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I can't fully agree because the way I see it, that is in a way scapegoating the company executives. Are they responsible? Probably, yes, they set the direction

I can't fully agree because the way I see it, that is in a way scapegoating the company executives. Are they responsible? Probably, yes, they set the direction of the company and give the orders at the highest level. But we the engineers and designers are the ones actually implementing what is probably a fairly nebulous order at the highest levels into something concrete. They deign that there should be evil created, but we're the ones who are actually making it happen. Some of the responsibility lies with us, and we need to not pretend that's not the case.

DrScientist 1y ago
I'd agree at a personal/moral level there is equal responsibility. However that doesn't recognise both the power and risk/reward imbalance here. If you, as an employee did this - maybe you'd add a few dollars to your stock options over time. If your Zuck - that's potentially billions. And in terms of downside - if you are Zuck and stop it in the company - there is no comeback - if you are an engineer blowing the whistle - you may find it hard to work in the industry ever again - and only one of those two actually needs to work.
- Ray20 1y ago
  Sounds like a typical blurring of responsibility through bureaucracy. "If Zak is a billionaire, then he is responsible, but since he essentially did nothing wrong, then no one will be held accountable." Total nonsense. There are specific crimes, and there are specific people who planned this crimes, specific peoples who ordered them to be carried out, and who carried them out. And these people should be held accountable for these crimes. Even if they work 60 hours a week for minimum wage and would have been fired if they hadn't committed them. They should have quit in such cases, not committed crimes. And on the other hand, if your employees, without your knowledge, somehow decided that the only way they could reach their targets was to commit a crime, why should you be held responsible for that? Even if you have 20 megayachts and your employees work 60 hours a week for minimum wage.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    > if your employees, without your knowledge, somehow decided that the only way they could reach their targets was to commit a crime, why should you be held responsible for that? Thats where "known or should have known" becomes relevant. It's your company, it's your responsiblity to know what they are doing.
    - Ray20 1y ago
      No, what you are suggesting is a typical strategy of avoiding punishment and creating an opportunity to break the law. A very common strategy, used everywhere, especially in dictatorial and socialist regimes. There is a substitution of one real crime, committed by real people, for a crime "they didn’t know, but should have" against other people, for which there is no real responsibility, while the real criminals are declared to be simply "cogs" in the system. As a result, no one is held accountable for a crime for which dozens of people who directly committed it could go to prison for many years, because the person held responsible is a high-ranking manager who "should have known, but did not know," who himself issues "a severe reprimand" or assigns a tiny fine for it. Thus, the entire system is drowning in crimes, the commission of crimes becomes a REQUIREMENT of the system and the commission of crimes becomes a guarantee of the loyalty to the system.
      - DrScientist 1y ago
        So your argument is that because the ring leaders, and the people who benefit the most from the crimes, almost always get off - we should forget about them and just penalize the people who have to do what they are told because they need to feed their families? That would seem to be a recipe for more crime, not less. Note i don't think anyone is saying those directly involved should get off scot-free, just that those really responsible shouldn't.
        Ray20 1y ago
        No, my argument is that the system you propose results in ring leaders escaping responsibility and people having to commit crimes in order to feed their families. Look at any socialist country, almost any dictatorship, or the work of any bureaucratic organizations related to the committing crimes. The obligation to commit crimes in such systems arises precisely from the ability of the ring leader to take responsibility from the criminal onto himself to a significantly lesser extent, citing the fact that he did not commit the crime, but simply did not take something into account or did not know something. > Note i don't think anyone is saying those directly involved should get off scot-free But this is exactly what the existence of such a system leads to: the directly involved criminals escape responsibility, or their punishment is significantly reduced because most of the responsibility falls on the system and no one in particular bears full responsibility. And if the performer bears full responsibility, there will be much fewer crimes, because in this case the performer will already know that he will bear full responsibility, that other employees, fearing full responsibility, will not cover for him, that his boss, who puts him in conditions requiring the commission of a crime, will not be able to relieve him of this responsibility by spreading it on himself or shifting it upwards with blurring. In such a system, the main beneficiary will no longer be able to demand that workers commit crimes - because no one wants to risk to become the scapegoat with no additional profits.
wapeoifjaweofji 1y ago
> I can't fully agree because the way I see it, that is in a way scapegoating the company executives. Frankly, that's what the money's for.
brookst 1y ago
Do you also take personal responsibility for your company’s hiring practices, investment strategy, and marketing content? None of that would exist without you. I think anyone would agree that there’s a level of flagrantly where individuals should feel culpability and make the right choices (“write software to prescribe poison to groups we don’t like”). But something like this? Two apps establishing a comms channel? How many millions of times does this get done per year with no ill intent or effect? Is every engineer supposed to demand to know l of the use cases, and cross reference to other projects they’re not working on? At some point it’s only fair to say that individuals should exercise their conscience when they have enough information, but it is not incumbent on every engineer to demand justification for every project. That’s where the decision makers who do have the time, resources, and chatter to know better should be taking at least legal responsibility.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  As a software developer no I don't feel responsible for those things, because I don't have any involvement with them as part of my job. But the people who work in HR, finance, and marketing are responsible for those things. I agree that the junior engineer implementing a localhost listener on Android might not understand what it is going to be used for and might not even think to ask. But somewhere, a senior engineer or PM or manager knows, and yes as you say that's the point where responsibility can be assigned, and increasingly up the line from there.
- genocidicbunny 1y ago
  When I was involved in the hiring pipeline, I absolutely felt a level of personal responsibility since I was directly contributing to the decision to hire or not hire an applicant. That's not to say I was willing to shoulder the entirety of the responsibility, but knowing that my decision would affect not only the applicant, but their potential future coworkers too, I did feel responsible for making sure I had as much information as I could get and that I was making the best decisions I could.

DrScientist 1y ago

I'd agree at a personal/moral level there is equal responsibility. However that doesn't recognise both the power and risk/reward imbalance here. If you, as an employee did this - maybe you'd add a few dollars to your stock options over time. If your Zuck - that's potentially billions. And in terms of downside - if you are Zuck and stop it in the company - there is no comeback - if you are an engineer blowing the whistle - you may find it hard to work in the industry ever again - and only one of those two actually needs to work.

Ray20 1y ago
Sounds like a typical blurring of responsibility through bureaucracy. "If Zak is a billionaire, then he is responsible, but since he essentially did nothing wrong, then no one will be held accountable." Total nonsense. There are specific crimes, and there are specific people who planned this crimes, specific peoples who ordered them to be carried out, and who carried them out. And these people should be held accountable for these crimes. Even if they work 60 hours a week for minimum wage and would have been fired if they hadn't committed them. They should have quit in such cases, not committed crimes. And on the other hand, if your employees, without your knowledge, somehow decided that the only way they could reach their targets was to commit a crime, why should you be held responsible for that? Even if you have 20 megayachts and your employees work 60 hours a week for minimum wage.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  > if your employees, without your knowledge, somehow decided that the only way they could reach their targets was to commit a crime, why should you be held responsible for that? Thats where "known or should have known" becomes relevant. It's your company, it's your responsiblity to know what they are doing.
  - Ray20 1y ago
    No, what you are suggesting is a typical strategy of avoiding punishment and creating an opportunity to break the law. A very common strategy, used everywhere, especially in dictatorial and socialist regimes. There is a substitution of one real crime, committed by real people, for a crime "they didn’t know, but should have" against other people, for which there is no real responsibility, while the real criminals are declared to be simply "cogs" in the system. As a result, no one is held accountable for a crime for which dozens of people who directly committed it could go to prison for many years, because the person held responsible is a high-ranking manager who "should have known, but did not know," who himself issues "a severe reprimand" or assigns a tiny fine for it. Thus, the entire system is drowning in crimes, the commission of crimes becomes a REQUIREMENT of the system and the commission of crimes becomes a guarantee of the loyalty to the system.
    - DrScientist 1y ago
      So your argument is that because the ring leaders, and the people who benefit the most from the crimes, almost always get off - we should forget about them and just penalize the people who have to do what they are told because they need to feed their families? That would seem to be a recipe for more crime, not less. Note i don't think anyone is saying those directly involved should get off scot-free, just that those really responsible shouldn't.
      - Ray20 1y ago
        No, my argument is that the system you propose results in ring leaders escaping responsibility and people having to commit crimes in order to feed their families. Look at any socialist country, almost any dictatorship, or the work of any bureaucratic organizations related to the committing crimes. The obligation to commit crimes in such systems arises precisely from the ability of the ring leader to take responsibility from the criminal onto himself to a significantly lesser extent, citing the fact that he did not commit the crime, but simply did not take something into account or did not know something. > Note i don't think anyone is saying those directly involved should get off scot-free But this is exactly what the existence of such a system leads to: the directly involved criminals escape responsibility, or their punishment is significantly reduced because most of the responsibility falls on the system and no one in particular bears full responsibility. And if the performer bears full responsibility, there will be much fewer crimes, because in this case the performer will already know that he will bear full responsibility, that other employees, fearing full responsibility, will not cover for him, that his boss, who puts him in conditions requiring the commission of a crime, will not be able to relieve him of this responsibility by spreading it on himself or shifting it upwards with blurring. In such a system, the main beneficiary will no longer be able to demand that workers commit crimes - because no one wants to risk to become the scapegoat with no additional profits.

wapeoifjaweofji 1y ago

> I can't fully agree because the way I see it, that is in a way scapegoating the company executives. Frankly, that's what the money's for.

brookst 1y ago

Do you also take personal responsibility for your company’s hiring practices, investment strategy, and marketing content? None of that would exist without you. I think anyone would agree that there’s a level of flagrantly where individuals should feel culpability and make the right choices (“write software to prescribe poison to groups we don’t like”). But something like this? Two apps establishing a comms channel? How many millions of times does this get done per year with no ill intent or effect? Is every engineer supposed to demand to know l of the use cases, and cross reference to other projects they’re not working on? At some point it’s only fair to say that individuals should exercise their conscience when they have enough information, but it is not incumbent on every engineer to demand justification for every project. That’s where the decision makers who do have the time, resources, and chatter to know better should be taking at least legal responsibility.

SoftTalker 1y ago
As a software developer no I don't feel responsible for those things, because I don't have any involvement with them as part of my job. But the people who work in HR, finance, and marketing are responsible for those things. I agree that the junior engineer implementing a localhost listener on Android might not understand what it is going to be used for and might not even think to ask. But somewhere, a senior engineer or PM or manager knows, and yes as you say that's the point where responsibility can be assigned, and increasingly up the line from there.
genocidicbunny 1y ago
When I was involved in the hiring pipeline, I absolutely felt a level of personal responsibility since I was directly contributing to the decision to hire or not hire an applicant. That's not to say I was willing to shoulder the entirety of the responsibility, but knowing that my decision would affect not only the applicant, but their potential future coworkers too, I did feel responsible for making sure I had as much information as I could get and that I was making the best decisions I could.