zlacker

So who decides? Do companies now need a chief political officer? Do they do some sort of political review of each new customer? What issues do they use to decide on? Do they deny Apple or Nike because of overseas labour conditions?

IMO it's foolish for a company to wade into these waters at all unless activism is part of their brand. If you signal you're going to take a stand it ends up having to be around everything and people are going to have a lot of conflicting agendas. Or you could just sell software tools to people who pay for them.

>>overga+(OP)
There are interesting parallels to this well-defined role: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_commissar

>>overga+(OP)
Every decision made at the executive level is inherently a political decision, because someone will benefit.

But not just affirmative actions: not cancelling a contract with an organization that builds concentration camps is making a strong political statement in itself.

They “waded into the waters” the moment they accepted the contract with ICE. What they are seeing now is that their actions have consequences. And while you don’t necessarily intend the consequences of your actions, you must accept them.

Only children have trouble doing so.

>>overga+(OP)
> Or you could just sell software tools to people who pay for them.

Yes, that’s one of the (political) options.

>>overga+(OP)
> So who decides? Do companies now need a chief political officer?

Companies make "political" decisions every single day, in literally everything they do. Just as Apple and Nike make the _decision_ to employ the questionable overseas labour practices, providing services to them is also a _decision_. The whole point of the corporate executive branch is to make decisions for the company, it's the difference between McDonalds and a bunch of random stores making hamburgers. You can't hand-wave your way out of accountability with statements like this whenever you start having to face hard decisions like this.

>>overga+(OP)
Companies can start choosing based on what they feel is right, rather than what is just immediately financially beneficial, since there is no such thing as not "wading into these waters". When presented with the option to sell services to ICE or facial recognition to abusive and murderous police departments who do everything they can to avoid accountability, the executives of that company are explicitly making a choice. Are we okay with our software being used to detain and abuse immigrants? Are we okay with our software being used for targeted harassment and state violence against people whom the state has targeted?

The only people who consider that "not taking a stand" are the people who don't suffer as a result of that choice. Thus, as the parent poster said, this is a support of the status quo (or an escalation of it) by privileged people who will never suffer the consequences of that choice. Saying "the abuse of police power and the imprisonment of asylum seekers has nothing to do with me or my company" is saying "I'm okay with all of this because it doesn't affect me directly".

As we've seen with Facebook, trying to "not take a stand" is actually taking a stand, and saying "we won't fact check obvious lies or take down calls for violence by the military against our own citizens" is saying "we're okay with our platform being used to erode democracy and threaten people's lives". We're seeing now that Zuckerberg, then, is completely okay with the effective dissolution of everything that the US claims to stand for, as long as it means that Facebook won't be broken up as a result of their unethical and illegal business practices.

In this way, Facebook isn't "not taking a stand", they're specifically taking a stand against corporate and social accountability. Because of their position in the market that means that they can directly and indirectly affect what news people see, what groups people are recommended, and what politics people have, and they don't want to give up that power, so they'll implicitly support a government which will let them keep it, no matter what the consequences to anyone else.

There's no such thing as not "wading into these waters"; only following your ethics vs. signing another contract and making a few million bucks from it.

>>moolco+A3
How many large corporations really have a spotless record? (At least from the point of view of activists). You could also not sell to microsoft because of antitrust, or Google and Facebook for privacy issues, or boeing because of how executives made bad decisions around safety, or McDonalds over pay, or.... pretty much every company does something people wont like. I just think it's a slippery slope and not every company or person needs to be an activist around everything. We all have to pick and choose our battles.

>>overga+wn
Of course, there's a million little compromises in any decision. That doesn't mean you can't draw a line in the sand.

>>moolco+A3
> Companies make "political" decisions every single day, in literally everything they do.

That's incorrect.

The vast majority of companies are small and medium sized enterprises who just try to make it through. Does the launderette in the high street make political decisions? The car dealership? The scrap metal yard?

>>dingal+nw1
Those all make political decisions. Let's take the car dealership: What are your hiring practices? Are the cars foreign, or domestic? How do you incentivize your salesforce? How much (if any) insurance do you provide employees? How do you provide credit? Do you sell cars to people with bad credit who you don't believe will be able to make payments? How do you handle missed payments? When do you decide to repossess a car? Do you push low emissions and electric vehicles? There's a ton of politics behind literally all of these (and more) questions.