Oh I’m perfectly aware this is most likely a chain of pressure and responsibility dodging:
- the top demands more users more active,
- the bottom develops some solutions they demo while refusing any responsability for its impact.
- Some middle pressed to meet demand while having only one solution available at the time eventually decide to deploy it, maybe “temporarily”.
greybeard@feddit.online 4 days ago
Many years ago a grocery store chain, which was rapidly becoming national, had its progress halted by a meat bleaching scandal. They set impossible goals for their meat department, knowing there was zero way to sell the meat at the volume they demanded, so the local stores were left to do illegal things to meet the impossible quotas. The higher ups claimed plausible deniability, while knowing there was but one answer.
What’s even crazier, is the grocery store (Food Lion) sued the journalists who went undercover to expose it, and won. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-23-mn-21242-story.html
Fortunately, the damage to their reputation did far greater damage than they won in the lawsuit, but as far as I could find, no legal actions were taken against Food Lion.