alt Hacker NewsThere are tons of good reasons to work for Meta. You can work on interesting projects, build your resume and network, work on interesting engineering problems, learn from other people, and of course, they pay very well. People do need to support their family, secure their retirement and so on...
Is it perfect? certainly not. Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line? how much are you willing to compromise given the other advantages you get? Everybody has a different answer to these questions. Some people would tell you that even working in tech is wrong due to environmental concerns.
Personally, I would happily work for Meta. Many people use their services and like them. Is it the greatest thing for society? probably not, but neither is Netflix or Amazon or Apple...
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Hey, at least you're open and honest about being okay with contributing to such a global net negative as long as you get something out of it.
This an ad company that proveably, willingly targeted insecure children. You could write the same things about Northrop Grumman or Palantir. I mean corporations were never angels, but how software engineers can work anywhere else with similar features... just why.
Putting Meta next to Netflix in terms of moral culpability is in my opinion laughable.
I don't disagree that there are reasons people compromise on things like the morality of their employer - tale as old as society itself. I do disagree that many people like Meta's services - the only things I have seen people like about Meta is Facebook Marketplace (which is really just Craig's List or eBay if you are looking at technical problems) or the Meta Quest VR (which they've since gutted employment wise since the metaverse debacle).
Not only is it a morally bad employer, but it's also not a very good employer overall. They've just got institutional inertia keeping them entrenched, and are trying to buy their way into AI dominance to boot.
It's hard to imagine a tech company with more clear disdain for their employees than Meta. To me, that seems like a recipe for a dead company, but by all means, build your resume and network.
*Edit: people also use Instagram, but the engineering problems with that are also found in newer social networks like Bluesky, with a little less engagement addiction focus.
Growing up, I’d wonder how people could work for companies like cigarette manufacturers even after it became well known that their products wreck havoc on your health.
This comment is a masterclass in the type of mental gymnastics people do to justify working for these kind of companies.
> Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line?
You couldn’t even answer the question you yourself posed.
Meta is straight evil. It undermines the institutions of democracy and it negatively impacts its users mental health, all in service of selling your data to advertisers so they can better goad unnecessary consumption.
If I learn you work at Meta, I will judge you as at best lacking a moral compass and treat you appropriately.
Apple has problems, but is a lot closer to morally neutral. Ditto for Netflix.
Amazon has hollowed out local retail/is also bad for society, though not on Meta’s scale. But you sell your soul more cheaply there.