money". I went there because I wanted to work on a product that I and every one of my friends/family uses, that helped me a lot when I was getting divorced, etc. Money was OK, but you can make more money than at FB, eg. in Finance, or other special places. I've never worked at a company that takes data protection as seriously as FB, or has the caliber of people protecting data. Also impressive was that _every_ week there was a 1-hour QA where any intern/employee can ask Zuck a question (it's open mic). In my time there I've never seen Zuck really duck a question. He stands behind what his company does and believes in the mission, as do most employees. "it's the response of lots of pragmatic employees/"investors" being protective and worried about their investment" > sorry, this is just silly...
- mephitix 9y ago
  >> I've never worked at a company that takes data protection as seriously as FB, or has the caliber of people protecting data. I don't doubt this, but I think Facebook has a flawed culture that allows and encourages employees to use this mindset as a rationalization for unethical things like: - run emotional experiments on news feeds - silently logging all Android users' calls and texts - allow proliferation of fake news - allow buying of propaganda ads from state actors - zero safeguarding of data to ensure it wasn't sold by app creators/devs. Data is central to facebook's business model and the ability to collect, analyze, and sell lots of data (a natural result of the 'big data' hype) became an infatuation for facebook employees. The Boz memo supports my point - except he cleverly hides it as 'grow at all costs' rather than the underlying 'collect/analyze/sell data at all costs'.
  - Maro 9y ago
    "run emotional experiments on news feeds" > I believe this happened once, for the advancement of science. Personally, given that FB is the only place where such real social science can happen, I wish they'd do it much-much more. I don't think any social scientist can perform an A/B test outside of Facebook. "silently logging all Android users' calls and texts" > I also don't like this. "allow proliferation of fake news" > I think the "allow" part is disingenuous. It's not like FB people are able to guess all the bad vectors in advance and have advance alerts set up. Also, remember, 2B people are on FB, so there will be a lot of shit, because that's what people are like. I actually think they reacted pretty quickly, after the first time there was a credible attack. "allow buying of propaganda ads from state actors" > Not sure what you mean? US elections are okay to use ads, right? You're saying other countries shouldn't, if you don't like the gov't? This is a lose-lose on FB I think, either people like you bitch that they're enabling a bad gov't, or they're seen as a censor. Believe me that a lot of smart ppl are trying to figure out what the "least wrong" thing to do is on things like this. "zero safeguarding of data to ensure it wasn't sold by app creators/devs" > bullshit, they stopped this is 2015. But I agree, the way it worked before was really broken and asked for this to happen.
    - frankzinger 9y ago

ikeyany 9y ago

These employees are people who are pulled straight from college, given salaries higher than most of their contemporaries ever dreamed of earning, and are told they are special and are changing the world. Why wouldn't they be blindly loyal to the sociopathic machine they helped create?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

erobbins 9y ago

It's kind of culty here, but I don't think that's out of the ordinary for silicon valley. There is a lot of internal debate and discussion about things, as well. It's not a hive mind.