Isn’t Facebook ‘bad’?
“Facebook’s mass acts as an intense gravitational force in the media industry, warping user behavior and fracturing the economic incentives that defined media companies.” These are just some of the damning claims (in this case, made by Vox) about Facebook’s unignorable negative effects on society. As an international student, I will also take a global perspective. Meta has enabled the spread of viral disinformation and even contributed to real-world violence in developing countries, where digital literacy is lower. At the same time, it can’t be denied that it has made the citizenry more connected, able to express their opinions even when the traditional media landscape is no longer free.
What I’m trying to say is that even a platform as controversial as Facebook has created positive impacts in the world — billions of people around the world use WhatsApp, which Meta owns, to stay in touch with relatives, organize community events, and even conduct a lot of very economically valuable business.
So Facebook is ‘good’?
Trying to assign labels like ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to organizations as large as Facebook is like trying to assign labels to countries. It’s rarely that simple. Rather, it should be viewed as a large number of teams and units under one large umbrella, each of which can be steered in a positive or negative direction. The Business Ethics reading mentions this in its last paragraph, acknowledging “it may even be that accepting a job at a company can be a route to changing that company’s policy,” but then adding the caveat that “of course that’s going to be more than difficult at a giant concern like L’Oreal.” I’d like to add another caveat: changing the entire organization might be hard, but influencing the direction of a team is definitely within the realm of possibility. When we shift perspective from the gargantuan task of pushing one of the largest companies on the planet in a positive direction to nudging smaller teams made up of other humans (who likely also care about doing good, or at least not causing harm), the task seems possible.
So are you taking the offer or no?
I’ll reveal my answer now: “Yes, depending on which team I’m assigned to and my position within that team.” Generally, if you’re in a more senior position or play a role that involves some strategy (and not just execution, e.g. software engineering), it’s easier to contribute to a more positive direction for the team. At the same time, some teams are so clearly doing things that don’t align with my ethical values that changing their direction will be either functionally impossible or extremely draining (or both). As 5.2 emphasized, it’s necessary to “move from an absolute to a balanced ethical stance,” which includes realism.
After judging these factors, if the conditions seem favorable, I’d be willing to accept a position at Meta for a few years, knowing that I want to come away from my time there having had a positive impact.
