Many engineers I used to work with now work for Facebook. I wonder how they feel about it. Do they think Facebook does no harm? Do they think that their job itself isn't doing harm? ("I'm just writing spark jobs"). Do they try to ignore it because the salary conditions are so cushy? What amount of money is enough to ignore your conscience if you know that Facebook is part of the problem? Would I work for Facebook for 500k a year? 1M a year? I've heard as a reason "They have two kids, that's why they took the job, you'd do the same if you had kids".

I don't know. It's not black and white. Social media apps aren't creating poisonous ideas like the flat earth, antimask, or anti-vax movements, but they're certainly essential to their spread. They have also had a positive impact such as during the Arab spring a couple years back. Would measles have made a comeback in the US without Facebook? Probably not? Does that mean that Facebook is responsible for the resurgence of it? At least partially yes in my view. Did Facebook sway the elections in 2016? Probably. But so do journalists. What if Facebook swayed elections in a direction that aligns more with my views? Would I be as uncomfortable? I certainly don't have enough information to say "facebook good, facebook bad", but with the limited information I'm comfortable saying that Facebook is dangerous. My perception is that the negative impact of Facebook outweighs the positive; I can't prove it, but it's spooking me enough that I won't work for them. Maybe it's because I don't have kids.