Tech Industry Ethics: A Personal Account of Silencing a Programmer Over Authoritarianism Concerns
By
anonymous_ibex
A five-star bake. Worth schmearing, sharing, saving.
Summary
A personal reflection on ethical regrets in the tech industry, where the author recounts participating in a 2015 campaign to silence a young programmer who raised concerns about authoritarianism in technology. The author describes how they collaborated with a startup incubator to ban the programmer from platforms, attempt to get him fired, and attack him with sockpuppet accounts on Reddit, all because his views were seen as a threat to financial interests. The author now acknowledges the programmer was harmless and expresses remorse for these unethical actions.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledEthics matter. I don't believe there's any life after this one, but I find myself ruminating on what I've done.
In 2015, I had a lot of interaction with a startup incubator you know well, and ended up sitting in the discussions and planning around banning and erasing a young programmer we considered a threat to our financial interests, due to his concerns about authoritarianism in technology.
In retrospect, he was harmless, but an example had to be made.
The decision was made to ban him here, try to get him fired though I don't know if we succeeded, and attack him with sockpuppets on Reddit, and it seems to have worked because you don't hear his name much.
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