8 ms·

I'm sad to see so many comments here worrying about such a list becoming "weaponized". TFA says that the list is anonymous, and that "usually, the people in th

by jlebar 9y ago

I'm sad to see so many comments here worrying about such a list becoming "weaponized". TFA says that the list is anonymous, and that "usually, the people in the complaints are not named" (the cited exception being naming Eric Schmidt, the CEO, for behavior during a large company meeting). You're not going to publicly shame someone without naming them, so clearly that's not the intent or effect. The point of the list, again from TFA, is to raise awareness about bad things that happen at Google, often outside the view of privileged white men like myself. With 20% of the company subscribed, it sounds like it's working. This trope of jumping immediately to the problem of false accusations is sadly common in discussions e.g. of rape reporting. Yes, some reports of rape (and harassment) are untrue. The vast majority aren't. Jumping so quickly, as many comments here have, to considering effects of fake reports is wildly disrespectful of the (largely female, and thus underrepresented here and at places like Google) victims, and is part of the reason that rape and sexual assault go underreported. I would encourage those of you who have such a reaction to step back and consider why people might submit anonymously to such a list, and what benefits a company might get from having one. Disclaimer: I work at Google, and speak here (as always) for myself.

humanrebar 9y ago
> I would encourage those of you who have such a reaction to step back and consider why people might submit anonymously to such a list, and what benefits a company might get from having one. While we're doing thought exercises, let's also step back and consider why someone would value things like evidence-based judgments and due process. Someone could just value justice and fairness, including channels for recourse when legitimate incidents of slander (or honest misunderstandings!) arise. There's nothing wrong, ignorant, or shameful about that perspective. In fact, we should embrace these perspectives in a diverse work culture.
- jlebar 9y ago
  > let's also step back and consider why someone would value things like evidence-based judgments and due process. I agree wholeheartedly that there is nothing wrong with valuing evidence-based judgements and due process. But that is not what I was ranting against. Conflating the trope of immediately jumping to a concern about false accusations while ignoring victims with "valuing evidence-based judgements and due process" is, however, a pretty good example of what I am bothered by. I think the real thought experiment is: Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations, without paying any heed for the victims? I think the answer might be, most of us here have never had to worry about being harassed at work. Most of us here don't know what it's like to be worried for our safety -- psychological or sexual -- at work. Most of us don't know what it's like to be subjected to a constant stream of microagressions from coworkers. So most of us can't imagine what many minorities in tech go through on a daily basis. That's just because most of us fit in. What all of us can imagine is being falsely accused of doing something bad. And so since that's what we can imagine without effort, that's what we talk about, and worry about. Availability bias. Falling prey to the availability bias doesn't make you a bad person. But you can learn to be better.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations, without paying any heed for the victims? What makes you think they don't care about victims? My loved ones and I volunteer a lot in this area. > Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations... There are personal (verbal, emotional abuse) and social (bullying) forms of abuse that hinge on slander, lies, and manipulation to punish people or to otherwise assert power. Wanting to make sure that is not an issue is wanting to protect people. I guess we could argue about which kinds of innocent people are worth protecting, but I'm not really interested in getting into that business. There aren't many specifics being posted here about particular stories, but there mostly seems to be consensus that egregious behavior requires at least immediate dismissal and that less cut-and-dry incidents require some sort of correction. There also seems to be agreement that better awareness of poor behavior is a good thing. There just doesn't seem to be consensus that anonymous posts sent out by anonymous curators is the best way to go about this. That doesn't mean some people are indifferent to awful things. They're just wary that the tools we use to help people don't end up hurting others.
    - jlebar 9y ago
      >> Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations, without paying any heed for the victims? > What makes you think they don't care about victims? I never said that anyone does or doesn't care about anyone else. I said that the words written here on HN focused on the spectre of false accusations, rather than on the victims of harassment, abuse, and worse. I also said that this is a common, much-discussed failure mode, and that we should know better. > There are personal (verbal, emotional abuse) and social (bullying) forms of abuse that hinge on slander, lies, and manipulation to punish people or to otherwise assert power. Wanting to make sure that is not an issue is wanting to protect people. Right. But in this particular instance, we're talking about wanting to protect people from those they're harassing. This list is very clearly not being used to bully anyone, and part of my objection is with the kneejerk assumption that this must be what's going on, and that privileged white men aren't getting sufficient protection in their workplace. What I am saying is, rather than restricting our consideration to fringy concerns of how this list might harm white men (it doesn't), we should also (not even exclusively! -- just also) consider how it affects everyone else. [edited for formatting]
whitemale 9y ago
> privileged white men like myself The former president of the US was a black man, he was arguably in one of the most privileged positions in the US / World. The current Chancellor of Germany happens to be a women, which is the most privileged positions in Europe. I'm also sure that you will find a lot of white men who lack anything that can be considered privilege. > why people might submit anonymously to such a list > This trope of jumping immediately to the problem of false accusations is sadly common in discussions e.g. of rape reporting. Yes, some reports of rape (and harassment) are untrue. The vast majority aren't. Even if a rape accusation turns out to be false, the damage is done, and nobody will care about your "privileged white men" because they don't have enough victim creds.
- chipgap98 9y ago
  > The former president of the US was a black man, he was arguably in one of the most privileged positions in the US / World. That's not what privilege is. Its about how society treats people as a whole. As as a whole, white men benefit from their gender and race. Yes there are white people who are poor or have other issues. Yes there are black people people who are wealthy or in positions of power. Citing individual examples doesn't discount macro trends
  - whitemale 9y ago
    How does society treat people as whole? can you explain what advantage do non-white-males have over everyone else? > Citing individual examples doesn't discount macro trends Sorry mate, if you look at statistics, Asians earn more in America than 'whites', so I guess we should start calling Asians privileged then, right?
- cjslep 9y ago
  > The former president of the US was a bkack man ...and when he was reelected president, the Free Expression tunnel at NC State was spray painted with the confederate battle flag background, his "Hope" pose portrait, and in huge bold black letters the word "NIGGER". Racism and systemic oppression didn't get solved just because you can cherrypick examples well. I don't see non-white people oppressing white people because Trump is in power, calling them/him a "cracker" or other slurs, on the same continuous intensity. Which is a good indication that society is still skewed.
zghst 9y ago
It doesn't matter that the complaints are anonymous. The ultimate end result of this produces anxiety, even if action is taken. It is passive violence on a mass scale instead of healing occurring in one place. People should not want every fracture or trespass humming in the background to remind us. We should be moving on, dedicating our focus on being better people, achieving new heights, real things that progress us forward, that deserves recognition, not pain, not being known as a victim of something. I feel that is the way of our society now, a mad obsession with pain and offense. Violence shifted into an abstract form...
- jlebar 9y ago
  Taken (very) broadly, I agree. A list like this shifts a burden onto those of us who have privilege, as we're now aware of the bad shit that goes down around us that before we might never have seen. Hopefully it makes us uncomfortable enough to change our actions, thus obviating the need for this discomfort at all.
  - zghst 9y ago
    It is natural that we want to take from those who have and give it to those who have not. Whether it economical benefit, experiences, or knowledge. But in this case, I am unconvinced that scaling these experiences in this environment is a healing force. I think there is a missing piece here and one organization alone will not produce the best solution.
    - jlebar 9y ago
      > I am unconvinced that scaling these experiences in this environment is a healing force. You might be right. But I think that's a limited point. Mistreatment of women and minorities is as old as time. All that's changed here is that they're talking about it in a public forum. Maybe that helps heal things (I tend to think it does, by way of raising awareness), maybe, as you say, it doesn't help. Maybe it even hurts. But I am not about to tell victims how to deal with their own pain.
- nradov 9y ago
tyingq 9y ago
It's concerning to me, but not for the reasons you listed. Naming names isn't the only way to out someone on such a list. Details about time, place, personalities, specific words said, etc, can unintentionally out someone. And it's not just the accused that could be outed. The accuser faces the same issue. I don't see why it's odd to have some concerns about this approach. It clearly requires a moderator with some skill, or a mistake could really hurt someone.
- packetslave 9y ago
  (Googler w/ the obvious disclaimer) The moderator(s) have actually been quite good about removing or otherwise obfuscating the details you mentioned. The entries are usually along the lines of "A (male) engineer said $AWFUL_THING to another (female) engineer in a large meeting". Specific enough that you understand the $AWFUL_THING but generic enough that you can't easily infer who the people are.
anothercomment 9y ago
I would guess most subscribers simply like gossip and watching train wrecks.
- spaceflunky 9y ago
  It's like old days of Gawker.com. You could rationalize that you were doing a true public service by participating in the "name and shame" game. Or you could just be there to take pleasure in other people's misery. Also, look at 'name and shame' subreddits like the SRS communities. Those places are toxic. While I think that there's some value to be had in viewing other people's missteps and learning how to improve based upon them (a favorite quote of mine, "the best way to cure your bad habits is to see them in others"). However, a wide scale list like this one does not seem to me to be good. For example, the reason aviation gets safer and safer is because every time there's a mistake it's documented, studied, and then if corrections need to be made, they are made. What's not helpful is some open forum where people just make anonymized complaints that some airline has bad pilots or crappy planes. Maybe that's not the best analogy, but I think there's something there...
  - shoyer 9y ago
    There's no naming and shaming in "Yes, at Google". From the article: "Usually, the people in the complaints are not named."
    - anothercomment 9y ago
      Not sure that helps much. At worst, people will start guessing and perhaps suspect the wrong people. And many people can probably identified from the context. Furthermore, there can be no defense against the accusations.
      - amablue 9y ago
        Empirically, this does not happen. It's a company of like 70,000 employees. You're not going to be able to guess the people involved when the company is that size. Maybe if it was a company on the order of 100s of people you'd be able to. This is a hypothetical worry that doesn't seem to play out in practice.
throwgoog452 9y ago
I'm also a Googler. Unlike you, I'm forced to comment anonymously, using a throwaway I just created using Tor. Why? Because I'm a member of one of the "privileged" groups that many think make up too great a portion of Google's employee base, and because some people (especially the ones graduating from college these days) think I'm an oppressor just because of my race and gender. Nevertheless, I need to pipe up and express that g/yes-at-google makes me feel terrified. I'm not alone either. Some people have expressed that they plan on discontinuing all non-work communication. I've done the same, but not announced it. I've also started scrubbing all my technical communication. Anything I say might be interpreted in the worst possible light as taken as evidence of deep-seated bigotry and bias. I've never had to be this paranoid before in my life. The scariest thing is that I've seen people "called out" for comments that would have passed even my paranoid-mode filter, even on purely technical subjects. At this point, I'm scared of making too much or too little eye contact. (Either one might be a micro-aggression.) I feel that no matter how careful I am about what I say and no matter how little bias is in my heart, it's only a matter of time before I land in front of HR for something I didn't intend to say. Programs like YAG sensitize people to these sorts of uncharitable interpretations of others' speech. They encourage a kind of paranoid bunker mentality when it comes to social interaction. They teach people that their experiences are particular to their identity, not universal among their colleagues. They teach people to punish the wicked, not work together to solve problems. Is this the kind of company we want to have? Is this the kind of culture that any organization should foster?
- jlebar 9y ago
  I'm truly sorry you feel this way. I'm another white man who works at Google. I don't feel this way. You see me here commenting using a username that's easily traceable to my real identity. So we are reacting to a similar situation quite differently. What's the difference between us? I don't know. I also think that your having this feeling is not WAI -- Google has been pretty clear that they want everyone to feel psychologically safe at work. Ultimately what you have is a feeling -- it's not a fact, or even an opinion. I can't argue you out of it. But feel free to reach out to me IRL if you want to talk about it. I am easy to find.
Kenji 9y ago
Your comment contains a lot of appeals to emotion and very few facts, if any at all (for example, the claim that the "vast majority" of rape accusations is true definitely needs a source). This is the hallmark of someone who goes along with mainstream opinion without thinking for themselves. I urge you and everyone else to think deeply before reiterating what you have heard or read from others.
- jlebar 9y ago
  > Your comment contains a lot of appeals to emotion and very few facts, if any at all (for example, the claim that the "vast majority" of rape accusations is true definitely needs a source). https://www.google.com/search?q=fraction+of+rape+reports+that+are+false+accusations https://www.google.com/search?q=fraction+of+rape+reports+tha... > I urge you and everyone else to think deeply before reiterating what you have heard or read from others. Likewise. :)
  - tyingq 9y ago
    That google link doesn't really support the claim. For example, the headline on the National Review is somewhat deliberately strong sounding...what's in the article is quite different. I'm no expert, and not trying to sway opinion either way. But the results of your Google search only make it muddier.

by jlebar 9y ago

humanrebar 9y ago

> I would encourage those of you who have such a reaction to step back and consider why people might submit anonymously to such a list, and what benefits a company might get from having one. While we're doing thought exercises, let's also step back and consider why someone would value things like evidence-based judgments and due process. Someone could just value justice and fairness, including channels for recourse when legitimate incidents of slander (or honest misunderstandings!) arise. There's nothing wrong, ignorant, or shameful about that perspective. In fact, we should embrace these perspectives in a diverse work culture.

jlebar 9y ago
> let's also step back and consider why someone would value things like evidence-based judgments and due process. I agree wholeheartedly that there is nothing wrong with valuing evidence-based judgements and due process. But that is not what I was ranting against. Conflating the trope of immediately jumping to a concern about false accusations while ignoring victims with "valuing evidence-based judgements and due process" is, however, a pretty good example of what I am bothered by. I think the real thought experiment is: Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations, without paying any heed for the victims? I think the answer might be, most of us here have never had to worry about being harassed at work. Most of us here don't know what it's like to be worried for our safety -- psychological or sexual -- at work. Most of us don't know what it's like to be subjected to a constant stream of microagressions from coworkers. So most of us can't imagine what many minorities in tech go through on a daily basis. That's just because most of us fit in. What all of us can imagine is being falsely accused of doing something bad. And so since that's what we can imagine without effort, that's what we talk about, and worry about. Availability bias. Falling prey to the availability bias doesn't make you a bad person. But you can learn to be better.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations, without paying any heed for the victims? What makes you think they don't care about victims? My loved ones and I volunteer a lot in this area. > Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations... There are personal (verbal, emotional abuse) and social (bullying) forms of abuse that hinge on slander, lies, and manipulation to punish people or to otherwise assert power. Wanting to make sure that is not an issue is wanting to protect people. I guess we could argue about which kinds of innocent people are worth protecting, but I'm not really interested in getting into that business. There aren't many specifics being posted here about particular stories, but there mostly seems to be consensus that egregious behavior requires at least immediate dismissal and that less cut-and-dry incidents require some sort of correction. There also seems to be agreement that better awareness of poor behavior is a good thing. There just doesn't seem to be consensus that anonymous posts sent out by anonymous curators is the best way to go about this. That doesn't mean some people are indifferent to awful things. They're just wary that the tools we use to help people don't end up hurting others.
  - jlebar 9y ago
    >> Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations, without paying any heed for the victims? > What makes you think they don't care about victims? I never said that anyone does or doesn't care about anyone else. I said that the words written here on HN focused on the spectre of false accusations, rather than on the victims of harassment, abuse, and worse. I also said that this is a common, much-discussed failure mode, and that we should know better. > There are personal (verbal, emotional abuse) and social (bullying) forms of abuse that hinge on slander, lies, and manipulation to punish people or to otherwise assert power. Wanting to make sure that is not an issue is wanting to protect people. Right. But in this particular instance, we're talking about wanting to protect people from those they're harassing. This list is very clearly not being used to bully anyone, and part of my objection is with the kneejerk assumption that this must be what's going on, and that privileged white men aren't getting sufficient protection in their workplace. What I am saying is, rather than restricting our consideration to fringy concerns of how this list might harm white men (it doesn't), we should also (not even exclusively! -- just also) consider how it affects everyone else. [edited for formatting]

whitemale 9y ago

> privileged white men like myself The former president of the US was a black man, he was arguably in one of the most privileged positions in the US / World. The current Chancellor of Germany happens to be a women, which is the most privileged positions in Europe. I'm also sure that you will find a lot of white men who lack anything that can be considered privilege. > why people might submit anonymously to such a list > This trope of jumping immediately to the problem of false accusations is sadly common in discussions e.g. of rape reporting. Yes, some reports of rape (and harassment) are untrue. The vast majority aren't. Even if a rape accusation turns out to be false, the damage is done, and nobody will care about your "privileged white men" because they don't have enough victim creds.

chipgap98 9y ago
> The former president of the US was a black man, he was arguably in one of the most privileged positions in the US / World. That's not what privilege is. Its about how society treats people as a whole. As as a whole, white men benefit from their gender and race. Yes there are white people who are poor or have other issues. Yes there are black people people who are wealthy or in positions of power. Citing individual examples doesn't discount macro trends
- whitemale 9y ago
  How does society treat people as whole? can you explain what advantage do non-white-males have over everyone else? > Citing individual examples doesn't discount macro trends Sorry mate, if you look at statistics, Asians earn more in America than 'whites', so I guess we should start calling Asians privileged then, right?
cjslep 9y ago
> The former president of the US was a bkack man ...and when he was reelected president, the Free Expression tunnel at NC State was spray painted with the confederate battle flag background, his "Hope" pose portrait, and in huge bold black letters the word "NIGGER". Racism and systemic oppression didn't get solved just because you can cherrypick examples well. I don't see non-white people oppressing white people because Trump is in power, calling them/him a "cracker" or other slurs, on the same continuous intensity. Which is a good indication that society is still skewed.

zghst 9y ago

It doesn't matter that the complaints are anonymous. The ultimate end result of this produces anxiety, even if action is taken. It is passive violence on a mass scale instead of healing occurring in one place. People should not want every fracture or trespass humming in the background to remind us. We should be moving on, dedicating our focus on being better people, achieving new heights, real things that progress us forward, that deserves recognition, not pain, not being known as a victim of something. I feel that is the way of our society now, a mad obsession with pain and offense. Violence shifted into an abstract form...

jlebar 9y ago
Taken (very) broadly, I agree. A list like this shifts a burden onto those of us who have privilege, as we're now aware of the bad shit that goes down around us that before we might never have seen. Hopefully it makes us uncomfortable enough to change our actions, thus obviating the need for this discomfort at all.
- zghst 9y ago
  It is natural that we want to take from those who have and give it to those who have not. Whether it economical benefit, experiences, or knowledge. But in this case, I am unconvinced that scaling these experiences in this environment is a healing force. I think there is a missing piece here and one organization alone will not produce the best solution.
  - jlebar 9y ago
    > I am unconvinced that scaling these experiences in this environment is a healing force. You might be right. But I think that's a limited point. Mistreatment of women and minorities is as old as time. All that's changed here is that they're talking about it in a public forum. Maybe that helps heal things (I tend to think it does, by way of raising awareness), maybe, as you say, it doesn't help. Maybe it even hurts. But I am not about to tell victims how to deal with their own pain.
nradov 9y ago

tyingq 9y ago

It's concerning to me, but not for the reasons you listed. Naming names isn't the only way to out someone on such a list. Details about time, place, personalities, specific words said, etc, can unintentionally out someone. And it's not just the accused that could be outed. The accuser faces the same issue. I don't see why it's odd to have some concerns about this approach. It clearly requires a moderator with some skill, or a mistake could really hurt someone.

packetslave 9y ago
(Googler w/ the obvious disclaimer) The moderator(s) have actually been quite good about removing or otherwise obfuscating the details you mentioned. The entries are usually along the lines of "A (male) engineer said $AWFUL_THING to another (female) engineer in a large meeting". Specific enough that you understand the $AWFUL_THING but generic enough that you can't easily infer who the people are.

anothercomment 9y ago

I would guess most subscribers simply like gossip and watching train wrecks.

spaceflunky 9y ago
It's like old days of Gawker.com. You could rationalize that you were doing a true public service by participating in the "name and shame" game. Or you could just be there to take pleasure in other people's misery. Also, look at 'name and shame' subreddits like the SRS communities. Those places are toxic. While I think that there's some value to be had in viewing other people's missteps and learning how to improve based upon them (a favorite quote of mine, "the best way to cure your bad habits is to see them in others"). However, a wide scale list like this one does not seem to me to be good. For example, the reason aviation gets safer and safer is because every time there's a mistake it's documented, studied, and then if corrections need to be made, they are made. What's not helpful is some open forum where people just make anonymized complaints that some airline has bad pilots or crappy planes. Maybe that's not the best analogy, but I think there's something there...
- shoyer 9y ago
  There's no naming and shaming in "Yes, at Google". From the article: "Usually, the people in the complaints are not named."
  - anothercomment 9y ago
    Not sure that helps much. At worst, people will start guessing and perhaps suspect the wrong people. And many people can probably identified from the context. Furthermore, there can be no defense against the accusations.
    - amablue 9y ago
      Empirically, this does not happen. It's a company of like 70,000 employees. You're not going to be able to guess the people involved when the company is that size. Maybe if it was a company on the order of 100s of people you'd be able to. This is a hypothetical worry that doesn't seem to play out in practice.

throwgoog452 9y ago

I'm also a Googler. Unlike you, I'm forced to comment anonymously, using a throwaway I just created using Tor. Why? Because I'm a member of one of the "privileged" groups that many think make up too great a portion of Google's employee base, and because some people (especially the ones graduating from college these days) think I'm an oppressor just because of my race and gender. Nevertheless, I need to pipe up and express that g/yes-at-google makes me feel terrified. I'm not alone either. Some people have expressed that they plan on discontinuing all non-work communication. I've done the same, but not announced it. I've also started scrubbing all my technical communication. Anything I say might be interpreted in the worst possible light as taken as evidence of deep-seated bigotry and bias. I've never had to be this paranoid before in my life. The scariest thing is that I've seen people "called out" for comments that would have passed even my paranoid-mode filter, even on purely technical subjects. At this point, I'm scared of making too much or too little eye contact. (Either one might be a micro-aggression.) I feel that no matter how careful I am about what I say and no matter how little bias is in my heart, it's only a matter of time before I land in front of HR for something I didn't intend to say. Programs like YAG sensitize people to these sorts of uncharitable interpretations of others' speech. They encourage a kind of paranoid bunker mentality when it comes to social interaction. They teach people that their experiences are particular to their identity, not universal among their colleagues. They teach people to punish the wicked, not work together to solve problems. Is this the kind of company we want to have? Is this the kind of culture that any organization should foster?

jlebar 9y ago
I'm truly sorry you feel this way. I'm another white man who works at Google. I don't feel this way. You see me here commenting using a username that's easily traceable to my real identity. So we are reacting to a similar situation quite differently. What's the difference between us? I don't know. I also think that your having this feeling is not WAI -- Google has been pretty clear that they want everyone to feel psychologically safe at work. Ultimately what you have is a feeling -- it's not a fact, or even an opinion. I can't argue you out of it. But feel free to reach out to me IRL if you want to talk about it. I am easy to find.

Kenji 9y ago

Your comment contains a lot of appeals to emotion and very few facts, if any at all (for example, the claim that the "vast majority" of rape accusations is true definitely needs a source). This is the hallmark of someone who goes along with mainstream opinion without thinking for themselves. I urge you and everyone else to think deeply before reiterating what you have heard or read from others.

jlebar 9y ago
> Your comment contains a lot of appeals to emotion and very few facts, if any at all (for example, the claim that the "vast majority" of rape accusations is true definitely needs a source). https://www.google.com/search?q=fraction+of+rape+reports+that+are+false+accusations https://www.google.com/search?q=fraction+of+rape+reports+tha... > I urge you and everyone else to think deeply before reiterating what you have heard or read from others. Likewise. :)
- tyingq 9y ago
  That google link doesn't really support the claim. For example, the headline on the National Review is somewhat deliberately strong sounding...what's in the article is quite different. I'm no expert, and not trying to sway opinion either way. But the results of your Google search only make it muddier.