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1. danude+(OP)[view] [source] 2020-06-15 17:37:33
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.

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