It's actually why the blog post bothered me, despite everyone heaping praise on it here.
"Then there’s the Prestige. Facebook gets a lot of blame in media lately, but in everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line."
That's the money quote, this person is only thinking about themself and really doesn't consider how their work impacts society or what company they're helping as a priority issue at all. I don't know why people like this are the way they are, it seems to border on sociopathy or greed or something to me ("screw you guys, I got mine.") At times they must have just buried their head in the sand over all the Facebook scandals including helping a freaking genocide. It's crazy, and reminds me a little of "American Psycho" to be honest.
Yeah, I find this view to be pretty unfair to the author. He was not directly responsible for things like data policy or anything at Fb. As he said multiple times, he found fulfillment from working on projects with a small group, and from distancing himself from the higher corporate debacles.
I don't think he is morally at any fault.
Here's another way of looking at it: Fb is so damn big, there's no reason them looking bad to the public should condemn every software developer on their payroll.
This person was helping Facebook make money while the news was filled with stories about them manipulating democracy, enabling genocide and ruining people's mental health. That's cool they were working on tools that weren't directly related on a small team, but the money all funnels to the top and enables this stuff. They knew full well from all the news unless they were completely burying their head in the sand.
So no ethical responsibility? I strongly disagree. They could've quit at any time and found dozens of jobs elsewhere with a resume like that. Judging by the post they did after nearly a decade, and only because purely selfish reasons. I was maybe a bit harsh, but come on..
I don't think there's any reason to believe without facebook these same ills would not have existed aired on other free-speech platforms. History shows they have. Why attack facebook instead of the actual content creators? Seems like an easy boogie man.
"Then there’s the Prestige. Facebook gets a lot of blame in media lately, but in everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line."
That's the money quote, this person is only thinking about themself and really doesn't consider how their work impacts society or what company they're helping as a priority issue at all. I don't know why people like this are the way they are, it seems to border on sociopathy or greed or something to me ("screw you guys, I got mine.") At times they must have just buried their head in the sand over all the Facebook scandals including helping a freaking genocide. It's crazy, and reminds me a little of "American Psycho" to be honest.