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I would wager that none of the people calling for this person to be personally ruined, expelled from society, terminated from their job and forever vilified as

I would wager that none of the people calling for this person to be personally ruined, expelled from society, terminated from their job and forever vilified as an outcast ... Maybe some people are calling for stuff like that. But that's not what Google's doing to him. Google's just saying: "You can't do that here."

nxsynonym 9y ago
That's kind of the point though. Google is one of, if not the, biggest player in terms of information served over the internet. If they are willing to censor at this level, how far will they go to protect their public image and suppress discussion they don't agree with?
- runako 9y ago
  > suppress discussion they don't agree with Worth noting: he could post this publicly on Google+, Blogspot, or any other Google platform. It's only his paycheck that's being suppressed, his views are not.
  - JSONwebtoken 9y ago
    I doubt it. The women threatening to quit over twitter would still do the same thing if a social media post attached to his name and job went viral. Make no mistake, it's his views that he was fired over, not the medium in which he shared them. Google made no indication otherwise.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- bilbo0s 9y ago
  But Google isn't really "censor"-ing anyone. Any more than I "censor" you if you come on to my property and refer to my daughter as the "c"-word. I mean... you can call my daughter whatever you like, I just don't allow you to do it in my house. That's not really censorship no matter how big the house is, that's just something that people should expect to happen. In fact... I think people should find it more strange if my daughter and I did NOT put you out of our house. You can still call her whatever you like outside of our home. You're still free to do that.
  - nxsynonym 9y ago
    I think it would be more like if your Son said "what if I called my sister a c-word" and you kicked him out of the house and cut him off completely. I'm not saying you don't have the right to do that, or that in this example your son was right, I just think it would be an over-reaction and would create a chilling effect on your other children from asking questions or thinking about things differently.
    - kafkaesq 9y ago
      From the context it sounds like you're talking about the actions of some hypothetical teenage son, here. Recall that the employee that was fired is an adult (and apparently in his 30s, at least).
      - BlackLotus89 9y ago
        Yeah he ist talking about the hypthetical son, but obviously not because of the age but because of the relation. The point was rule through fear. (Siblings don't speak up anymore - coworkers don't speak up anymore) Also yeah he had to bei in his 30th how else would he have gotten his phd? But like I said the age wasn't the point.
  - leereeves 9y ago
    Google's platform isn't analogous to a house (a private space) it's more like a privately-owned public space.
  - fucktech 9y ago
    Cunt. Use your big boy words
  - qbaqbaqba 9y ago
    Of course they are censoring people: ask anyone living in China. Now it applies to their own employees. Also, the fired person didn't called anyone 'c'-word. That are facts.
lliamander 9y ago
And is arguably walking a very fine line in doing so. IANAL, but it is illegal for employers to use the threat of firing to compel employees to take (or avoid) a political course of action. Furthermore, it is illegal for employers to punish employees for speaking up about issues the employee believes affect working conditions (which was largely the premise of the employees essay). Google side-stepped the issue by firing him for statements which may (or may not) violate anti-discrimination policies that just so happened to be in his essay. They left largely unchallenged (and it seems to me, rather reinforced) the central complaint. Namely that Google was fostering a politically stifling atmosphere.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  I highly doubt that any judge (or sufficiently informed jury) would find that Google acted in response to any political activity on his part, per se.
  - lliamander 9y ago
    Perhaps not, but what was Google responding to? The central concern of the employee (as stated in his memo) was the political behavior by Google. See also: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google-to-punish-engineer-over-anti-diversity-memo-commentary.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google...
    - kafkaesq 9y ago
      Right, but I from what I understand the statutes that project against coercion on the basis of "political behavior" define it fairly narrow terms such as endorsing candidates, making donations and so forth. Which do not apply in this case. And as to "organizing for better workplace conditions" - well yeah, there's some overlap, there. But his campaign went quite a ways beyond that, as well.
      - lliamander 9y ago
        > Right, but I from what I understand the statutes that project against coercion on the basis of "political behavior" define it fairly narrow terms such as endorsing candidates, making donations and so forth. Which do not apply in this case. Ah that makes sense. A fair point. Still, I think that "organizing around workplace conditions" and "calling attention to possible violations of anti-discrimination laws" (both of which were mentioned in the article I referenced) are possible grounds for a suit. > But his campaign went quite a ways beyond that, as well. Do you mean the claimed violation of Google code of conduct that was the basis for his firing? I don't know what their CoC is specifically, but if it's anything like the other CoC's I've seen, I think it's debatable whether he did actually violated it. Many of the claims I have seen about hurtful things in the memo (such as that the women at Google don't deserve to be there) are unsubstantiated by the text of the memo itself. The topics he was trying to discuss, the topics which the CEO himself (and at least 60% of the employees) say should be discussed, are an emotional minefield. Despite claims to the contrary, Damore was very careful with his words.
macspoofing 9y ago
>But that's not what Google's doing to him. Google's just saying: "You can't do that here." And that's probably OK and kind of expected. To me what was interesting was that even the CEO had to not only denounce it, but also cut his vacation short to hold a staff town-hall.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  I find it hard to believe you really read the original piece (https://diversitymemo.com/ https://diversitymemo.com/) and still consider he deserved being fired.
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    Neah, kinda just skimmed it. That is, "really read" a select paragraph or two. Enough to make a basic determination as to what he's driving at -- and to note that we've seen variants of this message from other sources, before -- and make a decision about how much of one's attention resources it merits, moving forward -- accordingly. As one does with any rant, or other poorly thought-out screed.
    - josteink 9y ago
      So you didn't actually read it, but here you are still spending time defending how its author really should be fired over it. Crazy.
      - macspoofing 9y ago
        I've read it and I still think it is justifiably a fire-able offense in that a) it's an open semi-public manifesto against a company policy that is inline with market expectations and b) addresses sensitive and controversial issues. Try writing this kind of a manifesto, and pin it in the lunchroom at your workplace and see what happens. Jerry Maguire got fired for a manifesto as well.
        9y ago
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
Can't do what exactly? The author not only clearly stated this, he even included a picture to make it clear: https://diversitymemo.com/population-overlap.png https://diversitymemo.com/population-overlap.png Does it really deserve a reaction of "You can't do that here"?
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  Does it really deserve a reaction of "You can't do that here"? Google's decision was most definitely not in response to that graphic you linked to.
jshevek 9y ago
The terrible behaviors described by the parent post, are a part of the culture which drive so many individuals to demand that he be fired. Consider the people within Google who declare their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science and in treating people like individuals.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science Actually I found his piece to be distinctly unscientific. It parades as scientific, for sure. But when you break it down, and consider the whole of the message it imparts... at it's core, it was very unscientific. And I bet that those at Google who decided to terminate his employment felt pretty much the same way.
  - josteink 9y ago
    > it's core, it was very unscientific He was very good at sourcing almost every single one of his claims with references to published scientific studies. Your statement on the other hand has zero quotes to support your claim. I know which one I will consider "unscientific".
    - keerthiko 9y ago
      A scientific approach to discussing something is not about upholding your view with select studies that back your viewpoint. It's about proposing a hypothesis, then collecting and presenting unbiased studies, observations and data for all sides, and then supporting final inferences and conclusions. The last part is "the message" of a scientific publication (the "why I worked on/wrote this"). Why was his memo unscientific? 1. His choice of data presentation was almost exclusively for his side of the hypothesis, of the form "women are biologically inclined to X" without including any of the (vast corpus of) counter-studies* that directly offset many of his core supporting arguments. 2. Even if his arguments were sufficiently sound (which is unlikely as per 1.), his conclusions were a bit of a quantum leap from his "sourced" claims to "this is unfair, divisive, bad for business" (as per the TLDR). He pretty much just decided that for himself. There were few or no studies/data/observations to support that crucial step. *going to piggyback off the sources linked in this slate article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/08/07/the_google_anti_diversity_memo_cribs_its_worst_arguments_from_men_s_rights.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/08/07/the_google_a...
keerthiko 9y ago
There are differences between saying "You can't do that here, so..." 1) "... we will fire you, because you have generated negative press for us with this even though we had no explicit policy prohibiting this" 2) "... we will fire you because what you did has directly violated an explicit existing company policy" 3) "... we will give you a warning, and add 'workplace gender diversity' to the list of topics prohibited from public discourse by employees so that in the future we can fire people for this" It's unclear whether 1) or 2) happened (I suspect it was 1), and they could have chosen 3). They didn't. And the poor sap probably doesn't want to consider a lawsuit against Google if it was 1) and not 2) even if one could argue wrongful termination. And that's exactly what authoritarianism is about, the power to make rules pretty much on the fly and expect those affected by your choices to play by them. PS: Not taking sides here, IMHO the manifesto was dumb and the person sounded like a green'un who got a rude dose of reality from what he probably considered merely a provoking thought experiment/writing exercise.

nxsynonym 9y ago

That's kind of the point though. Google is one of, if not the, biggest player in terms of information served over the internet. If they are willing to censor at this level, how far will they go to protect their public image and suppress discussion they don't agree with?

runako 9y ago
> suppress discussion they don't agree with Worth noting: he could post this publicly on Google+, Blogspot, or any other Google platform. It's only his paycheck that's being suppressed, his views are not.
- JSONwebtoken 9y ago
  I doubt it. The women threatening to quit over twitter would still do the same thing if a social media post attached to his name and job went viral. Make no mistake, it's his views that he was fired over, not the medium in which he shared them. Google made no indication otherwise.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bilbo0s 9y ago
But Google isn't really "censor"-ing anyone. Any more than I "censor" you if you come on to my property and refer to my daughter as the "c"-word. I mean... you can call my daughter whatever you like, I just don't allow you to do it in my house. That's not really censorship no matter how big the house is, that's just something that people should expect to happen. In fact... I think people should find it more strange if my daughter and I did NOT put you out of our house. You can still call her whatever you like outside of our home. You're still free to do that.
- nxsynonym 9y ago
  I think it would be more like if your Son said "what if I called my sister a c-word" and you kicked him out of the house and cut him off completely. I'm not saying you don't have the right to do that, or that in this example your son was right, I just think it would be an over-reaction and would create a chilling effect on your other children from asking questions or thinking about things differently.
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    From the context it sounds like you're talking about the actions of some hypothetical teenage son, here. Recall that the employee that was fired is an adult (and apparently in his 30s, at least).
    - BlackLotus89 9y ago
      Yeah he ist talking about the hypthetical son, but obviously not because of the age but because of the relation. The point was rule through fear. (Siblings don't speak up anymore - coworkers don't speak up anymore) Also yeah he had to bei in his 30th how else would he have gotten his phd? But like I said the age wasn't the point.
- leereeves 9y ago
  Google's platform isn't analogous to a house (a private space) it's more like a privately-owned public space.
- fucktech 9y ago
  Cunt. Use your big boy words
- qbaqbaqba 9y ago
  Of course they are censoring people: ask anyone living in China. Now it applies to their own employees. Also, the fired person didn't called anyone 'c'-word. That are facts.

lliamander 9y ago

And is arguably walking a very fine line in doing so. IANAL, but it is illegal for employers to use the threat of firing to compel employees to take (or avoid) a political course of action. Furthermore, it is illegal for employers to punish employees for speaking up about issues the employee believes affect working conditions (which was largely the premise of the employees essay). Google side-stepped the issue by firing him for statements which may (or may not) violate anti-discrimination policies that just so happened to be in his essay. They left largely unchallenged (and it seems to me, rather reinforced) the central complaint. Namely that Google was fostering a politically stifling atmosphere.

kafkaesq 9y ago
I highly doubt that any judge (or sufficiently informed jury) would find that Google acted in response to any political activity on his part, per se.
- lliamander 9y ago
  Perhaps not, but what was Google responding to? The central concern of the employee (as stated in his memo) was the political behavior by Google. See also: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google-to-punish-engineer-over-anti-diversity-memo-commentary.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google...
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    Right, but I from what I understand the statutes that project against coercion on the basis of "political behavior" define it fairly narrow terms such as endorsing candidates, making donations and so forth. Which do not apply in this case. And as to "organizing for better workplace conditions" - well yeah, there's some overlap, there. But his campaign went quite a ways beyond that, as well.
    - lliamander 9y ago
      > Right, but I from what I understand the statutes that project against coercion on the basis of "political behavior" define it fairly narrow terms such as endorsing candidates, making donations and so forth. Which do not apply in this case. Ah that makes sense. A fair point. Still, I think that "organizing around workplace conditions" and "calling attention to possible violations of anti-discrimination laws" (both of which were mentioned in the article I referenced) are possible grounds for a suit. > But his campaign went quite a ways beyond that, as well. Do you mean the claimed violation of Google code of conduct that was the basis for his firing? I don't know what their CoC is specifically, but if it's anything like the other CoC's I've seen, I think it's debatable whether he did actually violated it. Many of the claims I have seen about hurtful things in the memo (such as that the women at Google don't deserve to be there) are unsubstantiated by the text of the memo itself. The topics he was trying to discuss, the topics which the CEO himself (and at least 60% of the employees) say should be discussed, are an emotional minefield. Despite claims to the contrary, Damore was very careful with his words.

macspoofing 9y ago

>But that's not what Google's doing to him. Google's just saying: "You can't do that here." And that's probably OK and kind of expected. To me what was interesting was that even the CEO had to not only denounce it, but also cut his vacation short to hold a staff town-hall.

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
I find it hard to believe you really read the original piece (https://diversitymemo.com/ https://diversitymemo.com/) and still consider he deserved being fired.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  Neah, kinda just skimmed it. That is, "really read" a select paragraph or two. Enough to make a basic determination as to what he's driving at -- and to note that we've seen variants of this message from other sources, before -- and make a decision about how much of one's attention resources it merits, moving forward -- accordingly. As one does with any rant, or other poorly thought-out screed.
  - josteink 9y ago
    So you didn't actually read it, but here you are still spending time defending how its author really should be fired over it. Crazy.
    - macspoofing 9y ago
      I've read it and I still think it is justifiably a fire-able offense in that a) it's an open semi-public manifesto against a company policy that is inline with market expectations and b) addresses sensitive and controversial issues. Try writing this kind of a manifesto, and pin it in the lunchroom at your workplace and see what happens. Jerry Maguire got fired for a manifesto as well.
      - 9y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

Can't do what exactly? The author not only clearly stated this, he even included a picture to make it clear: https://diversitymemo.com/population-overlap.png https://diversitymemo.com/population-overlap.png Does it really deserve a reaction of "You can't do that here"?

kafkaesq 9y ago
Does it really deserve a reaction of "You can't do that here"? Google's decision was most definitely not in response to that graphic you linked to.

jshevek 9y ago

The terrible behaviors described by the parent post, are a part of the culture which drive so many individuals to demand that he be fired. Consider the people within Google who declare their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science and in treating people like individuals.

kafkaesq 9y ago
their unwillingness to work with the person that believes in science Actually I found his piece to be distinctly unscientific. It parades as scientific, for sure. But when you break it down, and consider the whole of the message it imparts... at it's core, it was very unscientific. And I bet that those at Google who decided to terminate his employment felt pretty much the same way.
- josteink 9y ago
  > it's core, it was very unscientific He was very good at sourcing almost every single one of his claims with references to published scientific studies. Your statement on the other hand has zero quotes to support your claim. I know which one I will consider "unscientific".
  - keerthiko 9y ago
    A scientific approach to discussing something is not about upholding your view with select studies that back your viewpoint. It's about proposing a hypothesis, then collecting and presenting unbiased studies, observations and data for all sides, and then supporting final inferences and conclusions. The last part is "the message" of a scientific publication (the "why I worked on/wrote this"). Why was his memo unscientific? 1. His choice of data presentation was almost exclusively for his side of the hypothesis, of the form "women are biologically inclined to X" without including any of the (vast corpus of) counter-studies* that directly offset many of his core supporting arguments. 2. Even if his arguments were sufficiently sound (which is unlikely as per 1.), his conclusions were a bit of a quantum leap from his "sourced" claims to "this is unfair, divisive, bad for business" (as per the TLDR). He pretty much just decided that for himself. There were few or no studies/data/observations to support that crucial step. *going to piggyback off the sources linked in this slate article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/08/07/the_google_anti_diversity_memo_cribs_its_worst_arguments_from_men_s_rights.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/08/07/the_google_a...

keerthiko 9y ago

There are differences between saying "You can't do that here, so..." 1) "... we will fire you, because you have generated negative press for us with this even though we had no explicit policy prohibiting this" 2) "... we will fire you because what you did has directly violated an explicit existing company policy" 3) "... we will give you a warning, and add 'workplace gender diversity' to the list of topics prohibited from public discourse by employees so that in the future we can fire people for this" It's unclear whether 1) or 2) happened (I suspect it was 1), and they could have chosen 3). They didn't. And the poor sap probably doesn't want to consider a lawsuit against Google if it was 1) and not 2) even if one could argue wrongful termination. And that's exactly what authoritarianism is about, the power to make rules pretty much on the fly and expect those affected by your choices to play by them. PS: Not taking sides here, IMHO the manifesto was dumb and the person sounded like a green'un who got a rude dose of reality from what he probably considered merely a provoking thought experiment/writing exercise.