this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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I remember when I worked in tech years ago, about the time Facebook was formed, it was common to avoid things like this because they only become lose/lose for the company. Once you engage in a program to help people's mental health or really anything vague and not part of your core business, you're tying an anchor to yourself.
People start writing articles about your failings and petitioning changes, etc. Everyone becomes a critic of your methods, and then it becomes possible for every blogger to come up with a story of someone experiencing a mental health crisis using your product to blame you for whatever happens to them. Eventually, this thing you were convinced to implement out of a sense of communal good becomes the pitard you're hoisted upon.
Better to just say "Not my business" and let people tut about your unwillingness to help for a news cycle than spend hundreds of thousands just to get bad press everytime the program fails or someone feels like writing a different critique for how they would manage the program.