Many critical activities of technology companies are governed by self-regulation, to an extent unbeknownst to other industries. Unlike products such as cars or cigarettes, the characteristics of digital platforms (for example, social media, or AI applications) are mostly left to the preferences of technology professionals and managers. Despite their consequences for society at large, there is little systematic analysis available on the preferences of technology professionals to let unethical or problematic software code be developed. In this research note, I mainly investigate the novel hypothesis that contexts with political accountability strengthen the normative concerns of technology professionals for the societal consequences of their activities. I furthermore test whether technology professionals take more responsibility for their products in functioning democracies than in other, less accountable settings, despite the psychological potential for responsibility delegation to government bodies. Using a comprehensive survey of digital technology professionals across 48 countries (N=30’000), I examine two mechanism. 1) individual attitudes towards government regulation of online platforms, social norms, and the political and regulatory system these developers operate in, 2) topic salience, i.e. whether critical public opinion on AI topics and features affect the attitudes of technology professionals towards placing voluntary scrutiny on AI products in democracies vs non-democracies absent of regulatory sanctions. The study shows several important associations which illuminate the importance of topic salience, and it highlights how the political system, especially its ability to create trustworthy and democratic governance, matter for ethical conduct in technology professionals, and the subsequent deployment of critical digital products.