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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the "code"-of-ethics-needs-debugging? dept.

Earlier this week, a post written by programmer and teacher Bill Sourour went viral. It's called "Code I'm Still Ashamed Of."

In it he recounts a horrible story of being a young programmer who landed a job building a website for a pharmaceutical company. The whole post is worth a read, but the upshot is he was duped into helping the company skirt drug advertising laws in order to persuade young women to take a particular drug.

He later found out the drug was known to worsen depression and at least one young woman committed suicide while taking it. He found out his sister was taking the drug and warned her off it.

By sake of comparison, take a look at the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (Adopted by ACM Council 10/16/92.)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @08:51PM (#431477)
    That's often the lame and stupid excuse used to justify doing the bad stuff yourself. But in the real world it often takes a while before that someone else does it.

    It's just like littering. Someone else will eventually throw trash on the street. But if enough people didn't the street will be cleaner than if everyone went "someone else will do it anyway"...
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @09:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @09:05PM (#431479)

    But it can hurt ones career to refuse to do dodgy tasks. You likely cannot use the company as a reference if skip such tasks, making getting your next gig more difficult or with lower pay. Things are even worse if your sector is in a slump. I agree one should start looking for a new gig if things get dodgy, but changing jobs often can also reduce choices and pay.

    You are asking people to take a boot to their wallet out of altruism. That's asking a lot.

    I've worked for slimy companies, and had to face such difficult choices. I also had a family and mortgage such that these decisions affects them also. It's a difficult situation to be in.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @12:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @12:03AM (#431577)

      You are asking people to take a boot to their wallet out of altruism. That's asking a lot.

      Sometimes the only ethical thing to do is "a lot". For instance, no one should work for the TSA; that job involves violating countless people's constitutional rights every single day, so it is unethical. 'Just following orders' is no excuse for doing something unethical, even if you feel you need the money. The only question is whether or not the job is actually unethical. But if you've already accepted that the job is unethical and do it anyway, you should be held accountable (morally, at least).

      • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Monday November 28 2016, @09:14PM

        by art guerrilla (3082) on Monday November 28 2016, @09:14PM (#434227)

        i can sympathize with what you say, but -as in this TSA example- there is a difference between working for the state as a TSA droid, grabbing gonads legally, stealing shit opportunistically, and generally taking the bullshit sekurity theatre way too seriously, and ACTUALLY murdering people for Empire, as membrrs of the military-industrial komplex are doing...
        the harsh reality is, MOST of those in either the TSA or military are there because they effectively have no other choice... there are NO jobs otherwise for them, except to do the dirty work of empire...
        ...or they can be super-moral, refuse a shit job of Empire, and watch their kids starve to death, and yet their super ethical behavior will keep them warm and fuzzy ! !

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @09:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @09:20AM (#431762)

      Those people following orders in Nazi Germany had more at stake than just their wallets. Same for the soldiers doing all that bad stuff for the the North Korean regime.

      Their situation is even more difficult than yours. In the NK case their families would probably be imprisoned for life if not killed: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/654167/North-Korea-prison-camps-American-Otto-Warmbier [express.co.uk]

      It's as I've long believed. Only a minority are good. And a larger minority are bad. The rest will just do what the rest are doing (e.g. follow orders). FWIW I doubt I fall in the good group :).