Harmful Software Collaborators
Looking for bugs in code that has harmful intentions is like trying to make a shit sandwich taste good. It's futile. It's the wrong focus.
I get it, it's easy to be a harmful software collaborator. Maybe you are still at a point in your career where you have no options. You need the money. You are a junior and don't know better. But for a lot of us tech workers, this simply isn't true. A lot of us are seniors and we have a comfortable life. If you have a choice, and you choose to be a collaborator, that's on you.
It can be comfy to focus on smaller scale stuff (the code), but as testers, we should look at the bigger picture. The code is only a means to an end. Do you know what that end looks like? What is the company you work for trying to achieve? Sucking out every bit of user data it possibly can? Tracking users to hell and back? Selling that user data? Is it sucking up to Trump and his ilk? Supporting an increasingly fascist regime?
Working hard to make software better that has an evil goal is not a good look. Are you aware that you're doing it? If your answer is yes, the ball is now in your court. I'm not saying you should quit outright, but it's time to consider your next actions.
And as I have said before, I have also done this. I have worked on software that was not in the interest of the end user.
Maaike Brinkhof
The Overton window is shifting. It's more and more accepted to have extensive tracking. Not tracking (or having very little of it) is framed like it's a dumb choice. And more recently, the biggest tech companies of the world have fully aligned themselves with the current US government, which I'm sorry to say, is an absolutely horrible government. Going back to the Middle Ages was not on my bingo card for this year, but here we are. I also have World War 3 on my bingo card, btw.
I know this post will be completely futile in convincing the people that need to be convinced the most, but please: Question things. Look at the bigger picture. Software can be a tool to do good, but it's also incredibly easy to inflict harm on people via software.
2025 feels like a year when we all have to make a choice. On which side of history do you want to be? Do you think it's okay to make the world a worse place by working on software that has evil intentions, to put it dramatically? Or do you put a line in the sand? Do you choose to work at places that truly try to improve people's lives via software? Do you choose to fight back against big tech's evil intentions? Do you choose to say "no" when you're being asked to do something that goes against your values?
Asking yourself those questions is in my view also part of your job. Being a tester means to question everything and to think deeply about the uncomfortable realisations you might get from doing that.
The actions of one person will not sway the pendulum, but to feel like you are just a tiny cog in the machine is another way of giving up. Your actions DO matter.
We all have choices to make. There's always a choice.
Comments ()