Who gets to pass judgement on engineers for writing code? Who decides what code is ethical? You? Why should anyone listen to you on this matter? Why not me? Why not my dog? The shareholder system of control is at least honest and transparent. Calls for moral boycotts are either ineffective or put power in the hands of the self-righteous, and I think that's far more dangerous than shareholder votes.
> The shareholder system of control is at least honest and transparent
The shareholder system of control foists massive negative externalities on the public while concentrating profits in the hands of a few.
It's like advertising toxic waste disposal for $100 a tonne, then dumping the carcinogenic sludge in the town square while keeping the cash for yourself.
If you're a real capitalist, you peel off 1% of your windfall to support politicians who sabotage any attempt at regulating toxic waste disposal.
Dumping toxic waste in the town square is illegal. If what Facebook is doing is so bad, why can't you assemble a political constituency to make it illegal?
Is it possible that this "every FB engineer is a moral criminal" stance is actually a fringe view espoused by a radical minority and not a principle we should consider seriously? I think so. I reject the OP's claim to moral authority.
A thing isn't bad just because some random commentator on HN says it's bad. The law is how we encode legitimate and society-wide consensus on what's bad. I am under an obligation to follow the law. I am under no obligation to behave according to what some random HN commentator wants to ban this week.
Facebook built a monster that eats democracy and shits cash. Now Facebook has lost control of the monster they set loose on the world.
Governments are trying to control it. Sri Lanka recently disabled all Facebook properties at the ISP level after Facebook promised to clean up incitements to violence but then either wouldn't or couldn't.
Just because a thing is legal doesn't make it moral or ethical. And a big reason why bad things remain legal is because bad things tend to shit cash.
I suppose you're free to do anything that doesn't get you arrested. The rest of us try to live to a somewhat higher standard.
The engineers are definitely involved. This doesn't mean that we will stop creating things which can hurt people, but people who are involved in the pipeline need to be held responsible for supplying/maintaining to those with bad intentions.
So making guns is okay, supplying them randomly is illegal at most places because they just do harm.
Similarly there at these companies the engineers working to maintain the infra making it all possible.
Engineers need to understand where their work is getting put at.
Okay, so then let's go by the numerous fines they've had to pay for not following data and privacy regulations along with a looming antitrust case. Pretty sure that goes beyond just some commenters on HN.
I don't think this is a Godwin situation. The question about personal responsibility is at the forefront of this discussion, which happens to also have been applied at the end of WW2, as a matter of moral continuity. When you then go on to detail how this a facet of western law, you belie the Godwin claim, you brought up for no reason.
I get that some people don't want these principles to exist and would prefer personal liability in everything, but I would suggest that these people be very careful what they wish for.
I get that a lot of people want to substitute law for morality because are incapable or unwilling to understand the critical distinction between the two.
