The sad reality is that this behavior gets normalized in the name of making money.
For employees it gets normalized at the first signal that your livelihood might be affected if you don't comply.
As someone who's privacy conscious, it's an uphill battle to convince co-workers to actually follow laws instead of trying to find loopholes.
I've worked at places who collect every possible data point and distributes it willy nilly in Excel spreadsheets posted in Slack. I raised it to a CISO and the response was "all that information is available for everyone anyway via the interface". I know a German company requires you to "accept" data collection and processing in order to settle a debt. I reported this to their legal department which I personally knew a person and they said they'd "look into it ASAP" two years ago.
In the end people just roll along with it. I know this is unpopular, but the only forward I see way to prevent this from happening seems to be using courts and tightened legislation.
It's not a complete answer but I've seen talking about the costs help. That's what's making them overlook things anyways.
What they see is dollars now but not dollars later. Often these data issues can rise to the level that it could destroy the entire business. You might be called a party pooper, but truth is people like this want to keep the party going. It's hard to understand that sometimes keeping the party going means saying no. But it's just the same dealing with drunk people, say no by saying yes to something else. Like presenting another solution. Though that's way easier said than done...
Just remember, everyone is on the same team. People don't say "no" because they don't want to make more money. A good engineer says "no" a lot because your job is to find solutions. It usually sounds like "I don't think that'll work but we might be about to...". If you stop listening without hearing the "but" you can't solve problems, you can only ignore them. Which *that* is not being a team player.
We're always rushing and the truth is that doing good is much harder than doing bad or "evil". I put it in quotes because it's very easy to do things that are obviously evil post hoc but was done by someone trying hard to do good. So I find this language to be a problem because it is easy to dismiss with "I'm not a bad person" and "I'm trying to do good". Truth is that's not enough. Truth is mistakes happen. We work with asymmetric information. It only becomes your fault when you recognize and don't take steps to fix it (or active ignorance).
Sometimes things take nuance. Sometimes it takes more than a few sentences to convey. But who reads longer anyways?
Yes. It was judged illegal a few years ago in several countries, and German courts recently ratified the decision.
I'm pretty sure if the debt itself ever goes to court, the debtor can argue that they can't even enter the website. On the other hand this company is a bit of a shitshow so good luck having the website work haha.
I don't care. I won't starve, live in my car or go hat-in-hand to my relatives to cover for rent. I did that for years while attending primary education and I will happily ruin whatever little middle-class pastiche you're so desperate to protect if it puts a roof over my head. I personally know dozens of people who would quit their job to subsume that compensation. The fact that it's all legal? I won't even remember who cares by the time my head hits the pillow. It's a problem for someone else.
You hate ads? Surveillance drives you nuts? This is the consequence of a dysfunctional government. You can protest the businesses all you want, it's their job to be apathetic. Make a big show of it, take off your flair and tell your AWS or Apple manager exactly how much all it sucks. They'll nod, write it all down on a legal pad, put it in a folder and refer to it when your next employer calls asking for cross-references. It would all make for a very touching scene of career suicide, and then your replacement can have a technical interview scheduled in by the end of the week. That is the sum of damages you can enjoy as the fruit of your protesting this company.
It's funny how much Americans care about their legacy while doing nothing worth remembering. A Microsoft employee who donates their disproportionate wage to an animal shelter is doing more to benefit the world than some shmuck who got mad at capitalism for the fly in his soup. John Carmack worked for Meta, and still has more of a legacy than every "hacker" on this site combined. If your identity is so shallow that it's defined by nothing other than the person who pays you, you have more serious issues than finding an ethical employer.
Meta or not, people don't like being fired or being threatened to. Period. They like the comfy job.
But don't ask me why. I'm a troublemaker. I bring up this stuff, I talk to CEOs, I refuse to do stuff that breaks the GDPR or other laws, I got people to scream at me for being stubborn. Other people aren't like that.
I agree with you. To clarify my comment a bit. I’m confused why a software engineer of Meta caliber would even APPLY at meta to begin with.
I suppose $400k comp instead of $350k (making up numbers here) is worth selling your soul for these days? These are people with options, that’s ill i’m saying.
If someone talked to me this way in the real world it would be the last time I would ever interact with them. It’s a Redditism used to express incredulity that the parent commenter could be so stupid as to have posted what they posted. It adds nothing to the conversation and doesn’t belong here.
You're reading a lot into two words there. And someone probably has said "um, what?" to you in the real world; but you wouldn't notice because it is a common pattern of speech.
The internet will be a remarkably combative place if that is the standard you set for when someone calls you stupid - it'd be a lot better to only read that into a statement if it actually gets explicitly said.
No, it's not, it's among the same vein as "huh?" - it's a thinly-veiled attempt to paint opposing view points as so stupid that you literally cannot comprehend them.
But you can comprehend them, we all can. So it's just abrasive and annoying. You can express a conversational tone without being an asshole. You don't need to act like your conversational opponents are super far out there or crazy or whatever.
it’s how i talk in real life when I'm completely confused by someone’s comment. The tone matters a lot - which is hard to express in a text medium. Emojis can help with this a bit but no emojis on hacker news. :)
For employees it gets normalized at the first signal that your livelihood might be affected if you don't comply.
As someone who's privacy conscious, it's an uphill battle to convince co-workers to actually follow laws instead of trying to find loopholes.
I've worked at places who collect every possible data point and distributes it willy nilly in Excel spreadsheets posted in Slack. I raised it to a CISO and the response was "all that information is available for everyone anyway via the interface". I know a German company requires you to "accept" data collection and processing in order to settle a debt. I reported this to their legal department which I personally knew a person and they said they'd "look into it ASAP" two years ago.
In the end people just roll along with it. I know this is unpopular, but the only forward I see way to prevent this from happening seems to be using courts and tightened legislation.