CS 177 – would you take a job at Facebook?

Indeed this is a very hard question to answer. Reading 5.2 states that it is ultimately up to the individual to rationalize working at an unethical company based on various factors. The issues such as data privacy, misinformation and Facebook’s ability to influence behavior at a societal level are very concerning. However if the specific job at hand was totally unrelated to such issues, e.g. you might be working in designing user interface, it might make the decision to work at facebook a lot easier. Moreover I understand I’d be working there at a junior level and will have almost no say in changing practices there to be more ethical, therefore I would have to come to terms with this as well. Moreover one must also consider that despite its reputation in the press, having work experience at a fortune 500 company like Facebook will be invaluable for my career. Working at Facebook will help source much better exit opportunities at more ethical companies that I am comfortable working at in the long term. As many others have stated in their blog posts, I think would be happy to take a job at facebook if 1) it doesn’t directly related to the unethical practices mentioned in the article and 2) if I only were to work there for 1-2 years for career building.