When seeking a job at any company and thinking of said company’s ethical behavior, recognizing my privilege to be so discerning, my first heuristic is to examine whether or not the company in question has forsaken wisdom for progress. I acknowledge that there is a fine balance between these two concepts. So, as a young engineer eager to work for a pioneering venture, I must determine if the company made significant positive contributions in their problem space while simultaneously mitigating any harm their work evokes. I would consider if the company addresses issues proactively or reactively, and how its leadership responds when what is ‘good’ for the world conflicts with what is ‘good’ for the company?
As the reading suggests, if I am deciding to either accept or deny a job offer from Facebook, I can proceed down two paths of action: I could turn a blind eye to its ethically questionable behaviors, or I could explicitly acknowledge the ethical dilemmas and attempt to distance myself from endeavors that further infringe on what I perceive to be unethical operations.
In this case, I simply cannot turn a blind eye; ignorance does not evoke bliss. Through careful consideration of Facebook’s operations, particularly years where current leadership were employed, I see that Facebook has funded groundbreaking research projects, further democratized global communication, and acted in a mostly proactive manner when it came to potential harms their products produce in the world. Namely, they developed widely adopted open-source programming infrastructure and data systems (i.e. React, React Native, Cassandra), highlighting their ability to innovate beyond their product line of direct-to-consumer social media/communications; they have grown acquired companies WhatsApp and Instagram alongside Facebook to be premier, free platforms adopted by billions of people; lastly, they have implemented content moderation systems early in their company history (c.2009) alongside other tech companies (link to reference).
While Facebook is no stranger to unethical practices, I must recognize that many other companies operating in a capitalist environment similarly execute unethical operations.
As a young engineer, I must develop my resume to obtain positions at more ethical companies, and per my career values, I crave working with pioneers of my discipline to learn and build connections. Facebook accomplishes that as explained above and potentially offers me a position to pursue endeavors more in line with my ethical/moral guidelines down the road. However, my core values require that I am contributing positively to our society/environment more than inadvertently harming it, so I need to understand the overarching and/or fundamnrtal purpose of my work: if it’s to further democratize knowledge, sign me up; if its to increase profit margins, then I would be more skeptical. Secondly, I would need to know what measures are planned to handle negative consequences of my work and how they would be enforced. My analysis process culminates into a simple concept: do the benefits outweigh the costs, to myself, to my community, to the world.
I would work at Facebook, however only in a research or research-related capacity, My core values of creativity and curiosity outweigh my desire for financial stability from this job offer. Although this stance carries many privileges, this approach allows me to distance myself somewhat from negative operations while enabling me to do more ‘good’ short and long-term for myself and society.
