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Comment by ann_kasumova | Hacker News Reader

The software itself is not aggressive, it already depends on the management style and purposes. Thank you for your comment!

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And yet you developed the functionality to enable them to manage in an aggressive manor. Doesn’t make you come off any better.

This just an app, and aggressive manor of management depends on your manager/employer

Do you really not understand that software influences people's expectations of what's normal? You're normalizing the idea that everyone should be always available by conflating "attendance in the app" with "working"

You were so preoccupied with building an invasive tool, that you didn't stop and think if you should.

Tools do not exist in an ethical vacuum. The design of tools also encourages people to act in a certain way.

If we call ourselves professional software engineers I think we should also consider the potential negative impact of what we build.

There are creative professions, including developers and software architects, who do not do routine work, but come up with ways to solve complex problems. Of course, there is no point in measuring such work in hours spent at the computer, because the solution can come on its own, at any moment. At the same time, there are IT specialists in poor countries who cannot relocate, but want to find decent remote work, and the factor of distrust in them forces companies to refuse them.

In addition to qualified personnel, there is also low-skilled labor as the first line of customer support, where it is important to stay at the workplace strictly at the computer at strictly defined hours

Sounds like you want to pivot from office video walkie-talkie to low-wage employee video surveillance. Enjoy your life choices!

Yes, it is indeed our choice: to create a tool to weed out the lazy and deceitful, thereby forming a healthy and efficient team.

Might I suggest you adjust your slogans then? Be honest about your ambitions of computer-surveilling the untrustworthy lower class workers!

> Combining the best of the office and remote work, we create the ideal conditions for efficient work.

This is a panopticon, not ideal conditions.

> Privacy first

Having video of your face sent to a 3rd party server for a whole working day is not privacy first.

This whole discussion thread (the whole thing, not just this branch) appears to have gone the way it did because people took the marketing site at face value and thought this was intended a general tool for OECD-state offices, but it seems it’s actually aimed at imposing surveillance on low-status offshore remote teams. The feature set makes a lot more sense with that framing (though the reframing may not affect the ethics of it)

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