“Would you accept a job at Facebook?”
Three years ago, I would have balked at the idea.
My staunch refusal was grounded in the conviction that Facebook–and social media companies in general–profit by keeping people glued to their devices, thereby reinforcing an unhealthy hyper-sensitivity to online personas and keeping folks away from real-life elements that truly matter. Sure, Facebook’s platform connects people together worldwide. But it is hard to ignore the growing evidence of detrimental effects associated with excessive technology use. Even as Facebook started talking about incorporating new metrics and features based on the “Time Well Spent” movement, which aims to bring mindfulness and human well-being into the picture, the company’s business model has still fundamentally been grounded in attracting users and increasing use time to drive ad revenue. And so I felt an incompatibility between my values and those of Facebook.
But fast forward three years, and I now approach the above question with more ambivalence. This mindset shift was, in large part, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, when seeing people in-person was no longer possible, virtual presence and reach became all the more important. Personally, I began to use Facebook more often, especially for its messaging service and video-call functionality, as well as to follow the Stanford Recreation and Wellness page for their virtual fitness classes. I saw the value that this connectedness brought to my communities and (to my surprise) my health. I recognized that Facebook’s information distribution and communication channels didn’t have to fuel misinformation, distrust, and anger only–they could give people a greater sense of safety, solidarity, and joy too.
In our increasingly interconnected, globalized society, it is impossible for any decision to be removed from work that could, in one way or another, be deemed ethically questionable. Even companies and organizations that seem grounded in ethically-conscious principles can be linked somehow to something–products they use, actions they take, funding that backs them–whose ethical grounding could be up for debate. What, then, should we do? The article “Working for Ethically Complicated Organizations” encourages us to forgo binary distinctions of “right” or “wrong” work, in favor of a reappraisal of work based on distance to potential “ethical stains.” Another important consideration is how we want to work at such companies. And perhaps a decision to accept a position at a company we don’t love might be a short-term investment to build skills, credentials, and influence for future payoff–to be able to make more impactful change later on.
So going back to the original question–would I work for Facebook? My current answer is maybe. I would be interested in exploring how its offerings could support people and organizations for empathetic, responsible, and sustainable endeavors. These are values that I hope to see already present at a company I work for, but if they are not (yet) characteristics of the company culture, I hope to bring in and bolster those values in order to drive strategy and product decisions built on ethical foundations.
