HYIP-Man: Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone on ethical grounds?
Friday, December 07, 2018
Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone on ethical grounds?
Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone on ethical grounds?
Our company sells software as a service that helps people organize events. We have been growing quickly over the past couple of years and have recently run into an ethical question: should we (and can we legally) decline to sell our software to organizations that we think are morally wrong? For example, there are several people on our team that are extremely pro-choice. We had a pro-life group sign up recently and these employees are threatening to quit if we accept their money. Is it even legal to refuse their business (it could be considered religious discrimination). I think we're all in agreement that if the KKK signed up and wanted to use our software to organize clan rallies we would not be willing to foster hate speech. The question has also been raised of if we deny this client where we would draw the line in the future. If a certain politician wanted to use it to organize rallies in the next election would that be Ok even if we vehemently opposed their political beliefs? How have other software companies dealt with this in the past?
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Written at 11:44 PM by Frank.
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