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with all the daily (justified) outrage against FB/Google I struggle to understand why the community here is happy to applaud these companies for its innovation

with all the daily (justified) outrage against FB/Google I struggle to understand why the community here is happy to applaud these companies for its innovation on specific projects or the work of specific engineers, ... whether it's project-zero or some fb framework we seem to be OK with praising their employees while at the same time hating how they use that innovation. some serious cognitive dissonace is going on - either that or it's the effects of the news-cycle making us blind to it. Maybe we should think twice before applauding FAANG engineers in future posts because Technology isn't neutral. note: a company can't be evil. it's just a group of people who can be evil and who hide behind the facade of the "legal person" statute. I'm happy to celebrate individual breackthroughs but let's not forget that without (metaphorically) nailing the culprits to the cross who are responsible for ICE contracts or privacy invasive tech there isn't even a point in complaining about all the horrid stuff these people (working for these companies) do.

ckmiller 6y ago
Both companies are huge and contain multitudes; they can easily do praise-worthy and scorn-worthy things at the same time. It's worth calling them out separately rather than trying to unilaterally love or hate the whole mess at once. That said, with FB/Google these days the bad weighs more than the good.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  the problem with "huge companies" reasoning is they require huge civil courage and a large sacrifice from the public to be set straight once they mess up. big companies = big damage. just because we made the mistake to let them become this big without giving them criticism doesn't justify why we should continue treat them with gloves. quite the opposite. they shouldn't feel comfortable at all in their position - they should feel like they're being held accountable (and act accordingly whether with rebelling internally or by leaving depending on the size of their spine)
- smolder 6y ago
  That right there is why runaway consolidation and Monopoly building is a very bad thing even if they don't jack up prices like Ma Bell. If the leaders of these megacorps have no scruples, the public has little choice but to take the bad with the good. We've lost the ability to vote with our money when it turns out buying a mobile phone or joining a social club which makes use of a social network ends up funding antisocial and even evil behavior by other parts of those companies.
BobbyJo 6y ago
Have you ever worked at a large company? Really the only thing that groups the whole thing together is the legal entity. Different teams within the same company are essentially different companies once you reach a certain scale. I see no reason to disparage the good work one group does, because of a different group of people they've never met before, for no other reason than they share a CEO. A CEO that neither group has ever met before.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  > Have you ever worked at a large company? yes - and I've done incredibly well during it. I also know change doesn't come for free. the sad thing is the bigger the companies the smaller the spines of the individuals working there.
  - BobbyJo 6y ago
    How much change have you effected in all your time there that you did so well? How much power over projects you deemed immoral did you have? More or less than a random person on the street? Do you feel more responsibility for immoral projects that took place in this large company than for things going on within FB or GOOG?
    - 6510 6y ago
      Effect doesn't matter, it is the trying that counts. IOW: Don't give up so easily. Every bit of freedom we have took a big struggle to obtain. We've lost many freedoms and we will continue to lose more. Our struggle is far from over. If you could have done something you are responsible for the result. People all over are counting on you giving up. Don't make things so easy for them. Make them work for it.
      - BobbyJo 6y ago
        Do you spend the entirety of everyday dwelling on all the world's wrongs? You, right now, can go dig wells, volunteer at shelters, adopt needy children, give blood... The list keeps going. There are a hundred thousand things that you can do to help others and fix things: Do you feel responsible?
stjohnswarts 6y ago
But technology is neutral and it's important to keep it that way. Giving into cancel culture and groupthink is the worst of things. Even worse that FB and Google.
zucker42 6y ago
Maybe the people doing the lauding are different from those doing the criticizing? I'm inherently suspicious of statements which treat a discussion forum as monolithic.
- ghayes 6y ago
  If a company like Monsanto cured cancer, couldn’t you laud that effort even if you still disagree with other practices of the organization? Things, people, companies are rarely all good or all bad. We should applaud Facebook for their FOSS projects, while, for instance, pushing back against the walled garden and other data practices.
ByteJockey 6y ago
There's a long history of that. AT&T used to have a stranglehold on communications and had some seriously bad practices. But they also produced some really cool tech. Unix being the obvious one to bring up on this site. That era is romanticized to hell (including by me), and Ritchie, Thompson, and the like are folk heroes. Despite being engineers at the subsidiary of a giant monopolistic entity. Ultimately, for people who think the tech is cool, it doesn't matter where it comes from. In 50 years people will be romanticizing the era of the FAANG companies (more than they already do) the same way we romanticize bell labs.
flywheel 6y ago
Cambridge Analytica was evil from the start. Blackwater was pretty evil from the start. Yeah, companies can be evil.

ckmiller 6y ago

Both companies are huge and contain multitudes; they can easily do praise-worthy and scorn-worthy things at the same time. It's worth calling them out separately rather than trying to unilaterally love or hate the whole mess at once. That said, with FB/Google these days the bad weighs more than the good.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
the problem with "huge companies" reasoning is they require huge civil courage and a large sacrifice from the public to be set straight once they mess up. big companies = big damage. just because we made the mistake to let them become this big without giving them criticism doesn't justify why we should continue treat them with gloves. quite the opposite. they shouldn't feel comfortable at all in their position - they should feel like they're being held accountable (and act accordingly whether with rebelling internally or by leaving depending on the size of their spine)
smolder 6y ago
That right there is why runaway consolidation and Monopoly building is a very bad thing even if they don't jack up prices like Ma Bell. If the leaders of these megacorps have no scruples, the public has little choice but to take the bad with the good. We've lost the ability to vote with our money when it turns out buying a mobile phone or joining a social club which makes use of a social network ends up funding antisocial and even evil behavior by other parts of those companies.

BobbyJo 6y ago

Have you ever worked at a large company? Really the only thing that groups the whole thing together is the legal entity. Different teams within the same company are essentially different companies once you reach a certain scale. I see no reason to disparage the good work one group does, because of a different group of people they've never met before, for no other reason than they share a CEO. A CEO that neither group has ever met before.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
> Have you ever worked at a large company? yes - and I've done incredibly well during it. I also know change doesn't come for free. the sad thing is the bigger the companies the smaller the spines of the individuals working there.
- BobbyJo 6y ago
  How much change have you effected in all your time there that you did so well? How much power over projects you deemed immoral did you have? More or less than a random person on the street? Do you feel more responsibility for immoral projects that took place in this large company than for things going on within FB or GOOG?
  - 6510 6y ago
    Effect doesn't matter, it is the trying that counts. IOW: Don't give up so easily. Every bit of freedom we have took a big struggle to obtain. We've lost many freedoms and we will continue to lose more. Our struggle is far from over. If you could have done something you are responsible for the result. People all over are counting on you giving up. Don't make things so easy for them. Make them work for it.
    - BobbyJo 6y ago
      Do you spend the entirety of everyday dwelling on all the world's wrongs? You, right now, can go dig wells, volunteer at shelters, adopt needy children, give blood... The list keeps going. There are a hundred thousand things that you can do to help others and fix things: Do you feel responsible?

stjohnswarts 6y ago

But technology is neutral and it's important to keep it that way. Giving into cancel culture and groupthink is the worst of things. Even worse that FB and Google.

zucker42 6y ago

Maybe the people doing the lauding are different from those doing the criticizing? I'm inherently suspicious of statements which treat a discussion forum as monolithic.

ghayes 6y ago
If a company like Monsanto cured cancer, couldn’t you laud that effort even if you still disagree with other practices of the organization? Things, people, companies are rarely all good or all bad. We should applaud Facebook for their FOSS projects, while, for instance, pushing back against the walled garden and other data practices.

ByteJockey 6y ago

There's a long history of that. AT&T used to have a stranglehold on communications and had some seriously bad practices. But they also produced some really cool tech. Unix being the obvious one to bring up on this site. That era is romanticized to hell (including by me), and Ritchie, Thompson, and the like are folk heroes. Despite being engineers at the subsidiary of a giant monopolistic entity. Ultimately, for people who think the tech is cool, it doesn't matter where it comes from. In 50 years people will be romanticizing the era of the FAANG companies (more than they already do) the same way we romanticize bell labs.

flywheel 6y ago

Cambridge Analytica was evil from the start. Blackwater was pretty evil from the start. Yeah, companies can be evil.