I have never been an avid user of the services Facebook offers, so I may be much less aware of what its users experience, but knowing about the controversies surrounding the company’s decisions and the consequences of its operations makes me hesitant to contribute to its current success. It would still be an option to me because of my sense of obligation to support myself and my family financially, but it would not be my first choice if I were able to secure another offer at a company that better aligned with my values.
If I were put in a situation in which Facebook’s offer was the best fit for me in terms of ethics, salary, and responsibilities, I would accept. Then the question would be what I would do to reconcile myself with Facebook’s controversial activities. According to Section 5.2 of Business Ethics, one of the ways to think of accepting a job from an ethically questionable company is to have a goal of changing it from the inside. I would very likely not be able to change the ways Facebook’s algorithms worked at the expense of the company’s profits, but I may be able to work on user experience and try to improve the situation one step at a time. As long as I am not miserable during my time there, I think this ambition would be enough to motivate me to stay at the company and advocate for incremental change.
