At this point, I think all of the big tech companies have had some accusations of them acting unethically, but usually, the accusations are around them acting anticompetitively or issues around privacy.

Meta (and social media more broadly) are the only case where we have (in my opinion) substantiated allegations of a company being aware of a large, negative impact on society (mental wellness, of teens no less), and still prioritizing growth and profit. The mix is usually: grow at all costs mindset, being "data-driven", optimizing for engagement/addiction, and monetizing via ads. The center of gravity of this has all been Meta (and social media), but that thinking has permeated lots of other tech as well.

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stanleykm 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We have evidence for this in other companies too. Oil & Gas and Tobacco companies are top of mind.

	▲	rocqua an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It's a well worn playbook by now. But Meta seems to be the only one where we now have proof of internal research being scuttled for showing the inconvenient truth.

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jordanb 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's on the same scale of chemical companies covering up cancerous forever chemicals.

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lazide 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Cigarette companies hiding known addictive effects?

	▲	rkomorn 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And more recently, pretending vapes are a solution to cigarettes.

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chroma205 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Meta are the only case where we have substantiated allegations of a company being aware of a large, negative impact on society

Robinhood has entered the chat

Why would one specific industry be better? The toxic people will migrate to that industry and profit at the expense of society. It’s market efficiency at work.

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Ozzie_osman 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I do think an industry is often shaped by the early leaders or group of people around them. Those people shape the dominant company in that space, and then go off to spread that culture in other companies that they start or join. And, competitors are often looking to the dominant company and trying to emulate that company.

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throawayonthe 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

not sure how much sense that makes when the overarching culture is profit seeking

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chroma205 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I do think an industry is often shaped by the early leaders or group of people around them

Yes, but did any industry live long enough to not become the villain?

Early OpenAI set the tone of safe, open-source AI.

The next few competitors also followed OpenAI’s lead.

And yet, here we are.

	▲	justinclift 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Early OpenAI set the tone of safe, open-source AI. Um, wat?

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slaterbug 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For the uninformed, what large negative impact has Robinhood had on society?

	▲	bnjms an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Gamifying day trading is just turning the retail market into gambling. Obvious objections will be that this has been possible for a long time now. But never did I know young men to casually play the market day to day like Wall Street Bets do now the way they would follow sports in the past.
	▲	virtue3 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/gambling-addi... tip of the iceberg.