Preamble – Principle 1
PUBLIC – Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.
~ Software Engineering Code of Ethics – IEEE Computer Society
In view of recent polls suggesting that only 41 % of Americans trust Facebook to obey laws that protect their personal information, and especially considering the whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco, maybe it’s time for Facebook devs to review the above principle.
As one Hacker News commenter put it:
They are responsible for the fruits of their efforts. Recent revelations are of degree, not kind. The consequences of engineering work were reasonably foreseeable and the consequences were not at arm’s length. Facebook’s business model has been clear and well-understood for years and years now. This is not technology being misapplied by someone several steps removed from you. This is technology misapplied by Facebook and Facebook’s immediate customers and Facebook engineers enabled it.
…
I am unsympathetic to anyone at Facebook feeling moral disquiet. I think you know what you ought to do.
In the mean time, the #DeleteFacebook hashtag picks up steam as Facebook’s share price continues to fall.