9 ms·

Zuckerberg Asks Employees to Stop Crossing Out “Black Lives Matter” at FB HQ

92 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

georgespencer 11y ago
/r/nottheonion
minimaxir 11y ago
Primary source is Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerberg-asks-racist-facebook-employees-to-stop-1761272768 http://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerberg-asks-racist-facebook-empl...), but Gizmodo submission is heavily linkbait.
danso 11y ago
Great response from Zuckerberg. This is something that easily could have been dealt with in a much more ham-handed way or through middle management...to have the CEO take a stand is very helpful. I think he states the position well. "Black Lives Matter" is meant to be a concise motto that is founded on the belief that society does not equally value its African-American citizens. It does not preclude lives of ethnic groups having value. Perhaps the "All Lives Matter" group would argue that their stance is equally amicable...sure, it's just as well-intentioned. But what BLM and, apparently Zuckerberg believe is that this response insinuates that the BLM advocates are unfounded in their beliefs that blacks aren't equally valued by society.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  Usually people in the "All Lives Matter" group seem upset at the inherent divisiveness of the "Black Lives Matter" slogan. I've never had a discussion with anyone in either camp that believes the system is fair towards black people. The actual divisiveness seems to happen when discussing if the system is also unfair to non-black people, like poor whites, who some argue are more likely to be shot by police than black people, which the "Black Lives Matter" doesn't seem to concern itself with.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Do you know of a useful slogan that concerns itself with all problems at once? The theory behind the objection seems to be that black people must help white people fix problems that white people experience before we can even talk about the problems that black people experience. That seems crazy to me. Even if the US hadn't uniquely maltreated black people for centuries, black people are just 12% of the population. Why shouldn't they be able to call attention to the problems they experience without white people saying, "But what about meeeeeeee?!?" Yes, there are a lot of things wrong that we should fix. But when somebody tries to discuss problem A and somebody else immediately leaps in to say, "Why don't you care about B?" I often suspect that the point is not to fix problem B, it's to stop the discussion of problem A.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      A useful slogan that concerns itself with all problems at once? Off the top of my head "Police enforcement in the US is out of control?" And I think we immediately stopped seeing eye to eye right here "The theory behind the objection seems to be that black people must help white people fix problems that white people experience before we can even talk about the problems that black people experience. That seems crazy to me." No white person is saying "help me fix my problems first". They're saying, this is a single problem we all face and we should all work to fix it. They might even go further and say race is a bullshit social construct used to oppress and separate people and that their is no "us" and "them" only us.
      - danso 11y ago
        There are a lot of cop unions, police officials, and the politicians whom they support, who would highly highly disagree with you.
      - wpietri 11y ago
        You see your problem as "police enforcement in the US is out of control". Other people see different problems. You saying, "We should all work to fix my problem because I am sure your problem is the same as mine" is effectively saying, "help me fix my problem before I will listen to you about your problem". Because your notion that you understand the problems of black people better than they themselves do is definitely a sign that you aren't listening. And sure, the American notion of race is a bullshit social construct, but it is one that white people created, put into law, and enforced. And of course used as a tool to gain power. So if white people would like race not to be an issue anymore, they should get other white people to stop making it a thing. Telling black people to stop noticing the racial bias directed against them by white people will not actually end the bias, it just hides the evidence. [1] e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
phonyphonecall 11y ago
"There are specific issues affecting the black community in the United States, coming from a history of oppression and racism..." For anyone looking to read more on this subject, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness", was a helpful resource for me. (http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/ http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindn...)
jobu 11y ago
And now it got crossed off the front page of Hacker News... sad. @Dang - was this flagged by users? Seems crazy that it had 30 points in 20 minutes and now it's gone. Zuckerberg's statement on this seemed really well written. The "Black Lives Matter" vs. "All Lives Matter" has been discussed endlessly, but he had another great point about crossing out the Black Lives Matter being essentially the same as silencing free speech.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  The submission was flagkilled. I vouched for it since despite what people may think about BLM, Zuckerberg's response is important and relevant.
  - Larrikin 11y ago
    I really would like to know the rationale behind the people trying to flagkill it
    - tizzdogg 11y ago
      I think its probably the exact same rationale as crossing out "Black Lives Matter". Though if I'm being more charitable, most likely some people see this as a political article which shouldnt be on HN (whether you feel that way is probably correlated to your opinion of Black Lives Matter).
      - wpietri 11y ago
        That is indeed quite charitable, given that the story is about Facebook, startup culture, and the direct actions of one of the most prominent people in tech. If somebody only objects to political articles when it's politics they don't like, I'd be curious as to how they resolve claiming to be against politics while energetically politicizing something.
    - tzs 11y ago
      I was tempted to flag it, since it is just taking Gizmodo's article and adding a bit of Techcrunch idiocy to it, like the statement that Facebook is "notoriously white". Facebook is slightly less white than the US population. The topic of the article is fine for HN, in my opinion, despite being political, but that doesn't mean we should settle for a crappy article. Hence, the temptation to flag this one and let a better submission get the focus.
dcgudeman 11y ago
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is asking his employees to stop being ignorant and racist (my words, not his) It's pretty hard to take an article seriously when the author starts it like that. I wish the people reporting on these issues would leave the hyperbole out.
- 77pt77 11y ago
  At least it's clearly identified as paraphrasing.
- patricklynch 11y ago
  But if you clicked through to that point and were served ads, they kind of already won. At least short term.
  - adiabatty 11y ago
    I'm happy I have a habit of clicking through to the HN comments before reading the article, then.
Kinnard 11y ago
I have to wonder why this dropped off the front page. I feel like stories like this get "crossed out" of HN. Anyone from HN wanna chime in?
- Kinnard 11y ago
  There's a post with 10 votes that's 53 minutes old at #11. This one is at 32 votes 35 minutes old.
  - Kinnard 11y ago
    Ok, it's back on the front page now. Could HN have less opaque flagging?
    - Kinnard 11y ago
      And now it's gone.
  - dang 11y ago
    HN doesn't compute story rank from points and timestamp alone.
    - Kinnard 11y ago
      Is the algorithm public?
      - dang 11y ago
        No. A version of HN's source code is included with the public release of Arc, but HN's algorithm has many extensions that aren't public. It has to be that way, because it would be too easy to game the system otherwise.
        Kinnard 11y ago
        dang, that violate's Kerckhoffs's principle: "A system should be secure even if everything about the system is public knowledge." Security through obscurity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle
JPKab 11y ago
Spent my high school years in a poor, rural county in southeastern Virginia that was mostly black. All of these folks were descended from slaves, and there was never a doubt in my mind that white oppression in the past had created numerous, deep disadvantages for my friends and classmates who had the misfortune of being part of families who had suffered from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. That being said, I've always found that black ethnocentrism has a similar effect to white ethnocentrism: it causes further division and worsens the problem it claims to try to solve. The statement "Black Lives Matter" offends me, because it makes the assumption that because I'm not black, I don't think black lives matter, and therefore have to be told that they do. Most of my friends growing up were black. My best friend was closer to me than my brothers, was best man at my wedding, and I at his. It also over-simplifies a complex problem, that has at its root the fact that the hostile relationship between blacks and police is not one-directional. It was started by white police with decades of oppression, but the current situation is a cycle perpetuated by the thought that police are the enemy. If you have been told your whole life that police are the enemy, then you are going to behave differently when they approach you than someone else. If the police are in a community where everyone has been taught this, they will behave in a way that ends up supporting this belief, and the seeds of conflict are sown. Ethnocentrism has never, ever helped unify people. My personal experience growing up and socializing in a mostly black social environment left me with the impression that there is a minority of black Americans who, similar to a minority of white Americans, are ethnocentric and racist towards those who don't share their race. The difference is that the black variety of ethnocentric activists are openly tolerated and encouraged by white people who have never in their life spent ten minutes under the roof of a black person's home, let alone attended black churches or been involved in family events such as Thanksgiving dinners, weddings, funerals, etc. Racism is a part of the human condition, as is its direct precursor, ethnocentrism. Pretending that it's different depending on the person's complexion tells me that these white folks view black Americans as different than themselves, almost less human. I hold all humans, no matter how difficult their background, to a higher standard.
- Kinnard 11y ago
  I'm not sure it's ethno-centrist so much as ethno-corrective
zootam 11y ago
what he should do is ask employees to stop writing any such things at FB hq in the first place. Individual Political messages like that don't belong in the workplace.
- jkyle 11y ago
  It's sort of the Raison d'être of the wall in the first place...
- aws_ls 11y ago
  I totally agree with you. Political opinions are formed over a long time, and are a function of our experiences, prejudices, reading, ignorance etc...all very hard to change. So its best to not have political discussions in a work place setting. These kind of provisions invariably just end up causing a lot of heart burn, and nothing more. PS: I personally liked Zuckerberg's gesture as I know why it is important to have specific/loaded statements which hint at history, than motherhood/generic statements, which mean nothing, and often are the refuge of bigots. But at the same time, I have seen nobody (or very few) change their positions in arguments, and are just the cause of heart burns. God, how many people I unfriended on FB (when I was using it) just cause they hurt me real bad (in some cases, I regretted later on...that's why Facebook is a net negative IMHO, but I digress, Sorry).
no_wave 11y ago
The article disapprovingly states that 55% of Facebook is white as if that's a disproportionate amount, even though 63% of the USA population identifies as non-hispanic white. What's up with that
throw7 11y ago
I'm not black or white. I'm not impressed with "black lives matter" or zuckerberg or "all lives matter" or whatever. The rule should be don't cross out what others have written... write your own thing. jeez. freakin' high school.
icomefromreddit 11y ago
> The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. CHOMSKY. I agree people shouldn't cross out black lives matter. However, if you're going to let them write "black lives matter," you should also allow people to write "all lives matter." If our society has reached a point of guilt, where we can no longer acknowledge that all lives matter, and doing so is "racist," that means blacks (and allies) will have become the new de facto racist group.
- emjoes1 11y ago
  "If our society has reached a point of guilt, where we can no longer acknowledge that all lives matter, and doing so is 'racist,' that means blacks (and allies) will have become the new de facto racist group." This took a minute to sink in. Everyone should contemplate this statement for a minute. For me the phrase All Lives Matter seems very guiltless and brings feelings of unity, while Black Lives Matter brings feelings of division. Just seems like it is doing nothing to unite people on the cause... like a bad marketing campaign trying to guilt people into joining a cause.
hsod 11y ago
The Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter debate is one where two friendly colleagues can easily realize they hate each other. I'm surprised FB wants any part of it.
wkimeria 11y ago
1 point by wkimeria 6 hours ago Kudos to him. The tendency of people to refuse to understand what "Black Lives Matter" means is infuriating. I love Arthur Chu's Tweet some time ago on this https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/538015166634680320?lang=en https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/538015166634680320?... 'Do people who change #BlackLivesMatter to #AllLivesMatter run thru a cancer fundraiser going "THERE ARE OTHER DISEASES TOO"'
awinter-py 11y ago
No surprise that an organization engaging in large-scale behavioral engineering ('click here') has a warped view of free speech. I don't know how to reconcile 'we've never had rules about what people can write' with 'my clear communication that this is unacceptable' (or even with taking down photos of breastfeeding women). His interpretation is that BLM doesn't mean all lives don't matter, therefore the crossouts are inappropriate. (1) I'm not sure social justice movements want to be interpreted by nasdaq CEOs. And (2) crossing out isn't censorship, it's debate. Given that this whole company is about people writing on each other's walls, you'd want them to have a more nuanced attitude towards graffiti.

92 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

/r/nottheonion

Primary source is Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerberg-asks-racist-facebook-employees-to-stop-1761272768 http://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerberg-asks-racist-facebook-empl...), but Gizmodo submission is heavily linkbait.

danso 11y ago

Great response from Zuckerberg. This is something that easily could have been dealt with in a much more ham-handed way or through middle management...to have the CEO take a stand is very helpful. I think he states the position well. "Black Lives Matter" is meant to be a concise motto that is founded on the belief that society does not equally value its African-American citizens. It does not preclude lives of ethnic groups having value. Perhaps the "All Lives Matter" group would argue that their stance is equally amicable...sure, it's just as well-intentioned. But what BLM and, apparently Zuckerberg believe is that this response insinuates that the BLM advocates are unfounded in their beliefs that blacks aren't equally valued by society.

merpnderp 11y ago
Usually people in the "All Lives Matter" group seem upset at the inherent divisiveness of the "Black Lives Matter" slogan. I've never had a discussion with anyone in either camp that believes the system is fair towards black people. The actual divisiveness seems to happen when discussing if the system is also unfair to non-black people, like poor whites, who some argue are more likely to be shot by police than black people, which the "Black Lives Matter" doesn't seem to concern itself with.
- wpietri 11y ago
  Do you know of a useful slogan that concerns itself with all problems at once? The theory behind the objection seems to be that black people must help white people fix problems that white people experience before we can even talk about the problems that black people experience. That seems crazy to me. Even if the US hadn't uniquely maltreated black people for centuries, black people are just 12% of the population. Why shouldn't they be able to call attention to the problems they experience without white people saying, "But what about meeeeeeee?!?" Yes, there are a lot of things wrong that we should fix. But when somebody tries to discuss problem A and somebody else immediately leaps in to say, "Why don't you care about B?" I often suspect that the point is not to fix problem B, it's to stop the discussion of problem A.
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    A useful slogan that concerns itself with all problems at once? Off the top of my head "Police enforcement in the US is out of control?" And I think we immediately stopped seeing eye to eye right here "The theory behind the objection seems to be that black people must help white people fix problems that white people experience before we can even talk about the problems that black people experience. That seems crazy to me." No white person is saying "help me fix my problems first". They're saying, this is a single problem we all face and we should all work to fix it. They might even go further and say race is a bullshit social construct used to oppress and separate people and that their is no "us" and "them" only us.
    - danso 11y ago
      There are a lot of cop unions, police officials, and the politicians whom they support, who would highly highly disagree with you.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      You see your problem as "police enforcement in the US is out of control". Other people see different problems. You saying, "We should all work to fix my problem because I am sure your problem is the same as mine" is effectively saying, "help me fix my problem before I will listen to you about your problem". Because your notion that you understand the problems of black people better than they themselves do is definitely a sign that you aren't listening. And sure, the American notion of race is a bullshit social construct, but it is one that white people created, put into law, and enforced. And of course used as a tool to gain power. So if white people would like race not to be an issue anymore, they should get other white people to stop making it a thing. Telling black people to stop noticing the racial bias directed against them by white people will not actually end the bias, it just hides the evidence. [1] e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

phonyphonecall 11y ago

"There are specific issues affecting the black community in the United States, coming from a history of oppression and racism..." For anyone looking to read more on this subject, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness", was a helpful resource for me. (http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/ http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindn...)

jobu 11y ago

And now it got crossed off the front page of Hacker News... sad. @Dang - was this flagged by users? Seems crazy that it had 30 points in 20 minutes and now it's gone. Zuckerberg's statement on this seemed really well written. The "Black Lives Matter" vs. "All Lives Matter" has been discussed endlessly, but he had another great point about crossing out the Black Lives Matter being essentially the same as silencing free speech.

minimaxir 11y ago
The submission was flagkilled. I vouched for it since despite what people may think about BLM, Zuckerberg's response is important and relevant.
- Larrikin 11y ago
  I really would like to know the rationale behind the people trying to flagkill it
  - tizzdogg 11y ago
    I think its probably the exact same rationale as crossing out "Black Lives Matter". Though if I'm being more charitable, most likely some people see this as a political article which shouldnt be on HN (whether you feel that way is probably correlated to your opinion of Black Lives Matter).
    - wpietri 11y ago
      That is indeed quite charitable, given that the story is about Facebook, startup culture, and the direct actions of one of the most prominent people in tech. If somebody only objects to political articles when it's politics they don't like, I'd be curious as to how they resolve claiming to be against politics while energetically politicizing something.
  - tzs 11y ago
    I was tempted to flag it, since it is just taking Gizmodo's article and adding a bit of Techcrunch idiocy to it, like the statement that Facebook is "notoriously white". Facebook is slightly less white than the US population. The topic of the article is fine for HN, in my opinion, despite being political, but that doesn't mean we should settle for a crappy article. Hence, the temptation to flag this one and let a better submission get the focus.

dcgudeman 11y ago

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is asking his employees to stop being ignorant and racist (my words, not his) It's pretty hard to take an article seriously when the author starts it like that. I wish the people reporting on these issues would leave the hyperbole out.

77pt77 11y ago
At least it's clearly identified as paraphrasing.
patricklynch 11y ago
But if you clicked through to that point and were served ads, they kind of already won. At least short term.
- adiabatty 11y ago
  I'm happy I have a habit of clicking through to the HN comments before reading the article, then.

Kinnard 11y ago

I have to wonder why this dropped off the front page. I feel like stories like this get "crossed out" of HN. Anyone from HN wanna chime in?

Kinnard 11y ago
There's a post with 10 votes that's 53 minutes old at #11. This one is at 32 votes 35 minutes old.
- Kinnard 11y ago
  Ok, it's back on the front page now. Could HN have less opaque flagging?
  - Kinnard 11y ago
    And now it's gone.
- dang 11y ago
  HN doesn't compute story rank from points and timestamp alone.
  - Kinnard 11y ago
    Is the algorithm public?
    - dang 11y ago
      No. A version of HN's source code is included with the public release of Arc, but HN's algorithm has many extensions that aren't public. It has to be that way, because it would be too easy to game the system otherwise.
      - Kinnard 11y ago
        dang, that violate's Kerckhoffs's principle: "A system should be secure even if everything about the system is public knowledge." Security through obscurity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle

JPKab 11y ago

Spent my high school years in a poor, rural county in southeastern Virginia that was mostly black. All of these folks were descended from slaves, and there was never a doubt in my mind that white oppression in the past had created numerous, deep disadvantages for my friends and classmates who had the misfortune of being part of families who had suffered from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. That being said, I've always found that black ethnocentrism has a similar effect to white ethnocentrism: it causes further division and worsens the problem it claims to try to solve. The statement "Black Lives Matter" offends me, because it makes the assumption that because I'm not black, I don't think black lives matter, and therefore have to be told that they do. Most of my friends growing up were black. My best friend was closer to me than my brothers, was best man at my wedding, and I at his. It also over-simplifies a complex problem, that has at its root the fact that the hostile relationship between blacks and police is not one-directional. It was started by white police with decades of oppression, but the current situation is a cycle perpetuated by the thought that police are the enemy. If you have been told your whole life that police are the enemy, then you are going to behave differently when they approach you than someone else. If the police are in a community where everyone has been taught this, they will behave in a way that ends up supporting this belief, and the seeds of conflict are sown. Ethnocentrism has never, ever helped unify people. My personal experience growing up and socializing in a mostly black social environment left me with the impression that there is a minority of black Americans who, similar to a minority of white Americans, are ethnocentric and racist towards those who don't share their race. The difference is that the black variety of ethnocentric activists are openly tolerated and encouraged by white people who have never in their life spent ten minutes under the roof of a black person's home, let alone attended black churches or been involved in family events such as Thanksgiving dinners, weddings, funerals, etc. Racism is a part of the human condition, as is its direct precursor, ethnocentrism. Pretending that it's different depending on the person's complexion tells me that these white folks view black Americans as different than themselves, almost less human. I hold all humans, no matter how difficult their background, to a higher standard.

Kinnard 11y ago
I'm not sure it's ethno-centrist so much as ethno-corrective

zootam 11y ago

what he should do is ask employees to stop writing any such things at FB hq in the first place. Individual Political messages like that don't belong in the workplace.

jkyle 11y ago
It's sort of the Raison d'être of the wall in the first place...
aws_ls 11y ago
I totally agree with you. Political opinions are formed over a long time, and are a function of our experiences, prejudices, reading, ignorance etc...all very hard to change. So its best to not have political discussions in a work place setting. These kind of provisions invariably just end up causing a lot of heart burn, and nothing more. PS: I personally liked Zuckerberg's gesture as I know why it is important to have specific/loaded statements which hint at history, than motherhood/generic statements, which mean nothing, and often are the refuge of bigots. But at the same time, I have seen nobody (or very few) change their positions in arguments, and are just the cause of heart burns. God, how many people I unfriended on FB (when I was using it) just cause they hurt me real bad (in some cases, I regretted later on...that's why Facebook is a net negative IMHO, but I digress, Sorry).

no_wave 11y ago

The article disapprovingly states that 55% of Facebook is white as if that's a disproportionate amount, even though 63% of the USA population identifies as non-hispanic white. What's up with that

throw7 11y ago

I'm not black or white. I'm not impressed with "black lives matter" or zuckerberg or "all lives matter" or whatever. The rule should be don't cross out what others have written... write your own thing. jeez. freakin' high school.

icomefromreddit 11y ago

> The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. CHOMSKY. I agree people shouldn't cross out black lives matter. However, if you're going to let them write "black lives matter," you should also allow people to write "all lives matter." If our society has reached a point of guilt, where we can no longer acknowledge that all lives matter, and doing so is "racist," that means blacks (and allies) will have become the new de facto racist group.

emjoes1 11y ago
"If our society has reached a point of guilt, where we can no longer acknowledge that all lives matter, and doing so is 'racist,' that means blacks (and allies) will have become the new de facto racist group." This took a minute to sink in. Everyone should contemplate this statement for a minute. For me the phrase All Lives Matter seems very guiltless and brings feelings of unity, while Black Lives Matter brings feelings of division. Just seems like it is doing nothing to unite people on the cause... like a bad marketing campaign trying to guilt people into joining a cause.

hsod 11y ago

The Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter debate is one where two friendly colleagues can easily realize they hate each other. I'm surprised FB wants any part of it.

wkimeria 11y ago

1 point by wkimeria 6 hours ago Kudos to him. The tendency of people to refuse to understand what "Black Lives Matter" means is infuriating. I love Arthur Chu's Tweet some time ago on this https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/538015166634680320?lang=en https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/538015166634680320?... 'Do people who change #BlackLivesMatter to #AllLivesMatter run thru a cancer fundraiser going "THERE ARE OTHER DISEASES TOO"'

awinter-py 11y ago

No surprise that an organization engaging in large-scale behavioral engineering ('click here') has a warped view of free speech. I don't know how to reconcile 'we've never had rules about what people can write' with 'my clear communication that this is unacceptable' (or even with taking down photos of breastfeeding women). His interpretation is that BLM doesn't mean all lives don't matter, therefore the crossouts are inappropriate. (1) I'm not sure social justice movements want to be interpreted by nasdaq CEOs. And (2) crossing out isn't censorship, it's debate. Given that this whole company is about people writing on each other's walls, you'd want them to have a more nuanced attitude towards graffiti.