Comment by mmooss
9 hours ago
The OP contradicts your theory:
"In Fort’s case, Google did not comply with the summons for any of the accounts. The company responded to the DHS by saying it had not offered evidence of how it was related to a customs investigation."
> companies such as Google make business decisions, not moral decisions
The world is more complicated than that; they make both kinds of decisions and many decisions aren't clearly in one basket or the other. Humans don't biologically change to amoral creatures when they pull into the office parking lot (despite theories to the contrary or attempts to encourage it), nor are they absolved of human responsibility when doing things for which they are paid.
> human responsibility
Not sure what this means. I think you meant to write "fiduciary duty": the company's board have an affirmative legal obligation to act in the interest of stockholders, regardless of moral impact.
No , you're spreading misinformation [0]. The company's board does not have a legal obligation to "act in the interest of stockholders regardless of moral impact" in any meaningful manner. Anything, including "positive moral impact", can be spun as being in the interest of shareholders. What you're implying is a legal duty towards short-term profit maximization. Absolutely nothing of the sort exists.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48975048
I don't know why people keep repeating this. The board of a company must act in the interests of shareholders but the interests of shareholders go beyond just "make as much money as possible."
It's entirely possible to still satisfy those requirements by building a sustainable and moral company. The shareholders get to vote, if they don't like it they'll make that clear.
> The board of a company must act in the interests of shareholders
I think you don't understand what this phrase means. In a publicly-traded company, "the interest of the shareholders" does not mean "whatever the shareholders want"; it means "whatever is best for the company." That means money.
It may be possible to be both profitable and moral; but if it isn't, the fiduciary duty obligates corporate officers to choose the profitable path rather than the moral one.
The easy way of looking at this is that there beyond complying with the law, there is no general obligation for companies to behave morally, but there is a general obligation to behave profitably. So it's not hard to see why they make they choices they do.
> It's entirely possible to still satisfy those requirements by building a sustainable and moral company.
It is, but it's a lot easier to be not sustainable and not moral.
2 replies →
> Not sure what this means
That's quite a statement.
> I think you meant to write "fiduciary duty"
No, our responsibilities go far beyond fiduciary duties. You can see what Google did in this case, for example, or Apple's extraordinary investment in engineering for privacy a "human right", per Apple - far more than its users grasp or could understand.
> the company's board have an affirmative legal obligation to act in the interest of stockholders, regardless of moral impact.
That's a theory of the ~1980s that people who suffer from its consequences still seem to latch onto - perhaps it's simplicity is appealing, maybe its algorithmic decision-making appeals to the IT world - but not true.
Even now, when such things are at historical extremes, corporations take into account other issues. Not long ago, DEI and ESG were widely accepted and practiced.
The system in which those companies exist is explicitly designed though to strip away any humanity or moral qualms as much as possible. Dividing it on the shoulders of many people, making nobody in particular feel responsible for the damages themselves. Gaslighting employees into thinking they are doing the "lesser evil" or something. Just following commans of their boss.
> The system in which those companies exist is explicitly designed though to strip away any humanity or moral qualms as much as possible.
Citation needed.