When Companies Do Evil -- What Should Engineers Do?

I'm writing this to all the engineers. The SysAdmins, Developers, Testers, and DevOps folk out there. The people that keep the servers running and the companies in business.

All of us that have been in this line of work, for more than a few years, have had at least one example (if not several dozen) where we have disagreed with something our company was doing.

Maybe we disagreed with the way our software was licensed. Or the marketing was, in our opinion, a bit deceptive. Perhaps we took issue with the way the personal data, collected by the services we built, was being used.

All legitimate concerns.

And, depending on a variety of factors, these are concerns we may have spoken out about.

Lots of possibilities. Maybe we opted to stay quiet to keep the paychecks coming. Maybe we tried to effect change internally... but simply gave up after that change proved too challenging. Every case is different. And no two engineers are going to be in the same set of circumstances.

But what if... the company we work for does something much, much worse?

I'm talking... real bad. So bad, that it can't be ignored. So utterly horrendous, that it will be talked about for years (if not decades, or more) to come.

A lot of engineers are finding themselves in exactly that position right now. And I feel for them.

Apple, for example, appears to be benefiting from slave labor -- a large group placed into camps, and forced to labor, by the Chinese government. (1)

This is, without question, a bad thing. I don't know of a single engineer that likes the idea of slave labor. And I know a lot of engineers.

Another recent example would be Netflix. (2) The streaming company is currently promoting and distributing a film ("Cuties" ) that, clearly and overwhelmingly, meets the legal definition of "Child Pornography". (3)

Not one single good person on planet Earth thinks child pornography is a good thing. Not one. Which means that not only did Netflix commit a crime (possibly a great many), but they have done something that nearly every human being finds utterly disgusting. Firmly within the very definition of "evil".

"Slave Labor" and "Child Pornography". Not little concerns. Possibly some of the worst things any person or company could do.

And we, as engineers, make a great deal of these things possible. We design, build, and maintain the technical infrastructure required for any of this to happen.

The software. The servers. All of it. It's us that makes it happen.

But that begs the question: What should a good engineer do in such situations?

I suppose there are really 4 primary options:

1. Ignore

The easiest reaction would simply be to ignore these bad things. To pretend them away.

To put those thoughts into a lock box, deep inside our soul. To block and filter any news stories or people talking about the topic.

To, in effect, put our fingers in our ears and sing "LA LA LA" as loudly as possible.

2. Rationalize

Or, we can rationalize these things.

"I didn't directly have anything to do with the slave labor. That was a different department. That's hardware. I work on the Operating System team."

... or ...

"I didn't make the child porn. That was someone else. I just write the python scripts that publish the files to the production servers."

... or ...

"These things are terrible. But I need the paycheck."

All of these rationalizations -- and the nearly limitless others -- have a bit of truth to them. That's what makes them good rationalizations.

But, at the end of the day, that means we still work at a company doing truly evil things. We justified it to ourselves (and others). And we got paid for it.

This approach to dealing with these evils... I tell ya. It makes my stomach hurt. No sir. Don't like it.

3. Stay and fight

In the two examples (Slave Labor and Child Porn), we all agree: these things are evil.

Evil must be stopped, right?

So, perhaps, we stay. We stay working at the company (and drawing a paycheck). But we fight to change things.

We push for the people making these evil decisions to be fired.

We push for changes to procedures and policies that would make those sorts of evils not happen in the future.

We push for the company to (at least attempt to) fix what they had done. However difficult that task may be.

This approach takes some serious guts. You're putting your livelihood on the line. You're talking, every day, with people at a company that you are fighting to change in a not-insignificant way. For most engineers... This is a darn stressful approach.

4. Leave

Or you can simply leave the company.

Maybe you speak out afterwards. Maybe you don't.

Maybe you become a whistle-blower and work to end those evils. Maybe... you don't.

Either way, you stop earning a paycheck that comes, at least in some part, from something truly evil.

...

Four distinctly different approaches -- and I'm sure there are plenty of others and variations. But, for me, I think it all boils down to this:

20 years from now, when I'm telling the story of that period of time. That time Netflix, Apple, or whatever company I was working at did something truly terrible -- just pure evil... the kind of evil that will be talked about for decades to come -- what did I do? What action did I take?

What will I say?

In that story, am I the hero? The good guy? When I tell the story, do I puff up my chest with a little pride? Does it make me feel good about my impact on that company... and the world?

Or am I the engineer that kept the machinery of evil chugging along?

The old saying "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" comes to mind.

Right now seems like a pretty good time to think about such things.

1 - https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-forced-uighur-labor-iphone-factory-2020-3

2- https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ted-cruz-calls-for-doj-investigation-into-netflix-promotion-of-cuties

3- https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/child-pornography#:~:text=Federal%20law%20defines%20child%20pornography,less%20than%2018%20years%20old).&text=Federal%20law%20prohibits%20the%20production,any%20image%20of%20child%20pornography.