I think I would take a job at WhatsApp, even though I’m pretty uncomfortable with some of Meta’s business practices.
Coming from India, WhatsApp feels like way more than just a messaging app. It’s basically built into everyday life. Families use it, schools use it, small businesses take orders through it, people coordinate work on it, and for a lot of people it’s one of the easiest ways to access things online. India is also WhatsApp’s biggest market, so I’ve seen pretty directly how useful it can be.
The part that makes me uncomfortable is that the same scale that makes WhatsApp so useful also gives Meta a lot of power. India’s Competition Commission found that WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy update basically gave users a “take it or leave it” choice around sharing more data with Meta.
That connected to the reading’s idea that working at an ethically complicated company isn’t always just a yes or no question. It also depends on how serious the issue is and how close your own work is to it. I think I’d still work there because I do believe the product creates a lot of value. But I’d care a lot about whether my role was helping make that access better or taking advantage of how dependent people already are on the platform.
When does being extremely useful to people turn into having too much power over them?
