5 ms·

Not just execs, I hope. The engineers who wrote the code and managers who told them to do it should also face justice.

droithomme 8y ago
I agree, but with conditions. PEs have ethical responsibilities. If the engineers are licensed, yup, they absolutely have a moral and legal responsibility to refuse to sign off on illegal work. In most states though, software engineers are not professionally licensed, certified, or ethically trained. Often they are referred to using demeaning terms such as "coders", which are equated as "bricklayers" by thought leaders such as Steve McConnell and others. Thus it would not necessarily be reasonable to hold them to a responsibility refuse to follow illegal orders they were given as mindless "bricklayers" and "coders" etc, which is the most common paradigm of software engineers. Unintelligent implementors who are simply typing things up on command with a surfeit of semicolons can not be held to any sort of professional responsibility. But PEs absolutely can and must.
baroffoos 8y ago
That would require all developers to become lawyers so they can make sure everything they are being asked to do is legal.
- spaceheretostay 8y ago
  We don't all need to be lawyers to understand the basics of our laws. Knowledge of the existence of the law is assumed for all citizens. Ignorance of the law has never been a valid excuse when the law is broken. (Yes, the US does have some new problems with private laws being passed, where the public is not allowed to know the law itself - and this opens up huge scary things. But that is not what is being discussed here and I don't believe is relevant.)
- wavefunction 8y ago
  What's wrong with introspection about what you're doing on an ethical level? There's no legal standard involved so you don't have to be a lawyer, just a bit more thoughtful.
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    The law isn't just ethics. Companies have whole legal teams because laws are so complex. Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok?
    - spaceheretostay 8y ago
      > Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok? Yes. 100%. "I was just following orders" is not a valid excuse, ever - Nuremberg is the obvious extreme example, but it's true everywhere.
      - tzs 8y ago
        In fact, "I was just following orders" often is a valid excuse. It didn't work at Nuremberg because it was an extreme example. The orders there were to do things that could not even conceivably be legal, so those who carried them out were considered to have knowingly acted illegally. When the orders are to do something that is plausibly legal, and you have good reason to believe that it is in fact so, "I was just following orders" will probably work in most jurisdictions.
        spaceheretostay 8y ago
        None of what Facebook has done here sounds plausibly legal to me. I'm not a lawyer, but this stuff is plain-as-day immoral and illegal from my eyes.
        pluma 8y ago
        Iff they have confirmation from their product lead that what they're doing is perfectly legal and it isn't obviously illegal, I agree that there's no liability. If it's either obviously illegal or it's clearly at least dodgy and they didn't get explicit confirmation from the project lead, "following orders" is not a valid excuse. To take the VW case as an example: if your project lead tells you to implement a way to recognise test conditions and adjust the performance to reduce emissions, that is dodgy af and you should at least get confirmation that this isn't illegal (i.e. that it's not intended to cheat on certifications but maybe just for certain internal testing scenarios). In the end the entire chain of command that led to this being implemented is guilty, but if the person implementing that behavior knew what they were doing was illegal or at least suspect and they didn't get confirmation, they're still guilty.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  Are you saying that we can only expect lawyers to follow the law? I have no legal training, yet I manage to avoid breaking the law every day. Why are developers special here?
OrgNet 8y ago
You really think execs will see consequences (besides fines)?
orijing 8y ago
Have you never committed a bug before? > A Facebook spokesperson said before May 2016, it offered an option to verify a user's account using their email password and voluntarily upload their contacts at the same time. However, they said, the company changed the feature, and the text informing users that their contacts would be uploaded was deleted — but the underlying functionality was not. I doubt it was an engineer who deliberately removed the text but kept the contact import functionality.
- spaceheretostay 8y ago
  > Have you never committed a bug before? Engineers who make mistakes that harm people are still responsible for the mistakes they made. You cannot just claim "it was a bug" and get off scot free if your code harms someone or otherwise breaks the law. Also there's no need for this sarcastic tone, "have you never..?" > I doubt it was an engineer who deliberately removed the text but kept the contact import functionality. Why would you doubt that? I personally think that situation sounds quite likely. But either way we're just speculating. Also, don't ignore the part of the parent comment that discusses the manager's (and implied other decision markers) that result in the decision being made to make an illegal change to the code. Engineer, or manager, or QA assistant - someone or some group of people will have made the change. And "oops that was a bug" doesn't count. Corporations and their employees must be held to the same laws and standards to which the rest of us are held. "Ooops I didn't mean to do that" doesn't fly as an excuse to break the law.
kerng 8y ago
Interesting point, at first it sounded a bit harsh but thinking a bit about this.... in the end as software engineers we are the ones pulling the trigger and your statement highlights our ethical responsibilities. The problem though is that software engineering doesnt require any licensing requirements, etc. so one can always refer to incompetence being the problem (ooops a bug) and might get away with it.
- throwaway_9168 8y ago
  Well, unlike other lowly developers, FB engineers know exactly what is and isn't the right kind of mistake to make in pursuit of a company's vision. Someone who works at FB even came out and said so: "Remember, what Facebook is doing has never been done before. There are going to be mistakes." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321420 So yeah, I think what that person is saying should be translated as: "Please don't think twice about punishing rank-and-file FB engineers. We are so competent, all our mistakes have only been intentional ones."

I agree, but with conditions. PEs have ethical responsibilities. If the engineers are licensed, yup, they absolutely have a moral and legal responsibility to refuse to sign off on illegal work. In most states though, software engineers are not professionally licensed, certified, or ethically trained. Often they are referred to using demeaning terms such as "coders", which are equated as "bricklayers" by thought leaders such as Steve McConnell and others. Thus it would not necessarily be reasonable to hold them to a responsibility refuse to follow illegal orders they were given as mindless "bricklayers" and "coders" etc, which is the most common paradigm of software engineers. Unintelligent implementors who are simply typing things up on command with a surfeit of semicolons can not be held to any sort of professional responsibility. But PEs absolutely can and must.

baroffoos 8y ago

That would require all developers to become lawyers so they can make sure everything they are being asked to do is legal.

spaceheretostay 8y ago
We don't all need to be lawyers to understand the basics of our laws. Knowledge of the existence of the law is assumed for all citizens. Ignorance of the law has never been a valid excuse when the law is broken. (Yes, the US does have some new problems with private laws being passed, where the public is not allowed to know the law itself - and this opens up huge scary things. But that is not what is being discussed here and I don't believe is relevant.)
wavefunction 8y ago
What's wrong with introspection about what you're doing on an ethical level? There's no legal standard involved so you don't have to be a lawyer, just a bit more thoughtful.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  The law isn't just ethics. Companies have whole legal teams because laws are so complex. Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok?
  - spaceheretostay 8y ago
    > Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok? Yes. 100%. "I was just following orders" is not a valid excuse, ever - Nuremberg is the obvious extreme example, but it's true everywhere.
    - tzs 8y ago
      In fact, "I was just following orders" often is a valid excuse. It didn't work at Nuremberg because it was an extreme example. The orders there were to do things that could not even conceivably be legal, so those who carried them out were considered to have knowingly acted illegally. When the orders are to do something that is plausibly legal, and you have good reason to believe that it is in fact so, "I was just following orders" will probably work in most jurisdictions.
      - spaceheretostay 8y ago
        None of what Facebook has done here sounds plausibly legal to me. I'm not a lawyer, but this stuff is plain-as-day immoral and illegal from my eyes.
      - pluma 8y ago
        Iff they have confirmation from their product lead that what they're doing is perfectly legal and it isn't obviously illegal, I agree that there's no liability. If it's either obviously illegal or it's clearly at least dodgy and they didn't get explicit confirmation from the project lead, "following orders" is not a valid excuse. To take the VW case as an example: if your project lead tells you to implement a way to recognise test conditions and adjust the performance to reduce emissions, that is dodgy af and you should at least get confirmation that this isn't illegal (i.e. that it's not intended to cheat on certifications but maybe just for certain internal testing scenarios). In the end the entire chain of command that led to this being implemented is guilty, but if the person implementing that behavior knew what they were doing was illegal or at least suspect and they didn't get confirmation, they're still guilty.
jakelazaroff 8y ago
Are you saying that we can only expect lawyers to follow the law? I have no legal training, yet I manage to avoid breaking the law every day. Why are developers special here?

OrgNet 8y ago

You really think execs will see consequences (besides fines)?

orijing 8y ago

Have you never committed a bug before? > A Facebook spokesperson said before May 2016, it offered an option to verify a user's account using their email password and voluntarily upload their contacts at the same time. However, they said, the company changed the feature, and the text informing users that their contacts would be uploaded was deleted — but the underlying functionality was not. I doubt it was an engineer who deliberately removed the text but kept the contact import functionality.

spaceheretostay 8y ago
> Have you never committed a bug before? Engineers who make mistakes that harm people are still responsible for the mistakes they made. You cannot just claim "it was a bug" and get off scot free if your code harms someone or otherwise breaks the law. Also there's no need for this sarcastic tone, "have you never..?" > I doubt it was an engineer who deliberately removed the text but kept the contact import functionality. Why would you doubt that? I personally think that situation sounds quite likely. But either way we're just speculating. Also, don't ignore the part of the parent comment that discusses the manager's (and implied other decision markers) that result in the decision being made to make an illegal change to the code. Engineer, or manager, or QA assistant - someone or some group of people will have made the change. And "oops that was a bug" doesn't count. Corporations and their employees must be held to the same laws and standards to which the rest of us are held. "Ooops I didn't mean to do that" doesn't fly as an excuse to break the law.

kerng 8y ago

Interesting point, at first it sounded a bit harsh but thinking a bit about this.... in the end as software engineers we are the ones pulling the trigger and your statement highlights our ethical responsibilities. The problem though is that software engineering doesnt require any licensing requirements, etc. so one can always refer to incompetence being the problem (ooops a bug) and might get away with it.

throwaway_9168 8y ago
Well, unlike other lowly developers, FB engineers know exactly what is and isn't the right kind of mistake to make in pursuit of a company's vision. Someone who works at FB even came out and said so: "Remember, what Facebook is doing has never been done before. There are going to be mistakes." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321420 So yeah, I think what that person is saying should be translated as: "Please don't think twice about punishing rank-and-file FB engineers. We are so competent, all our mistakes have only been intentional ones."