# Is it ethical to work in FAANG? **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/is-it-ethical-to-work-in-faang/27971 **Category:** Off Topic **Created:** 2025-06-01T11:50:19Z **Posts:** 36 ## Post 1 by @Iluvinatum — 2025-06-01T11:50:19Z - Would you accept a job offer from FAANG (Facebook, _Apple_\*, Amazon, Netflix, Google) considering employees there design/maintain privacy violating tech? \*_Apple is mostly fine_ - Is your current company privacy-friendly towards its customers? If no – how do you justify it? --- ## Post 2 by @Sectional2932 — 2025-06-01T12:16:03Z I would only accept a job offer from one of those companies if I was desperate and had no other options. Even then, it would be temporary. I would take the wages while looking for another job. Where I work now, yes, it’s privacy friendly. We only have work emails and work phone numbers from our customers… no personal information at all except for their names. It’s not perfect though. We are required to use our personal phone devices for work-related apps, and our personal bank cards to book work trips which is reimbursed later. But apart from that it’s ok. --- ## Post 3 by @overdrawn98901 — 2025-06-01T13:11:15Z A bit of a nuanced question. At some point people need to get paid to feed themselves and their families, I don’t think it’s right to place all the blame on the workers. It’s clearly leadership saying where to go and lack of laws that prevent it from happening, and workers do it or get fired. Perhaps they can push back, but these places don’t take kindly to going against profit drivers for shareholders. If someone is fired, someone else will take their place. On the other hand, developers know best about what’s happening, and will take the big paycheck to forget about the rest. But in the current economy, AI scare for jobs, I doubt as many are willing to jump ship for alignment. But I also wish developers used their voices to better protest the rights for everyone. f From what I see in my workplace, most don’t feel strongly enough to voice their opinion. This is why I need PG stickers to show my beliefs in a passive way at work and spread the word. I’m currently in a tough spot myself. Won’t go into detail, but would like to find a new job. I currently feel very jaded by tech as a whole to the point I feel most tech companies are just shells of products to get your data. Would like to build things for good, and also not work overtime every week. --- ## Post 4 by @TinFoilHat — 2025-06-01T13:58:20Z I think it depends on the job nature. There is no need to escalate everything to morality level. --- ## Post 5 by @anon57862721 — 2025-06-01T14:58:41Z > [@TinFoilHat](#): > > There is no need to escalate everything to morality level. Yep. I also think this is a difficult and a quasi impossible way to live. Everyone should do what is best for them while being as good a person they can be. But its important to know you can’t be good for everyone all the time (no one can) and only for you and select people close to you at best, practically speaking. Cognitive dissonance here is the bitch to tame here but is necessary for your own long term objective growth and progress personally and professionally. --- ## Post 6 by @anonymous261 — 2025-06-01T15:23:44Z Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon (GAMMA) each have at least one pretty cool privacy/security/open thing going on, even if the rest of what they do might not be so great. Not sure about Netflix, though Google has AOSP and the Chromium Open Source project, Apple has Apple Health and Advanced Data Protection, Microsoft has Github and VSCode, Meta has Llama AI and Sapling, and Amazon has optional Ring E2EE I guess. If one were to work at one of those companies, of course if it is feasible and not too risky, I think it could be pretty admirable to aim to help with one of those good things or to make a bad thing better. Needless to say, getting food on your plate is kind of important :astonished_face: . So, if that does seem unfeasible or risky, I think simply doing feasible things like contributing to this community is pretty cool! --- ## Post 7 by @PurpleDime — 2025-06-01T17:56:14Z From a privacy standpoint, given that all the companies you’ve named do unethical things, including Apple, you could argue that it is unethical. At the same time, I can understand that in the unequal world that we live in, many people are gonna do whatever they can to earn a decent living and thrive. That doesn’t mean you can’t call them out, but it’s not always that simple. We agree that everyone deserves due process, even the worst people in the world. But when a lawyer is known to always defend horrible people, we judge them, even though they, themselves, didn’t commit any crime. On the flip side, you could literally say that working for almost any business is unethical, To the degree that capitalism is exploitative. If you have your products made in China, you are exploiting people. --- ## Post 8 by @anon73250778 — 2025-06-02T09:00:11Z I dont work in the Tech sector but if I did, I probably wont judge you if you work for a crappy company. I draw the line to what is used to solely and actively kill people in a _malicious_ manner, like maybe along the lines of killer drones, Cellebrite, Palantir, etc. FAANG _is_ Lawful mild evil kind of bad, but not Chaotic Evil levels of badness. --- ## Post 9 by @TheDoc — 2025-06-02T12:36:15Z > [@anonymous261](#): > > Not sure about Netflix, though If we’re cherry picking, Netflix contributes a little bit to improving FreeBSD! --- ## Post 10 by @dngray — 2025-06-02T14:21:14Z I think it certainly can be as these companies contribute quite a bit to open source, maybe selfishly for their own needs but that benefits us all. Yes, even Facebook does. The answer really depends on whether or not the position is right for you, and whether you don’t mind the workplace. > [@anon73250778](#): > > I draw the line to what is used to solely and actively kill people in a _malicious_ manner, like maybe along the lines of killer drones, Cellebrite, Palantir, etc. Even that is contextual depending on where you are and who you are. There’s nothing unethical about defending your homeland from an invader. Not really sure what you mean by “malicious manner” though. I guess being the invader? --- ## Post 11 by @KevPham — 2025-06-02T14:46:32Z At least from my conversations from ex-FAANG employees, the ones who left voluntarily or became disillusioned with their work often had worked in some level of public benefit team. I figured that certain teams demand more “humanity” than your run-of-the-mill graduate SDE role. For example, employees working to counter disinformation or mitigate CSAM. As for personal beliefs, they may care heavily about international events and worker unionization. I also find quite a lot of crossover between FAANG security engineers and the privacy advocates ironically enough. Go to any infosec community on Mastodon and Bluesky and you’ll see this in action. Perhaps the main concern isn’t the company name but rather the specific team they work in. I wouldn’t judge a Google Cloud Security Engineer as much as someone working with Gemini, Youtube’s search algorithms, or Google Ads. --- ## Post 12 by @anon64393658 — 2025-06-02T16:22:34Z Absolutely. I would accept a position based on the working environment and how competitive the compensation is. I own all of their stocks in my investment portfolio. I could hardly sneer at working for a firm I’m fine with benefiting from owning a (very tiny) portion of. If someone really thinks these companies are truly evil, as opposed to annoying or just greedy, then they need some perspective in their lives. I’d recommend a tour of Sudan, Somalia, Xinjiang, North Korea, Yemen, or Gaza to correct their myopia. --- ## Post 13 by @overdrawn98901 — 2025-06-02T19:47:55Z > [@anon64393658](#): > > If someone really thinks these companies are truly evil, as opposed to annoying or just greedy, then they need some perspective in their lives. I’d recommend a tour of Sudan, Somalia, Xinjiang, North Korea, Yemen, or Gaza to correct their myopia. I mean yes to some degree, but also things can be relatively bad and harmful in context to where they are. Otherwise we’d cure lots of mental illnesses and problems if it were like that. You’re feeling depressed and you live in the US? Think about you not being North Korea - now you’re ready for your tap dancing shoes. --- ## Post 14 by @neel — 2025-06-03T00:58:48Z The funny part is, I actually _worked_ at Microsoft, that on a [product which is basically workplace surveillance](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-viva/insights). I hated it. I never wanted to work at Microsoft long-term, but as the job market got worse I effectively got trapped. I ended up having to resign and move to self-employment just to keep my sanity. --- ## Post 15 by @overdrawn98901 — 2025-06-03T01:07:04Z > [@neel](#): > > I ended up having to resign and move to self-employment just to keep my sanity. What kind of work did you pivot to? --- ## Post 16 by @neel — 2025-06-03T01:10:43Z I run a VPS host now. Yes, the VPS hosting industry is super competitive, but I’m still managing to get a few sales. The real issue is to get non-discounted sales but a few people have recommended me already. Should it fail maybe I’ll become a sysadmin or network engineer or something of that sort. --- ## Post 17 by @neel — 2025-06-03T01:13:19Z > [@KevPham](#): > > I also find quite a lot of crossover between FAANG security engineers and the privacy advocates ironically enough. Go to any infosec community on Mastodon and Bluesky and you’ll see this in action. Perhaps the main concern isn’t the company name but rather the specific team they work in. I wouldn’t judge a Google Cloud Security Engineer as much as someone working with Gemini, Youtube’s search algorithms, or Google Ads. This is true. I worked on a team at Microsoft which is basically workplace surveillance, maybe not the most obvious dragnet surveillance but still monitors and aggregates Office app metrics. And no wonder why I refuse to use Microsoft products unless I _really_ need to, like for working with a parent who refuses to use anything but Microsoft. --- ## Post 18 by @anon57862721 — 2025-06-03T04:33:30Z > [@neel](#): > > why I refuse to use Microsoft products unless I _really_ need to, like for working with a parent who refuses to use anything but Microsoft. For me, this mostly ends up being for official paperwork or government related documentation where Office and Adobe Reader is the only thing they use to authenticate and verify digital docs. --- ## Post 19 by @mangomango — 2025-06-03T19:17:43Z > [@anonymous261](#): > > Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon (GAMMA) each have at least one pretty cool privacy/security/open thing going on Google has TAG and Microsoft has some offices against large-scale disinformation --- ## Post 20 by @mangomango — 2025-06-03T19:25:58Z > [@anon64393658](#): > > If someone really thinks these companies are truly evil, as opposed to annoying or just greedy, then they need some perspective in their lives. I’d recommend a tour of Sudan, Somalia, Xinjiang, North Korea, Yemen, or Gaza to correct their myopia. Ironically, some of the big tech companies are causing a lot of harm in these countries (Twitter in India, Meta in Myanmar and Palestine, …). --- ## Post 21 by @mangomango — 2025-06-03T19:27:11Z Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your story. Please feel free to contribute to the discussions, especially with a tech background ! --- ## Post 22 by @TinFoilHat — 2025-06-03T19:51:23Z Would you mind elaborate on this? Unless these big tech actively help the oppressive regime to crackdown civil society or persecute dissidents, or actively destory the natural environment of those counties, I cant quite immagine how these big tech can do harm to the whole country. --- ## Post 23 by @wumixe — 2025-06-06T19:34:05Z I mean, it really depends on your personal moral compass. I would personally disagree with the idea Apple is fine though. For me, I wouldn’t really work for them unless they gave me some really good advantages compared to any other less predatory companies. --- ## Post 24 by @mangomango — 2025-06-12T13:03:06Z Sorry @TinFoilHat, took my time. Here are sources about what these companies are doing wrong in the world : > **[Myanmar: Facebook’s systems promoted violence against Rohingya; Meta owes...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/)** > **[Big Tech and the risk of genocide in Gaza](https://www.accessnow.org/gaza-genocide-big-tech/)** > > Big Tech is playing a central role in enabling the relentless mass slaughter and destruction unleashed in the war in Gaza. > **[Digital censorship amid the ongoing India-Pakistan conflict](https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/access-now-statement-on-digital-censorship-amid-india-pakistan-conflict/)** > > Access Now is pained to learn of the loss of lives and livelihoods on account of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/09/meta-china-censorship-facebook-mark-zuckerberg/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/09/meta-china-censorship-facebook-mark-zuckerberg/) > **[Hate Speech on Facebook Is Pushing Ethiopia Dangerously Close to a Genocide](https://www.vice.com/en/article/hate-speech-on-facebook-is-pushing-ethiopia-dangerously-close-to-a-genocide/)** > > Ethnic violence set off by the assassination of a popular singer has been supercharged by hate speech and incitements shared widely on the platform. > **[Palantir supplying Israel with technology to help in war effort | CTech](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rymy7ret6)** > > After holding its first board meeting of the year in Tel Aviv, the US company announced the signing of a strategic partnership with the Israel Ministry of Defense > **[Open letter: response to Google on Project Dragonfly, China, and human rights...](https://www.accessnow.org/open-letter-response-to-google-on-project-dragonfly-china-and-human-rights/)** > > Access Now joins a global coalition calling on Google to drop development of censored search services in China. > **[A Russian user looks inside TikTok’s propaganda-filled digital bubble - Coda...](https://www.codastory.com/newsletters/russia-tiktok-propaganda/)** > > Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: Mexican court axes biometric mobile registration scheme; Russia’s quiet cyber war To summarize, no @anon64393658, this is very understandable that some consider these companies as evil. Especially if they look at what they are doing in poor countries. People don’t have to “correct their myopia”, you should rather inform yourself on these companies. --- ## Post 25 by @TinFoilHat — 2025-06-12T13:49:47Z Thanks for the info, I will take a good look when I can sit down lwter today. Two instant thoughts, one is that we will have to evaluate whether they are intentionally programmed the social media algorithms to promote certain perspectives (i.e. amplifying one and silencing another), or is it just due to lack of thought. Second is that even someone associated / work for those “evil” companies / regime, they could still “help” the society by exploring, exploiting and exposing loopholes, and to slow down or mitigate the effect on general public. I did it and I knew people in person who did the same. To me there is no doubt tht Tiktok is CCP propagandist though. --- ## Post 26 by @overdrawn98901 — 2025-06-13T02:07:56Z > [@TinFoilHat](#): > > one is that we will have to evaluate whether they are intentionally programmed the social media algorithms to promote certain perspectives (i.e. amplifying one and silencing another), or is it just due to lack of thought. At a macro scale, the answer is yes. Individually we can arm ourselves, but on the scale of millions and billions it works. People invest in propaganda not because it’s speculative - it’s a known way to move public opinion. Used to be newspaper and television and radio, but now the avenue is streamed to our eyeballs everywhere on a portable devices, and we really enjoy it even more. --- ## Post 27 by @PurpleDime — 2025-06-13T04:50:39Z Thank you for this. Adding them to my reading list. --- ## Post 28 by @anon64393658 — 2025-06-15T00:18:23Z I was aware of all of these issues minus the TikTok one but I am not going to defend TikTok; my statements were intended for US Tech giants. Of your examples of “evil”; all the Meta related ones are about **users abusing the platform** and not some kind of intentional outcome from the company. For Google’s project Dragonfly, it was cancelled _six years ago_ and never went into effect. Regarding Gaza, the tech companies are providing standard cloud services contracts to the government of Israel. This is not great; but again it is far from directly committing evil and those same companies are also critical in providing the infrastructure needed for the information about warcrimes being committed by the IDF to reach a global audience. So hardly black and white. The most concerning example is Palantir. Though to play devils advocate, if their products are actually assisting in finding real Hamas terrorists they could actually be marginally reducing civilian casualties. I’m under no illusion we’re going to agree here. Evil is, after all, a subjective definition. However, I find it incredulous to claim anything these tech companies are doing is anywhere near the level of depravity of the other examples in my previous post. Facebook isn’t running slave labor camps in Xinjiang, the CCP is. Google isn’t bombing hospitals in Gaza, the IDF is. --- ## Post 29 by @mangomango — 2025-06-15T06:18:01Z > [@anon64393658](#): > > Facebook isn’t running slave labor camps in Xinjiang, the CCP is. Google isn’t bombing hospitals in Gaza, the IDF is. Yes obviously. I don’t underdstand why you were making this comparison in the first place. However what I was saying is that these companies are behaving really badly, often like thugs, collaborating with whoever they can make money with, even if they are even more evil. > [@anon64393658](#): > > about **users abusing the platform** and not some kind of intentional outcome from the company And in addition, no. did you rid the article about Eritrea for instance ? But this is also valid for all countries : Meta has a responsibility about how it manages its platforms. It censors certain discourses and not others, put moderators for certain countries, not in others, does not recommend certain content, recommend others, etc. These are decisions they do consciously and they must be held accountable for them. In addition, I just said that having this in mind, this is understandable that a lot of people think they are not evil. I would not say they are evil because they also do a few good things and yeah because they don’t run concentration camps or air strikes so we need to be reasonable. However, they have nearly 0 ethic --- ## Post 30 by @ignoramous — 2025-11-13T00:57:26Z > [@dngray](#): > > There’s nothing unethical about defending your homeland from an invader. > **Heh, reminds me of...** > > ![0_W8YTzIL3MBzwCW8O](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/1/1334560888a353d6258328dbb37173ad48058d82.webp) > > ([_source_](https://medium.com/@sukosuko1/our-blessed-homeland-0218f41bb51a)) --- ## Post 31 by @dngray — 2025-11-13T19:58:26Z That assumes one side is completely symmetrical to the other. --- ## Post 32 by @KevPham — 2025-11-13T20:00:26Z I hope we don’t live in Airstrip One and are fighting a war with Eurasia and Eastasia! --- ## Post 33 by @ignoramous — 2025-11-14T15:24:16Z > **assumes one side is completely symmetrical to the other** > > > [@dngray](#): > > > > assumes one side is completely symmetrical to the other > > The cartoon is mostly a manifestation of this: > > > In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or “Orient”) by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle East, was one of the many specialties of 19th-century academic art, and Western literature was influenced by a similar interest in Oriental themes. > > [Orientalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism). --- ## Post 34 by @Libre_Software_Enjoyer — 2025-11-15T17:35:53Z > [@Iluvinatum](#): > > Would you accept a job offer from FAANG (Facebook, _Apple_\*, Amazon, Netflix, Google) considering employees there design/maintain privacy violating tech? > \*_Apple is mostly fine_ Why is Apple more fine then for example Google? At least Google massively contributes to FOSS software and you can flash a privacy friendly OS on their phones --- ## Post 35 by @fenasiabi — 2025-11-15T19:29:00Z You are asking a rather personal and deep question. There are many ethical factors and topics to cover that. But if you are really interested, I for example wouldnt work at Facebook, Amazon or Google. Mainly because of their privacy ethics, but also because of how they treat their own workers, enviroment or who they financially or politically support. --- ## Post 36 by @pg.user — 2025-11-15T21:08:09Z It depends on your personal definition of working ethics. Besides that it is extremely beneficial to have access to the inside data and observe processes run by a big tech company. A person with that knowledge can be as helpful as it gets (within the grey zone of your future NDA, since there is always a gap in the wall) for a privacy respecting community such as PG. You’ll have to compromise, of course. As long as you don’t step on your own neck, you can make it work.