The only thing worse than an echo chamber is letting a self-created bad idea fester in the head.
I came to the conclusion a few months ago that software developers and coders who worked at Meta, Google, Amazon, etc are as culprit as their CEOs and the company itself. I will lay down my points below, but I understand that this might be a logical extreme of my distaste for these corporations.
Here’s my rationale:
- Actions of the company they serve: The corporations they serve actively disenfranchise users, track them, sell their private / personal information to unscrupulous parties without any care on how it affects the person, or the society. They thrive on engagement rather than content. They have “commodified” the fundamental right to privacy. This has real world implications that has directly resulted in the spread of misinformation, political unrest, threatened elections, riots, and deaths of thousands of people.
- Awareness of the consequences: By virtue of their position, these are people with the capacity to read, and think for themselves. There are news articles: across the political spectrum in all major news sites, that report how the platform/ company they serve negatively affects society. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica fiasco, Snowden’s expose, etc are credible and well documented examples that even non-tech people are aware. Yet they choose to ignore all this, and continue working / seek to join these companies.
- Cowardice: It is often wrapped in the garb of “self-interest”, but they do not raise their voice when they know that the software and platform they’re told to develop is going to be used to spy on their brethren. They claim they’re trying to make a living, but can use their skills to develop counter products to these horrible companies, or work for those that are sensitive and conscientious towards customer’s needs and welfare.
For a large chunk of my career, I worked in aerospace and ‘defense’ machining. Made all kinds parts for all kinds of weapons, it was really cool! Murica! As I got older, I lost my religion, I lost the far right brainwashing I was raised with.
My hands were making weapons that the US government was often selling to other countries. My hands were making weapons to kill various groups of brown people all over the world. It really began to bother me.
I no longer make things to kill people.
Yes, you are culpable for the effects of what you produce in your profession. A thinking person should consider the effects of their work.
This reminds me of something I worked on at my last job. I made software to detect plumes of dust pollution from a mining site blowing onto a nearby school and town. The EPA issued fines if they detected too much dust over the town. This system could catch it early for quick intervention.
After it was deployed, I got a glimpse of their production config. They hadn’t configured the alarms for early intervention. They had configured them so that they could get as close as possible to their allocated limit before they intervened at all. Because, ya know, spraying water on stockpiles of ore is expensive.
Fucking mining companies, man.
