Ethical Jobs – Lour Drick Valsote

If presented with the opportunity, I would not accept a job at Facebook. While this is unchanged from my instinctual response, the readings have encouraged me to more rigorously consider what it means to work for such an ethically complicated company. Nonetheless, even upon further analysis and deeper reflection, I stand firm in my decision to avoid working for a company like Facebook.

One of the readings outlines seven values that one may consider when deciding what kind of job to pursue. I agree that, for the most part, a job at Facebook may score highly on these values. A job at Facebook certainly allows for leisure time, accumulates money, bestows power, radiates prestige, is comfortable, provides security (for the most part), and, depending on the specific role within the company, may be meaningful work. But I would pose a question for an eighth value that, for me, ranks high in importance: would working at the company make me feel like a bad person? And in the case of Facebook, the answer to that would be a resounding “yes.”

Now, this is an idealistic answer, one that I am only able to give now because I am not presented with the actual decision of accepting a job at Facebook in real life. It is entirely possible that seeing enough zeroes on the job offer would be sufficient for me to throw away my morals and work for the Zuck. But at this time, I would hope that I have the wherewithal to decline such a role.

To give credit where it is due, I cannot deny the positive impact that Facebook has had on the world. The ability to connect with family and friends from around the world has been transformative for people who would have been entirely disconnected otherwise. It is true that Facebook allows my parents to stay in touch with their families back in the Philippines in ways that would be difficult otherwise. I recognize that Instagram allows small businesses and content creators to support their livelihoods. I understand that WhatsApp is the only way to communicate with people in certain parts of the world. And yet, and still, I would not want to work for Facebook.

As seen in The Facebook Papers, atomized content is what allows Facebook to thrive, and it has truly changed how people consume media. But I find that as a result of that, the opportunity for negative outcomes increases substantially. Facebook itself has seen an inundation of AI content that many older users of Facebook are oblivious to. Algorithms that optimize for engagement tend to encourage controversial content and misinformation. They allow for echo chambers that can and do feed into people’s individual biases. Bots flood feeds with generated content to the point where it can be difficult to discern who is real and who is fake. Not only does a company like Facebook profit off the exploitation of consumers by getting them addicted and flooding their screens with a constant stream of content, the free-to-use nature of many of their products does suggest ethically dubious missions and connections. It is well known that Facebook sells user data to companies for advertising or whatever, but many consumers fail to recognize or care about how much of their data is being sold. If one is not paying with money, then they are paying with their data.

Now, I do not aim to villainize every person who works at Facebook or would want to work at Facebook. As in the reading, no one person was responsible for the harm caused by the Psilocybin Project, but whether knowingly or unknowingly, they did participate in such a system. I recognize that everyone has their own circumstances to consider, and in many cases, securing one’s own livelihood is paramount, even if it means working for a company like Facebook. As for me personally, I would hope to work somewhere where I would not feel as bad about the potential harm my work is causing and the kind of system I am a part of.