This topic is extremely relevant to the decisions I have to make in the short-term. I am a junior, wading through the mess of shiny opportunities afforded to me by my Stanford education and the hard work of previous versions of myself. A lot of these opportunities are ethically ambiguous, especially those at large organizations.
Facebook is one of those large, ethically ambiguous organizations. I rationalize this from an economic standpoint. A business like Facebook exists to maximize profit (“shareholder value” perhaps) by creating a hypothesis on what needs to change to unlock value for humanity that has not yet been recognized completely. This hypothesis is their mission.
As mentioned in the reading, one factor that we can use to evaluate the ethicality of an organization is its mission. At Facebook, this is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”. If we assume that Facebook is truly dedicated to its mission, which I believe is a fair assumption, the question becomes is that an ethical mission?
I personally believe that it is an ethical mission as I think a more collaborative and connected world allows humanity to pursue grander goals. To me, it is a question of division vs. unity, and I choose unity. However, there are plenty of opportunities for ethical complications in the pursuit of this mission, and much evidence of their past occurrence. I think these are imperfections that can be minimized through better decision-making, a cause that I would love to join.
