If given the opportunity at this moment, I would accept a job at Facebook. Although I am planning on staying at Stanford for an additional year to pursue my Master’s, it is still pretty daunting to be a senior thinking about my post-grad career in this tech economy. Many of Facebook’s products that I engage with on a daily basis are at the forefront of innovative technologies that keep people connected, and I could not pass on the opportunity to learn from the industry’s best, despite the scandals and critiques.
In response to the reading, I would like to believe that I am very conscious of the dangers of Facebook and social media in general. I have personally witnessed friends suffer from addictive behaviors, cancel culture, body image issues, among many other mental health disorders, as a result of social media. These platforms inherently encourage us to compare ourselves to others and keep up a facade for the sake of external validation so that their creators can exploit consumers and profit from our engagement. From a consumer standpoint, it is always nice to also be reminded of the exploitation that I do not regularly perceive, such as the impact of low wages on the working class and on our planet.
However, I believe in order to dismantle an exploitive system, first comes the need for education and credibility. Therefore, I would accept a job at Facebook if that meant that I could understand the inner workings of Facebook and all its issues while building up the toolkit and network to address such issues. Facebook provides a network of powerful, ambitious people who I would personally like on my side if I were to speak up against an injustice.
It might be naive, but I think that good people can work ethnically for unethical organizations. In a capitalist society, it would be nearly impossible to work for an entirely ethnical company, especially since people also need to make a living. This circles back to how the workers are also a part of the exploited.
