If you work with a database and are asked to alter the table structure to comply in advance for citizenship or gender categorizations it's really important to NOT do it.

myrmepropagandist

Depending on your job you probably have in the past made compromises. Maybe to keep your job. Maybe to survive. This is a bright line. If you are asked to be the one to update the table don't let it be your fingers typing those changes.

If you can't just say "No I won't do that." Stall, run away, feign incompetence. Just don't let it happen.

I suspect this might be where the rubber hits the road first for us around here.

Nothing has changed. You do not have to do it. It is not even ordained.

myrmepropagandist

Do not help them to build any more of this machine.

myrmepropagandist

I know someone who rebuffed such a request. Boss was apologetic "it's what the higher ups want, oh *I* think it's a lot of nonsense, but I don't want us to be out of step ... blah blah"

It was proposed to them in sheepish way. They said it would be a lot of work, not add anything of value, and most important they would not do it. It didn't come up again.

Fascism can be the work of zealots, but there are also many sheepish middle management helping hands who "don't even believe in this really"

myrmepropagandist

With the sheepish ones just letting them know you won't do it. That it crosses the bright line can make them back off some of the time.

This can be very scary and if you are thinking "but I could be fired" I understand that. Ask for help. Talk about it outside of work or with people you trust. Don't go looking for an excuse to comply and not feel bad about it. If you do you should feel bad.

Find a way to NOT do it instead.

myrmepropagandist

I'm honestly just psyching myself up for if I need to do this kind of thing again. I might.

It's the whole "we're just doing it to go along with what's happening now" ethos that I think might hold the most little victories for us.

So many terrible things happen because of people just going along with a bunch of little bad things that come together into a much more ugly and unstoppable bad thing.

Paul Cantrell

@futurebird
I would also suggest, if the refusal didn’t work, breaking the code so that wrong / random values get stored. Data corruption as sabotage.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@futurebird this!

Also, if you are being forced to do this, ask for this request/order *on paper* (or at least in writing).

I have been asked, at the eve of my IT career, to do a slightly unethical thing. I refused, but was told I have to do this anyway. I said: fine, but I would like this on paper, including the acknowledgement of my concerns.

It was never spoken of again, and never implemented. I kept my job, never had any grief from the higher ups about it either.

Paper trail is power.

Markus Redeker

@futurebird René Carmille (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Carmille) was a French statistician during the German occupation in WW2. When ordered to prepare a list of Jewish people for deportation, he and the people of the department he headed worked as slowly and obstructively as possible, so that the report was delayed by at least two years.

Carmille was finally caught, also because of other Résistance activities, and died in a concentration camp. May he be well remembered.

(“However, the police did not need Carmille's files. They organized raids and deportations from their own manual files.” — Yes, but we never know which effect our actions will have. If they are good, we should do them anyway.)

datarama

@mrdk @futurebird When I was a teacher and taught cybersecurity courses, I always started with a little history lesson. And I *always* mentioned Carmille as an early example of what modern people would consider a "hacker"; for example he'd deliberately break the part of the system that registered religion. I also used him as basis for ethics discussion: By a pure IT systems standard he'd be considered a "black hat" - he worked without permission and "maliciously" towards the system he hacked, but he was unambiguously the "good guy" nonetheless.

INIT_6

@futurebird

I mean, if a Walgreens worker can refuse life-saving medication over their moral beliefs, I think anyone in tech should have the same right.