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Why are many of you still working for Meta and Google? I imagine you're well aware of all the harm they've been causing to society. We may never be able to cou

Why are many of you still working for Meta and Google? I imagine you're well aware of all the harm they've been causing to society. We may never be able to counter or reverse the effects of their relentless efforts to normalize corporate surveillance. I'm sure you haven't ended up working for Meta just because you couldn't find a job at a less destructive company. You have a leverage, you could refuse to participate in this, so why are you still writing code that harms people?

zerr 5y ago
Mid/high six-figures (sometimes low seven ones as well).
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Not that i disagree with your argument, but given the very competitive nature of corporate culture and the high rate of burnout, most people may feel better working for lower pay for less-sociopathic organizations (say, local non-profits or public IT services). Also, i find it interesting to note how tech salaries have climbed in the past two decades, precisely as IT was more and more employed as a means of ruining peoples' lives (micro-management based on metrics, surveillance industry, IoT and other scams, centralized monopolies like Amazon, etc). The price of keeping IT people complicit/quiet in the scheme has risen, but we as a privileged class of IT people should understand that we're precisely being paid for silence about the atrocities we help build. We are collaborators to an oppressive system, and if that's something that bothers you maybe you should consider alternatives.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Believer or not, there's a lot of wisdom in the Bible.
  - mattcwilson 5y ago
    Yes, there is. Including John 8:7
    - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
      "The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion."
charcircuit 5y ago
>I imagine you're well aware of all the harm they've been causing to society. Not everyone shares your viewpoint and values. If you think everyone thinks Google and Meta, or even the idea of personalization as being harmful to society, you have found yourself in a bubble.
kmlx 5y ago
> I imagine you're well aware of all the harm they've been causing to society. what harm to society? from where i’m standing they’re a huge net positive, they’ve enabled huge advances in society, they’ve enabled great collaboration across the whole planet and enabled us all to benefit from the one of the greatest inventions of humankind: the internet. could they do better? sure. are they past their peak? maybe. but their past contributions are immense.
- amelius 5y ago
  Can you prove that without Google we wouldn't have seen more advances in society? Perhaps people just jumped on the wrong bandwagon because they didn't know any better? Perhaps Google got big for the wrong reasons?
- FinNerd 5y ago
  So much of the Meta hate in tech circles comes from same cope psychology of engineers thinking “if you build it they’ll come” and failing at acquisition. Ads help SMBs and larger ones so much. Sure there’s issues here and there but meta has probably pushed GDP forward pretty hard and enabled awesome amounts of product discovery, and this is just on the ads side. Think of everything people have learned on FB/IG. I’ve met so many valuable people.
  - cma 5y ago
    Lol, Google essentially makes SMBs buy ads for themselves for people searching directly for them already.
  - frazbin 5y ago
    yes but on the margin?
- prmoustache 5y ago
  You make it sounds like google and meta invented the internet or made it so much better by itself. Sure they open sourced a few technologies and steered some evolutions but I don't see anything immensely relevant.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
I rage-quit Google recently -- and my job search involves looking for places that are "doing good for the world", and there's lots of things I dislike about the company -- but this is just a bit hyperbolic. There are far worse companies for the world than Google -- in the grand scheme of "harm done to humanity", Google pales in comparison to Exxon or BP or Phillip Morris or Lockheed-Martin or Dupont etc. Facebook/Meta, that's potentially a separate discussion. In any case if you feel like companies like Google are causing serious harm to the world then you need to have a deeper conversation about capitalism generally [which I encourage you to do]. Is it possible that the whole model of profit incentives as we have them now inevitably creates the things you're complaining about? Why attack engineers personally when in the end it's just "rational actors" acting like mice following the cheese? PS totally aside from what harm Google might be doing to the world (again mild compared to the above named corporations), we probably should talk about what harm Google is doing to our industry.
esrauch 5y ago
It doesn't seem very obvious that any of GrubHub, Ticketmaster, Yelp, eBay, Microsoft, Tesla, AirBnb, Amazon, Oracle are "morally superior" to work at than Google. I think Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, Palantir, Comcast, Juul, Uber, any defense contractor, Nestle, Philip Morris, etc are at least arguably less ethical work than even Meta, and get less flak just by being behind slightly less visible to users. While there's many legitimate serious criticisms of both Meta and Google, I think many of the concerns are misdirected or overexaggerated. The omnibox thing mentioned in the comic is a pretty concrete example to me of a false criticism: the Chrome feature is that it fetches query suggestions for what you've typed so far, which means it's going to be sending what you've typed to a server. Firefox also does exactly same thing and continuously sends what you are typing to Google or Bing to fetch query suggestions, and I don't see people writing this same comic about how Firefox is somehow evil to implement such a feature.
- cma 5y ago
  Chrome really does have the file scanner they mention that you can't turn off. On android, try turning off search suggestions, it is a literal maze as depicted: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/106230?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/106230?hl=en&co=... In firefox android it is a simple toggle button under settings->search.
  - esrauch 5y ago
    I have both Firefox and Chrome on my phone and I just checked and it's literally exactly the same to turn it off: on Android Chrome it is Settings > Google Services > toggle button. They're even in almost the same position in the settings menus. I believe the linked documentation is account wide including going to google.com in Microsoft Edge and then typing into the search box on the website. It's not surprising to me that turning off behavior on across your account in any context can't be done in browser settings.
    - cma 5y ago
      You are right, I was looking under privacy, and began searching where to find it and found the above link which was too complex to fully comprehend.
RuggedPineapple 5y ago
I really don't see how you can argue with a straight face that Google is a net negative for society. There's more of an argument for Meta, but even then its mostly about social media in general then Facebook in particular.
wepple 5y ago
I see you’re building software which entirely relies on the major tech companies search engines. If people didn’t work there, you couldn’t do what you’re doing. Can these companies (like most companies) do better? Of course. Perhaps by working there, people believe they can be that change? Edit: your/you’re
- dessant 5y ago
  The aim is not for everyone to quit these companies, but for enough people to refuse to build and maintain the harmful components of their systems so that these companies are forced to change. Regarding my projects, they'd be just as useful if Google and Meta would cease to exist tomorrow, but again, that isn't the point. > Perhaps by working there, people believe they can be that change? We're talking about highly intelligent people, at least some of them understand that the code they maintain sometimes performs actions that are illegal. They could lift their fingers from the keyboard when they recognize that something is not right. They could choose to not be complicit.
ghusto 5y ago
I think the replies answer your question well enough, though likely not in the way you were hoping. The rationalisations and denials point strongly to the answer being: Because we're bad people. I was hoping for better, but live and be disappointed, I guess.

zerr 5y ago

Mid/high six-figures (sometimes low seven ones as well).

southerntofu 5y ago
Not that i disagree with your argument, but given the very competitive nature of corporate culture and the high rate of burnout, most people may feel better working for lower pay for less-sociopathic organizations (say, local non-profits or public IT services). Also, i find it interesting to note how tech salaries have climbed in the past two decades, precisely as IT was more and more employed as a means of ruining peoples' lives (micro-management based on metrics, surveillance industry, IoT and other scams, centralized monopolies like Amazon, etc). The price of keeping IT people complicit/quiet in the scheme has risen, but we as a privileged class of IT people should understand that we're precisely being paid for silence about the atrocities we help build. We are collaborators to an oppressive system, and if that's something that bothers you maybe you should consider alternatives.
Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Believer or not, there's a lot of wisdom in the Bible.
- mattcwilson 5y ago
  Yes, there is. Including John 8:7
  - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
    "The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion."

charcircuit 5y ago

>I imagine you're well aware of all the harm they've been causing to society. Not everyone shares your viewpoint and values. If you think everyone thinks Google and Meta, or even the idea of personalization as being harmful to society, you have found yourself in a bubble.

kmlx 5y ago

> I imagine you're well aware of all the harm they've been causing to society. what harm to society? from where i’m standing they’re a huge net positive, they’ve enabled huge advances in society, they’ve enabled great collaboration across the whole planet and enabled us all to benefit from the one of the greatest inventions of humankind: the internet. could they do better? sure. are they past their peak? maybe. but their past contributions are immense.

amelius 5y ago
Can you prove that without Google we wouldn't have seen more advances in society? Perhaps people just jumped on the wrong bandwagon because they didn't know any better? Perhaps Google got big for the wrong reasons?
FinNerd 5y ago
So much of the Meta hate in tech circles comes from same cope psychology of engineers thinking “if you build it they’ll come” and failing at acquisition. Ads help SMBs and larger ones so much. Sure there’s issues here and there but meta has probably pushed GDP forward pretty hard and enabled awesome amounts of product discovery, and this is just on the ads side. Think of everything people have learned on FB/IG. I’ve met so many valuable people.
- cma 5y ago
  Lol, Google essentially makes SMBs buy ads for themselves for people searching directly for them already.
- frazbin 5y ago
  yes but on the margin?
prmoustache 5y ago
You make it sounds like google and meta invented the internet or made it so much better by itself. Sure they open sourced a few technologies and steered some evolutions but I don't see anything immensely relevant.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

I rage-quit Google recently -- and my job search involves looking for places that are "doing good for the world", and there's lots of things I dislike about the company -- but this is just a bit hyperbolic. There are far worse companies for the world than Google -- in the grand scheme of "harm done to humanity", Google pales in comparison to Exxon or BP or Phillip Morris or Lockheed-Martin or Dupont etc. Facebook/Meta, that's potentially a separate discussion. In any case if you feel like companies like Google are causing serious harm to the world then you need to have a deeper conversation about capitalism generally [which I encourage you to do]. Is it possible that the whole model of profit incentives as we have them now inevitably creates the things you're complaining about? Why attack engineers personally when in the end it's just "rational actors" acting like mice following the cheese? PS totally aside from what harm Google might be doing to the world (again mild compared to the above named corporations), we probably should talk about what harm Google is doing to our industry.

esrauch 5y ago

It doesn't seem very obvious that any of GrubHub, Ticketmaster, Yelp, eBay, Microsoft, Tesla, AirBnb, Amazon, Oracle are "morally superior" to work at than Google. I think Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, Palantir, Comcast, Juul, Uber, any defense contractor, Nestle, Philip Morris, etc are at least arguably less ethical work than even Meta, and get less flak just by being behind slightly less visible to users. While there's many legitimate serious criticisms of both Meta and Google, I think many of the concerns are misdirected or overexaggerated. The omnibox thing mentioned in the comic is a pretty concrete example to me of a false criticism: the Chrome feature is that it fetches query suggestions for what you've typed so far, which means it's going to be sending what you've typed to a server. Firefox also does exactly same thing and continuously sends what you are typing to Google or Bing to fetch query suggestions, and I don't see people writing this same comic about how Firefox is somehow evil to implement such a feature.

cma 5y ago
Chrome really does have the file scanner they mention that you can't turn off. On android, try turning off search suggestions, it is a literal maze as depicted: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/106230?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/106230?hl=en&co=... In firefox android it is a simple toggle button under settings->search.
- esrauch 5y ago
  I have both Firefox and Chrome on my phone and I just checked and it's literally exactly the same to turn it off: on Android Chrome it is Settings > Google Services > toggle button. They're even in almost the same position in the settings menus. I believe the linked documentation is account wide including going to google.com in Microsoft Edge and then typing into the search box on the website. It's not surprising to me that turning off behavior on across your account in any context can't be done in browser settings.
  - cma 5y ago
    You are right, I was looking under privacy, and began searching where to find it and found the above link which was too complex to fully comprehend.

RuggedPineapple 5y ago

I really don't see how you can argue with a straight face that Google is a net negative for society. There's more of an argument for Meta, but even then its mostly about social media in general then Facebook in particular.

wepple 5y ago

I see you’re building software which entirely relies on the major tech companies search engines. If people didn’t work there, you couldn’t do what you’re doing. Can these companies (like most companies) do better? Of course. Perhaps by working there, people believe they can be that change? Edit: your/you’re

dessant 5y ago
The aim is not for everyone to quit these companies, but for enough people to refuse to build and maintain the harmful components of their systems so that these companies are forced to change. Regarding my projects, they'd be just as useful if Google and Meta would cease to exist tomorrow, but again, that isn't the point. > Perhaps by working there, people believe they can be that change? We're talking about highly intelligent people, at least some of them understand that the code they maintain sometimes performs actions that are illegal. They could lift their fingers from the keyboard when they recognize that something is not right. They could choose to not be complicit.

ghusto 5y ago

I think the replies answer your question well enough, though likely not in the way you were hoping. The rationalisations and denials point strongly to the answer being: Because we're bad people. I was hoping for better, but live and be disappointed, I guess.