also theyre subject to the same anonymity many other internet users have and so dont feel any consequences for their actions.

Because it generally pays well. I'd wax philosophically, but you can come to your own conclusions from that little nugget.

Because they do not believe it is bad?

Because they believe that it's going to be build anyone by someone else?

Because they are not entirely aware of what they are building?

Many tech execs operate under the thesis that china & the democratic party are existential threats that warrant a surveillance/military/police ramp up. Meanwhile, many tech employees are credulous and frequently adopt self-serving geopolitical narratives. The current macro trends don't help (huge defense budgets, bad labor market power, China is in fact more powerful)

Edit:forgot the most obvious... money

Evil pays more.

A common theme in a lot of movies, books, et..

Because the highest values of our society are non-values.

The tribe won’t eat their own… probably.

surprised nobody responded with the most straightforward, occams razor explanation

they think what they're doing is actually good for society

not everyone is in the hackerspace libertarian / socialist sphere

i used to work for a place that used persona despite it adding extra friction to signups (literally resulting in less paying customers to the dismay of PMs) because it was worth it to combat fraud. theres a tradeoff in everything

"Oh boy! I've always wanted to work at [microsoft, apple, google, etc.]!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_apples

Immoral boot-licking human engineers are indistinguishable from LLMs.