I dunno, bro, software engineers have repeatedly shown total lack of wider judgment in these contexts over the years. Not to say there is, in fact, some kind of “epic conspiracy,” just that SWEs appear not to take much time to consider just what it is their code ends up being used for. Incidentally, that would be one way to start to get out of the mess we’ve found ourselves in: start holding SWEs accountable for their work. You work on privacy-destroying projects that society pushes back against, it’s fair game to put you under the microscope. Perhaps not legally, but we as a society shouldn’t hold back from directed criticism and social accountability for the individual engineers who enable this kind of shit. That will not be a popular take here. Perhaps it will be some solace to know I advocated the same kind of accountability for lawyers who enabled torture and other governmental malfeasance in the GWoT years. I was also looked at askance by other lawyers for daring to suggest such a thing. In that way, SWEs remind me of lawyers in how they view their own work. “What, I’m not personally responsible for what my client chooses to use my services for.”
I was hanging out around startup incubators, and, by extension, many wantrepreneurs. When asked about business model, the knee jerk reaction was usually “we’re going to sell data!” regardless of product. I was appalled by how hard it is to keep founders from abusing the data when I worked at startups. GDPR and the likes are seen as an annoyance and they make every effort to find a loophole.
Yeah, you are, actually.