I worked for a less-than stellar online publication in Australia. Think low-budget Daily Mail. I didnt care, I still got paid and got to switch off and do my own thing when I wanted to. I'm not my job.
Examine the present embroglio over Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, weaponised viral clickbait, fake news, radicalisation, etc., etc.
Media are the information sourcing and feedback loop for societies. The print media went through its crisis of awareness in the early 20th century. See especially Lippmann's Public Policy.
I heard once that if there is something - whether of a monetary value or not - that allows you to "sidestep your morals", then you didn't have any morals in the first place.
Then I'd argue that I don't have any morals in the first place.
There are differing levels of how strongly I feel about certain moral values I hold. For example, working for a company that dealt in wholesale killing of others is obviously worse than working for an advertising network. Would I work for doubleclick for $1M a year? Hell yeah. Would I spy on citizens of my country for the same amount? No.
That is what I suspect but still.. Respect in the eye of peers is a human need. If I met a developper and learned he works for FB, it would be visible on my face that I feel somewhat put-off.
'Peer' is very flexible. This could be a comparison to people the same age in other careers.
Also, keep in mind that Facebook engineers are constantly surrounded by other Facebook engineers so their SE peers probably do approve. They collectively don't think Facebook is a problem so they implicitly approve of each other.
