I will never understand the framing of visa-sponsored workers at Facebook as indentured servants. These are incredibly highly-paid jobs, easily in the top 5% of earners in the United States even for fairly junior roles. Even in California, these folks are in the top quintile of earners. These are people who could earn a third as much in India, Canada, or the Netherlands, and still be living exceptionally well. They have exercised more agency than the vast majority of Americans or even Bay Area residents.
That said, expecting individual engineers to understand the greater context of building an online addiction machine is probably too much. The product managers and data scientists surface concerns and executives decide. And executives should be held criminally responsible in the event of gross negligence.
All of the accolades you bestowed upon visa-sponsored workers could be true. But the framing of indentured servitude comes from the visa sponsorship itself. These workers do not feel they have the right to free expression or to speak out against unethical business practices (not just data privacy but even 9/9/6 work schedules), for fear of losing their sponsorship. That’s why “indentured” is used: they’re contracted to a specific employer. They don’t have freedom of movement in the labor market. This also creates labor price arbitrage, which employers use to pay visa workers less than permanent residents and citizens. This labor arbitrage inevitably lowers the wages of non-sponsored workers.
It's disgusting and a downplay of atrocity of slavery. It's why we should stop allowing tech companies to import so many foreign workers if this is what they are okay with: openly destroying our society for money.
Expect the GOP to move in this direction as the democratic party starts going after big tech as well.