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I struggle to see how software developers can willingly do work on a project that goes against all values and morales! I have previously worked with developers

I struggle to see how software developers can willingly do work on a project that goes against all values and morales! I have previously worked with developers in start-ups and was amazed to hear some of their backgrounds. One previously worked for a company that bundles spyware with freeware MSI products. Another worked for an airline agency, where they advertise fake a discount on tickets when the price was in fact higher than market. Needless to say, their actions outside the work environment matched their actions inside.

johnnyfaehell 8y ago
> I struggle to see how software developers can willingly do work on a project that goes against all values and morales! Personally, this doesn't really go against my morals or values. They installed the app. No one forced them to. Not everyone has the same set of morals and values you do. If it's not illegal and no one is harmed. I don't care so much.
- bendotero 8y ago
  It's the "no one is harmed" part I strongly disagree with. Perhaps they signed up for something and have perfect knowledge of how Facebook will use the information they collect (doubtful) but the rest of us will be impacted, manipulated and harmed in some way by what Facebook ultimately ends up doing with the data that their guinea pigs willingly gave up.
  - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
    > It's the "no one is harmed" part I strongly disagree with. I can't prove a negative. So you would have to prove the positive, what harm came from this app?
    - 50656E6973 8y ago
      >can't prove a negative. Then why do you assert it as being truthful? The history of FB's data collection practices is replete with "harm".
      - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
        I didn't assert that anything was truthful? And prove the "harm" in its data collection practices. Since you've been very specific in data collection, I will expect your response to be about data collection.
        michaelmrose 8y ago
        I'm not the original poster but the harm would logically follow from USE of that data now and in the future not the process of collection much like the harm from a long fall doesn't come from the journey but rather the sudden stop at the end.
        50656E6973 8y ago
        Voter/election manipulation
    - bendotero 8y ago
      Isn't Cambridge Analytica enough proof that harm has been done by Facebook's data collection and allowing others to access it? That's the very tip of the iceberg.
      - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
        What harm came from that exactly? More people voted? Is voting harm? Just because you don't like the way someone voted doesn't make it harmful. My understanding is the entire Cambridge Analytica thing is about privacy and not actual harm from the Facebook aspect.
        cmsj 8y ago
        It was about having enough data to specifically target people with messages that would influence their vote. At scale, such behaviour cannot possibly be good for democracy.
        johnnyfaehell 8y ago
        For me, everything is about, that it could be harmful. And that's true it could be. Lots of things could be harmful. But right now, it's not really provable by anyone that it is. What we need is proper laws to control what companies can do. And in some areas of the world we're getting them. They're not great but like all tbings they will improve. But it seems very much like there is an attitude like working for Facebook or Google is amoral. That I don't believe. Especially when there are companies sell software to track phones secretly to countries like Iran. That's on the border of amoral.
        michaelmrose 8y ago
        It was used to figure out which parties were most susceptible to being manipulated with misinformation and outright lies so that they would vote for people whom would ultimately harm their own interests. For example figuring out which groups of liberals could be pushed towards a third party candidate with propaganda so that that a conservative candidate could win the election and disadvantage the same folks. This is straightforward harm even if the election was still technically democratic it was swayed by manipulation partially funded by our enemies and those who aligned themselves with Americas enemies to get a president elected by the minority to harm the interests of the majority in order to enrich a much smaller minority.
    - inetknght 8y ago
      > what harm came from this app? Would you say that the current political climate has been harmful? I would. I would not only say that, but I would also say that it's come about specifically because of data collection practices which have enabled data analysis of entire populations in a way which has never been seen before. While analysis of populations is not inherently bad by itself, the outcome certainly has been, particularly because the abilities and effects are so new that there's little or no law governing people towards positive effects for society as a whole. Without those laws, the effects become geared toward benefiting people at the top either directly (company CEOs) or indirectly (capabilities sold to those who can afford them).
      - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
        > Would you say that the current political climate has been harmful? I would. I would not only say that, but I would also say that it's come about specifically because of data collection practices which have enabled data analysis of entire populations in a way which has never been seen before. Seriously, look at the state of peoples finances. That's the cause. Look at the amount of money the rich have compared to those who voted for Trump, Brexit, etc. Look at the quality of life. This has been coming for a long, long time. Blaming on Facebook and Twitter is not very insightful of the state of affairs in the world today.
        inetknght 8y ago
        You don't think the data collection policies these companies have meaningfully enabled and/or contributed to the wealth gap?
        johnnyfaehell 8y ago
        No... That would be banks and governments with decades of lax tax laws. This wasn't created overnight, 2008 just highlighted it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
onion2k 8y ago
I struggle to see how software developers can willingly do work on a project that goes against all values and morales! A $200k/year graduate starting salary is enough to get a lot of people to set their values to one side for a while.
sidcool 8y ago
I struggle to realize why we expect Software engineers to be bellwethers of morality and ethics. They are flesh and blood, and like any other profession, if there's money in something, there will be someone to do it
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  For one, as professionals and engineers, SEs should absolutely be attuned to and deeply reflective of ethics. That said, we can and should expect everyone to consider ethics in their daily lives and work. Someone likely will do nearly every unethical thing, but that doesn't mean it is right for anyone to do it.
- fqw3b58w4n6 8y ago
  We should expect everybody to care about the morality and ethics of their actions. That's a pretty low fucking bar IMO. In software, this is one way that manifests.
  - sidcool 8y ago
    I am not condoning the unethical practices, but every profession has people who are below the bar you talk about. The reasons why they do it are as varied as the peoples of the world.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Other professions are self regulating, if you do unethical things your peers (the AMA or legal boards) will strip you of your license to practice and then you can’t find a job. It would be too much to expect engineers to somehow be angels without the threat of punishment when even doctors need these systems. But on the other hand, imagine if you heard about this agile thing but you can’t legally apply it because waterfall is mandated and if you apply agile you might be stripped of your license to practice software engineering.
  - hackinthebochs 8y ago
    >We should expect everybody to care about the morality and ethics of their actions. This isn't a very meaningful statement as people widely disagree about what the ethical action is.
smacktoward 8y ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair)
mbesto 8y ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
To any HN readers who work at Facebook: your company is morally decrepit and you are complicit. If you go to LinkedIn and indicate that you're looking, you'll have 20 leads in your inbox by lunch. You don't have to work there.
- treis 8y ago
  From Google, MS, Instacart, Uber et al? The reality is that every major tech company does scummy stuff. There are vanishly few tech companies that don't.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    There are a fuckload of tech companies. You don't have to work for a big name.
    - treis 8y ago
      One day you're working for a plucky start up. The next you're working for a big name that's stealing tip money. There's a reason that these companies do what they do. Fraud, breaking the law, and dark patterns are way easier ways to make money than doing so do ethically and legally. Companies either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. I'm exaggerating a bit, but realistically the list of ethical tech companies is a lot shorter than the list of unethical ones.
      - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
        This really isn't true. The vast majority of tech companies are ethical, at least a far sight more so than Facebook. They don't make headlines so you have a bais.
    - chillacy 8y ago
      Glad you’re a moral bastion but I gotta pay the bills and big companies have better work life balance than unicorn startups.
debaserab2 8y ago
> Needless to say, their actions outside the work environment matched their actions inside. It's a given assumption that anyone who once worked for a shady company is also shady?
mruts 8y ago
It's almost as if people have different morals and values...
pixelrevision 8y ago
A case like this can be sold to developers in odd ways. Devs typically think that people who download things have way more insite than they do and can assess what putting the certificate on the device means. The team that started the project likely feels that this helps them build a better experience for their users. Facebook in general seems to have good intentions and terrible awareness of what is crossing a line. They really wanted their platform to be the center of everyone’s lives and now appear completely unprepared for the consequences of pushing that agenda so hard.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
foobiekr 8y ago
I know a reasonable number of Facebook employees. Their opinions on the last year range from “don’t care/getting paid” to “everyone does it.” These are good people. They just don’t care.
- lostmsu 8y ago
  > These are good people. They just don’t care. I think these two statements contradict each other.
  - hackinthebochs 8y ago
    Or maybe people are a lot more complicated than simplistic notions of what makes a good person.
- kennyadam 8y ago
  You should edit that to 'These are people who don't care. It's not good.'
  - foobiekr 8y ago
    Both comments express this sentiment. I’m pretty judgey myself, but I’ve known these people for ten, twenty years. They are good people but even good people have blind spots.
    - allannienhuis 8y ago
      We love labels don't we? No one is purely good or purely bad. Or purely left or purely right, etc. Like most things, these things are points along a spectrum, not absolutes. Even that is probably too simplistic - points in n dimensional space I guess :)
lawnchair_larry 8y ago
There was a YC funded company a few years ago that had a similar startup bundling shitware, and pg himself was on here defending them and claiming that users are “choosing” to install the software willingly. It’s astonishing how much one’s decision making framework is tied to their financial incentives. People find a way to rationalize anything if they’re getting paid, and they don’t even realize that they’re doing it.
- chillacy 8y ago
  One of the interesting ideas out there is the evolutionary development of morality, basically it exists to serve our survival, and historically has changed in the right ways to compliment the technology of the time (and the tribes which fail to update their morals die out). So that might just be a feature, not a bug.
Aqua 8y ago
Software developers are human beings. This analogy may seem inadequate, but don't you also struggle to see how certain human beings are willing to physically hurt or kill other human beings? This also goes against all values and morales, yet people do it. It's just that your set of values is not the same as other people's. Our world has always been a dark, cruel place, and yet for some reason a lot of western people seem to have forgotten this very apparent fact.

johnnyfaehell 8y ago

> I struggle to see how software developers can willingly do work on a project that goes against all values and morales! Personally, this doesn't really go against my morals or values. They installed the app. No one forced them to. Not everyone has the same set of morals and values you do. If it's not illegal and no one is harmed. I don't care so much.

bendotero 8y ago
It's the "no one is harmed" part I strongly disagree with. Perhaps they signed up for something and have perfect knowledge of how Facebook will use the information they collect (doubtful) but the rest of us will be impacted, manipulated and harmed in some way by what Facebook ultimately ends up doing with the data that their guinea pigs willingly gave up.
- johnnyfaehell 8y ago
  > It's the "no one is harmed" part I strongly disagree with. I can't prove a negative. So you would have to prove the positive, what harm came from this app?
  - 50656E6973 8y ago
    >can't prove a negative. Then why do you assert it as being truthful? The history of FB's data collection practices is replete with "harm".
    - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
      I didn't assert that anything was truthful? And prove the "harm" in its data collection practices. Since you've been very specific in data collection, I will expect your response to be about data collection.
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        I'm not the original poster but the harm would logically follow from USE of that data now and in the future not the process of collection much like the harm from a long fall doesn't come from the journey but rather the sudden stop at the end.
      - 50656E6973 8y ago
        Voter/election manipulation
  - bendotero 8y ago
    Isn't Cambridge Analytica enough proof that harm has been done by Facebook's data collection and allowing others to access it? That's the very tip of the iceberg.
    - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
      What harm came from that exactly? More people voted? Is voting harm? Just because you don't like the way someone voted doesn't make it harmful. My understanding is the entire Cambridge Analytica thing is about privacy and not actual harm from the Facebook aspect.
      - cmsj 8y ago
        It was about having enough data to specifically target people with messages that would influence their vote. At scale, such behaviour cannot possibly be good for democracy.
        johnnyfaehell 8y ago
        For me, everything is about, that it could be harmful. And that's true it could be. Lots of things could be harmful. But right now, it's not really provable by anyone that it is. What we need is proper laws to control what companies can do. And in some areas of the world we're getting them. They're not great but like all tbings they will improve. But it seems very much like there is an attitude like working for Facebook or Google is amoral. That I don't believe. Especially when there are companies sell software to track phones secretly to countries like Iran. That's on the border of amoral.
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        It was used to figure out which parties were most susceptible to being manipulated with misinformation and outright lies so that they would vote for people whom would ultimately harm their own interests. For example figuring out which groups of liberals could be pushed towards a third party candidate with propaganda so that that a conservative candidate could win the election and disadvantage the same folks. This is straightforward harm even if the election was still technically democratic it was swayed by manipulation partially funded by our enemies and those who aligned themselves with Americas enemies to get a president elected by the minority to harm the interests of the majority in order to enrich a much smaller minority.
  - inetknght 8y ago
    > what harm came from this app? Would you say that the current political climate has been harmful? I would. I would not only say that, but I would also say that it's come about specifically because of data collection practices which have enabled data analysis of entire populations in a way which has never been seen before. While analysis of populations is not inherently bad by itself, the outcome certainly has been, particularly because the abilities and effects are so new that there's little or no law governing people towards positive effects for society as a whole. Without those laws, the effects become geared toward benefiting people at the top either directly (company CEOs) or indirectly (capabilities sold to those who can afford them).
    - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
      > Would you say that the current political climate has been harmful? I would. I would not only say that, but I would also say that it's come about specifically because of data collection practices which have enabled data analysis of entire populations in a way which has never been seen before. Seriously, look at the state of peoples finances. That's the cause. Look at the amount of money the rich have compared to those who voted for Trump, Brexit, etc. Look at the quality of life. This has been coming for a long, long time. Blaming on Facebook and Twitter is not very insightful of the state of affairs in the world today.
      - inetknght 8y ago
        You don't think the data collection policies these companies have meaningfully enabled and/or contributed to the wealth gap?
        johnnyfaehell 8y ago
        No... That would be banks and governments with decades of lax tax laws. This wasn't created overnight, 2008 just highlighted it.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

onion2k 8y ago

I struggle to see how software developers can willingly do work on a project that goes against all values and morales! A $200k/year graduate starting salary is enough to get a lot of people to set their values to one side for a while.

sidcool 8y ago

I struggle to realize why we expect Software engineers to be bellwethers of morality and ethics. They are flesh and blood, and like any other profession, if there's money in something, there will be someone to do it

morpheuskafka 8y ago
For one, as professionals and engineers, SEs should absolutely be attuned to and deeply reflective of ethics. That said, we can and should expect everyone to consider ethics in their daily lives and work. Someone likely will do nearly every unethical thing, but that doesn't mean it is right for anyone to do it.
fqw3b58w4n6 8y ago
We should expect everybody to care about the morality and ethics of their actions. That's a pretty low fucking bar IMO. In software, this is one way that manifests.
- sidcool 8y ago
  I am not condoning the unethical practices, but every profession has people who are below the bar you talk about. The reasons why they do it are as varied as the peoples of the world.
- chillacy 8y ago
  Other professions are self regulating, if you do unethical things your peers (the AMA or legal boards) will strip you of your license to practice and then you can’t find a job. It would be too much to expect engineers to somehow be angels without the threat of punishment when even doctors need these systems. But on the other hand, imagine if you heard about this agile thing but you can’t legally apply it because waterfall is mandated and if you apply agile you might be stripped of your license to practice software engineering.
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  >We should expect everybody to care about the morality and ethics of their actions. This isn't a very meaningful statement as people widely disagree about what the ethical action is.

smacktoward 8y ago

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair)

mbesto 8y ago

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

To any HN readers who work at Facebook: your company is morally decrepit and you are complicit. If you go to LinkedIn and indicate that you're looking, you'll have 20 leads in your inbox by lunch. You don't have to work there.

treis 8y ago
From Google, MS, Instacart, Uber et al? The reality is that every major tech company does scummy stuff. There are vanishly few tech companies that don't.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  There are a fuckload of tech companies. You don't have to work for a big name.
  - treis 8y ago
    One day you're working for a plucky start up. The next you're working for a big name that's stealing tip money. There's a reason that these companies do what they do. Fraud, breaking the law, and dark patterns are way easier ways to make money than doing so do ethically and legally. Companies either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. I'm exaggerating a bit, but realistically the list of ethical tech companies is a lot shorter than the list of unethical ones.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
      This really isn't true. The vast majority of tech companies are ethical, at least a far sight more so than Facebook. They don't make headlines so you have a bais.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Glad you’re a moral bastion but I gotta pay the bills and big companies have better work life balance than unicorn startups.

debaserab2 8y ago

> Needless to say, their actions outside the work environment matched their actions inside. It's a given assumption that anyone who once worked for a shady company is also shady?

mruts 8y ago

It's almost as if people have different morals and values...

pixelrevision 8y ago

A case like this can be sold to developers in odd ways. Devs typically think that people who download things have way more insite than they do and can assess what putting the certificate on the device means. The team that started the project likely feels that this helps them build a better experience for their users. Facebook in general seems to have good intentions and terrible awareness of what is crossing a line. They really wanted their platform to be the center of everyone’s lives and now appear completely unprepared for the consequences of pushing that agenda so hard.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

foobiekr 8y ago

I know a reasonable number of Facebook employees. Their opinions on the last year range from “don’t care/getting paid” to “everyone does it.” These are good people. They just don’t care.

lostmsu 8y ago
> These are good people. They just don’t care. I think these two statements contradict each other.
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  Or maybe people are a lot more complicated than simplistic notions of what makes a good person.
kennyadam 8y ago
You should edit that to 'These are people who don't care. It's not good.'
- foobiekr 8y ago
  Both comments express this sentiment. I’m pretty judgey myself, but I’ve known these people for ten, twenty years. They are good people but even good people have blind spots.
  - allannienhuis 8y ago
    We love labels don't we? No one is purely good or purely bad. Or purely left or purely right, etc. Like most things, these things are points along a spectrum, not absolutes. Even that is probably too simplistic - points in n dimensional space I guess :)

lawnchair_larry 8y ago

There was a YC funded company a few years ago that had a similar startup bundling shitware, and pg himself was on here defending them and claiming that users are “choosing” to install the software willingly. It’s astonishing how much one’s decision making framework is tied to their financial incentives. People find a way to rationalize anything if they’re getting paid, and they don’t even realize that they’re doing it.

chillacy 8y ago
One of the interesting ideas out there is the evolutionary development of morality, basically it exists to serve our survival, and historically has changed in the right ways to compliment the technology of the time (and the tribes which fail to update their morals die out). So that might just be a feature, not a bug.

Aqua 8y ago

Software developers are human beings. This analogy may seem inadequate, but don't you also struggle to see how certain human beings are willing to physically hurt or kill other human beings? This also goes against all values and morales, yet people do it. It's just that your set of values is not the same as other people's. Our world has always been a dark, cruel place, and yet for some reason a lot of western people seem to have forgotten this very apparent fact.