Ask HN: Why are you working on Facebook? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why are you working on Facebook?

11 pointsneom14 comments

From a layperson, outside ignorant perspective, FB seems to be in a difficult place. For quite some time now, the sentiment I’ve seen among “people in the know” is that there are fundamental issues at facebook that are not being addressed, and having watched all of todays testimonial, a few things stand out as real issues. FB itself understands:

The ML used to protect users on FB is only localized into 20 or so languages, not all the languages supported by FB.

In the context of rabbit holeing, the ML used to protect users and the ML used to make money are at odds with each other, so the ML used to make money is weighted more heavily.

When issues of the potential for creating a civil war in various regions across the world due to misinformation amplified by the first two issues, the CEO opted not to change course.

A non-statistically insignificant number of teenagers attribute strong urges towards suicide due to an inability to protect them.

In theory this all seems net negative, and so I ask this without value judgement, but out of genuine curiosity, why are you choosing to continue working on this product?

Making the world a “better” place is overrated.

I work for a small, non-VC funded, company where I contribute to products that have the potential to help people live longer, healthier lives. And I get paid pretty terribly compared to the COL of my area and compared to what I could make in other industries.

It seems the vast majority of jobs we deem to “make the world a better place”, pay not great. Teachers, social workers, scientists, healthcare workers outside doc/nurse, non-profit work, etc.

Give society what they want. They want to live in a bubble of misinformation, good for them. They want to be angry and incited into violence, good for them.

From where I’m sitting, if I help people live longer, I’m shooting myself in the foot. I can barely afford a crappy condo, currently. If I have kids, their lives will be worse because I had some weird need to care about the mission of my work.

If YOU think people need to work on problems and for companies that make the world a better place, then you should be working on how to incentivize working on these problems and disincentivizing working in companies that “make the world worse.” You’re going to have to figure out how to get teachers paid as much as a banker, I wish you the best of luck.

> Making the world a “better” place is overrated.

It's not a binary. If Facebook is a 7/10 on the evil scale, why not go work for a company that's a 0 or a 1?

> Give society what they want. They want to live in a bubble of misinformation, good for them. They want to be angry and incited into violence, good for them.

What if it's not what they want? What if what they want is to keep up with friends and family?

But then you insert content in between the stuff that they actually want, and that content is enraging? And it makes them feel like they need to do something about it or the world will fall apart for their children?

It's not that people turn on a screen to find something to be angry about. They generally hate that. The addictive component is that they feel that they can't look away or they're derelict in their duty to their society.

That goes for both ends of the political spectrum, by the way: conservatives think they need to defend society from the enraging "woke" narratives they see, and progressives think they need to defend society from the conservatives.

Back when Facebook had no news feed and you could never see posts from a total stranger on the other side of the world, no one was begging Facebook for more rage.

I don’t work for Facebook.

However, the issues are definitely more complex than media and politicians make it out to be.

Misinformation: take this article from the EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/disentangling-disinfor...

Teen users: TikTok, where majority of the teens are, was surprisingly missing from all the discussions. My TikTok feed is far more risqué than my Instagram feed is.

So on..

This isn’t as black or white as HN makes it out to be.

> However, the issues are definitely more complex than media and politicians make it out to be.

Sure, that's true. But if Facebook is in a "gray area" (which is very debatable), then why not work for a company that isn't in one?

There are lots of companies to work for that don't have these endless debates about their ethics.

> My TikTok feed is far more risqué than my Instagram feed is.

Yeah, again, there are more than two companies to work for. It's not like anyone is so specialized in 1B+ social networks that they can only work for Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram.

It isn't even a matter of pay. There are comparable salaries at lots of companies.

Sure, but what if Facebook’s views align with yours?

I’d imagine that the employees believe that the company is trying to do the right thing.

I think the question that people forget to ask is: what if Facebook disappeared tomorrow, will all our problems be solved?

> Sure, but what if Facebook’s views align with yours?

I don't think Facebook's "views" are different from Facebook's profit motivations. An employee's views could certainly align with those, but it would be for financial reasons.

There is no other consistent, underlying ideology at that company (or most others).

> I think the question that people forget to ask is: what if Facebook disappeared tomorrow, will all our problems be solved?

That's irrelevant to an employee's decision.

If I decline to contribute to a govt surveillance program, will it still exist? Probably. But if I refuse to work on it, I can at least align my behavior with my morals, and (if I'm lucky) I will also harm the overall effort.

No one is saying an individual employee can kill Facebook by refusing to work there. I'm just saying that if an employee (a highly skilled one, anyway) is even a little bit uncomfortable with Zuckerberg's ethics, they can:

- work somewhere else

- make as much money

- enjoy their job just as much

- not have to exist in an ethically gray area at work

Morals aren't necessarily a priority for everyone when choosing a career path/job. Perhaps there's an interesting product in development at Facebook that you enjoy working on. Maybe you want a specific type of work experience and Facebook was willing to offer it to you with great pay. It's possible a person could hope to change the culture from the inside. You could have past coworkers at Facebook that you enjoyed working with and would like to work with again.

If moral considerations are important to you, that's awesome! There would be no reason for you to work at Facebook. If ethical concerns are not your top priority and Facebook offered more money or a more interesting job, that's enough reason for a lot of people to work there.

Ultimately, everyone chooses how far they let their morals dictate their actions. We aren't all working for non-profits that provide essential services to those that need them, right?

Let's be fair here. The vast majority of FB technology workers will be doing stuff they know or at least assume to be benign. If they are going to be accused of any guilt, it is by association. They are not cackling over code in a James Bond villain's lair. Leaving a job can cause massive upheavals in family life, if what you do is CSS or optimise DB access. Let's keep focus on the wrongs of the company and real decision makers.

PS- I despise FB

"Potential for creating a civil war" isn't a hypothetical at all. It's already happened, social media was complicit in the violent overthrow of multiple governments, ending with 60,000 people dead. It's called the Arab Spring, and typically viewed as a positive thing.

The way this is worded seems to assume that anyone at Facebook is able to leave a job without any risk. No regard for the responsibilities they might have and on top of that, add all the interview prep, grinding leetcode, etc. they might have to go.

It’s not so easy sometimes.

> the interview prep, grinding leetcode, etc. they might have to go

In my experience, once you have Facebook engineering on your resume, you don't have to do much interview prep and you certainly don't need to "grind leetcode".

It's declined a bit recently, but for years, just having "ex-Facebook engineer" was enough to raise money as a CTO of a startup, even if the person just had a few years of experience out of college.

Why? One word: Money.

Facebook pays their engineers well, and the lifestyle from that salary is too good to give up.

probably because a lot of people care more about money then common sense

or they want to have influence from the inside...

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