9 ms·

Google cancels meeting on gender controversy due to employee fears of harassment

101 points by virtuabhi 9y ago

Thursdaythrow 9y ago
What happened to the previous attitude of 'say what you want, but accept the consequences'? Sad to see yet another article perpetuating lies about the actual words of the document.
idlewords 9y ago
If he was sincere in his defense of free expression at Google, James Damore should take this opportunity to speak out in defense of his former colleagues. Doxxing is a pure intimidation tactic.
- throwaway12124 9y ago
  Is there a name for this rhetorical form? If X was a true Y, they would do what I say all Ys should do.
  - miranda_rights 9y ago
    Yeah, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
    - danso 9y ago
      > No true Scotsman is a kind of informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a universal generalization from counterexamples by changing the definition in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample. I thought the "No True Scotsman" fallacy was something more like this: Alice: "No programmer indents with tabs instead of spaces" Bob: "But Guido Van Rossum liked using tabs [0]" Alice: "No real programmer indents with tabs" [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20160513172920/http://legacy.python.org/search/hypermail/python-1994q2/0205.html http://web.archive.org/web/20160513172920/http://legacy.pyth...
      - parrellel 9y ago
        That's what he said, your example just implicitly excludes Python Language devs.
        danso 9y ago
        No, not really. What's the universal generalization or group here, of which Damore is a counter-example? "Googlers who have written memos like Damore's and were then fired"? Damore's situation is a specific one, and he made specific claims about the importance of freedom of expression at Google: A. Damore spoke out about how Googlers shouldn't feel unsafe to express themselves. B. People at Google are reportedly intimidated about expressing themselves. C. We would expect Damore to be unhappy that Googlers are feeling unsafe to express themselves. That's not a logical fallacy. Doesn't mean that idleword's rhetorical argument can't be criticized for being overbearing. Or for being wrong in its premises, e.g. Damore never explicitly said freedom of expression at Google was important, he alleged that Google management's policies stifle ideological viewpoints. That doesn't mean Damore has an opinion about Google employees being intimidated by the public.
        stagbeetle 9y ago
        I see what you're saying, but it's an edge case for the No True Scotsman, with a mix of "moving the goal posts," i.e what real sincerity is like. >No, not really. What's the universal generalization or group here, of which Damore is a counter-example? "Sincere people." There's also tinges of "wishful thinking."
        danso 9y ago
        Don't get me wrong, the rhetorical trick that idlewords is implied to use is just as annoying. Like, "If pro-life people truly cared about human and babies lives, why don't they speak up for single-payer healthcare?" It involves irrational assumptions and/or over-simplification of issues. And its implications are itself a logical fallacy: If people who support A also support B, and people who support C support B, then people who believe in A but not C are hypocrites But No True Scotsman fallacies can occur without those pre-requisites and it's a common enough fallacy that it deserves its own term, so that it's easier to identify and denounce its use. Also, I really want to know if there is a specific phrase/category that describes what idlewords is accused of, for the same reasons of easier identification and denunciation :)
    - parenthephobia 9y ago
      It's only a fallacy if it isn't true. Is it not true that a supporter of freedom of speech would support other people's freedom to disagree with him without being doxxed by his supporters? It seems to me that it is true, at least if the supporter's conception of freedom of speech includes freedom from harassment after speaking, which Damore certainly appears to be believe to be true. Having said that, although I think it would be commendable for him to publically rebuke doxxers, it is fallacious to argue that his support for freedom of speech carries with it an obligation to do so.
      - throwaway12124 9y ago
        Actually, rhetorical forms are fallacies if they are not universally true. That they may be true in particular instances is not important.
        IshKebab 9y ago
        That's not what a fallacy is.
- edco 9y ago
  what are you talking about? who exactly did he dox?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Firebrand 9y ago
You know, when you're wrongly accused of being sexist, attempting to clear your name by having an hour-long, preening conversation with Stefan "The evil that women do is generally invisible to society which is why there’s so much violence in society" Molyneux doesn't seem like the best option.
- pteredactyl 9y ago
  Yea Stefan was not the greatest choice. But I thought he did well on Bloomberg, even though Emily Chang had it out for him. Cancelling the Town Hall is a cop out.
  - danso 9y ago
    It's not much of a "town hall" if employees are afraid to participate.
    - thrway2k17 9y ago
      Google employees that asked questions for Town Hall were already leaked & doxxed by somebody within Google and posted on various websites/youtube. Seems like somebody high up at Google is trying to destroy internal trust or the upper management went completely insane with digital maoism a'la 'Hundred Flowers'.
    - williamle8300 9y ago
      Agreed. Sundar's memo was just posturing... "We want you to feel free to express different opinions..." Proceeds to fire Damore...
      - ghgggh5555 9y ago
        You should emphasize "feel" as well. Then it makes more sense
      - rdtsc 9y ago
        Might not be a crazy idea, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign Invite everyone to freely share ideas. Make lists, then kick out those with the "wrong" ideas. The are often comparisons between large corporations' command economy and the now failed countries with centralized command economy. But perhaps there are interesting parallels about how large corporations discover and weed out those with undesirable ideas and how totalitarian regimes do it. It goes into hyperbole territory there, I know, but perhaps there are some common underlying mechanisms...
pottersbasilisk 9y ago
Its a nice excuse. 50% of googlers disagree with the firing of damore. This will be a massive shitstorm for google internally and out.
RickJWag 9y ago
I quit reading after a few of the inflammatory exaggerations. Obvious bias one way or the other turns me off.
- problems 9y ago
  Unfortunately other, less biased submissions are getting flagged as dupes.
  - jwilk 9y ago
    Links?
    - snerbles 9y ago
      Flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14989835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14989835 Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985094 Are the ones I've seen.
  - jshevek 9y ago
    There is an obvious flag brigade with an agenda.
curyous 9y ago
This article is very skewed, it's annoying that she wrote things like "which he claimed was backed up by studies." rather than "which are backed up by studies."
- jake-low 9y ago
  I'm not sure it's possible to cover such a polarizing breaking-news issue in a way that's not "skewed". Intelligent people will read the same memo and interpret it in different ways. It's too soon for anyone to be impartial. Here's [0] a lengthy analysis from an evolutionary biology Ph.D that concludes that Damore built a harmful narrative around weak and cherry-picked scientific studies. Of course it's as "skewed" as anything else in that it contains an opinion, but it also backs up the quote you're objecting to here -- the argument Dr. Sadedin makes is that Damore "claimed" the studies supported his narrative but in fact they didn't. [0]: https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-anti-diversity-document-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin?share=13d40fd1&srid=Q https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
  - foolrush 9y ago
    And the author of the paper (implicitly) cited disagrees with the claims. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-anti-diversity-memo http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-an...
    - krrrh 9y ago
      On the other hand, the Wired article also cherry-picks quotes from Mr. Schmitt, whose comments are more fully elucidated in articles he wrote at Psychology Today[1] and Quillette[2] [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201708/google-memo-about-sex-differences https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/20... [2] http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
    - Smutte 9y ago
alexandercrohde 9y ago
Sounds like an excuse to me. At least I don't see what online criticism has to do with having a town-hall, by moving the discussion in-person it prevents online sniping, no? Edit: All that said, probably a smart move by google. Their is clearly a very strong divide in our culture right now and they probably made a PR mistake by letting themselves get caught in the middle of the issue once already. Not only a strong divide, but one that's very emotional for a lot of people, where progress and civil discourse are especially challenging.
- danso 9y ago
  The OP doesn't refer to "online criticism". The second sentence of the lede refers to "online harassment": > Google CEO Sundar Pichai has canceled the company’s much anticipated meeting to talk about gender issues today. The move came after some of its employees expressed concern over online harassment they had begun to receive after their questions and names have been published outside the company on a variety of largely alt-right sites. The OP cites the letter as claiming that "our Dory questions appeared externally this afternoon, and on some websites Googlers are now being named personally": > We had hoped to have a frank, open discussion today as we always do to bring us together and move forward. But our Dory questions appeared externally this afternoon, and on some websites Googlers are now being named personally. Googlers are writing in, concerned about their safety and worried they may be “outed” publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall. Dory is Google's Q&A software [0]. It's possible, and likely, that the Googler's who have written in "concerned about their safety" have asked that their questions be withdrawn, which reduces the efficacy of the town hall's Q&A format. [0] http://searchengineland.com/google-moderator-aka-dory-launches-14817 http://searchengineland.com/google-moderator-aka-dory-launch...
  - alexandercrohde 9y ago
    So... let's be reasonable here. If our goal is to protect those individuals, wouldn't you simply use those questions anonymously...?
    - deleted 9y ago
thrill 9y ago
True leadership would be inviting James Damore to speak at the meeting.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sysdyne 9y ago
What are we going to do? Throw tomatos at Pichai? Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity!
wonderwonder 9y ago
I think Google is starting to realize that they jumped the gun on their initial actions. Instead of taking a few moments to get a lay of the land they panicked, flew back their CEO and fired Damore and publicly humiliated him and his opinions. They then scheduled a town hall where I assume the plan was to further demonize him while telling everyone that they still value a free exchange of ideas as long as those ideas are the right ones. Since that initial plan though things have spiraled for them. They have been sued. Damore has been given mainstream press coverage where he has equipped himself reasonably well. They have also likely realized that he followed company policy in regards to using the google approved forums and even formally submitted his memo to google's diversity team. His memo has also incorporated input from other Google employees. Google very visibly stated that if you have certain opinions we find distasteful and express them you will be fired. Not great for moral for those who share those opinions. They are realizing that they have done a terrible job on this from a PR, company moral and legal standpoint and are seeking to regroup. I am not defending Damore's opinion one way or the other but in regards to handling this situation I don't see how Google's executives or many of their staff are feeling positive right now.
- jshevek 9y ago
  I agree with everything you are saying. It does not look like Google's management reacted fairly, nor rationally. I believe it is vital to the health of our society, our culture, for us to look carefully at why one of the worlds most powerful companies (which historically had a culture valuing data, evidence, and science) would behave in such an irrational, reactionary manner. The answer is surely multifaceted, but I believe that some parts of that answer overlap with other recent events. (Trump's election, Evergreen University, violent attacks by antifa, etc)
letsmakeit 9y ago
I believe this nonsense has deeply damaged the Google brand, almost as badly as the Snowden revelations.

101 points by virtuabhi 9y ago

What happened to the previous attitude of 'say what you want, but accept the consequences'? Sad to see yet another article perpetuating lies about the actual words of the document.

idlewords 9y ago

If he was sincere in his defense of free expression at Google, James Damore should take this opportunity to speak out in defense of his former colleagues. Doxxing is a pure intimidation tactic.

throwaway12124 9y ago
Is there a name for this rhetorical form? If X was a true Y, they would do what I say all Ys should do.
- miranda_rights 9y ago
  Yeah, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
  - danso 9y ago
    > No true Scotsman is a kind of informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a universal generalization from counterexamples by changing the definition in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample. I thought the "No True Scotsman" fallacy was something more like this: Alice: "No programmer indents with tabs instead of spaces" Bob: "But Guido Van Rossum liked using tabs [0]" Alice: "No real programmer indents with tabs" [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20160513172920/http://legacy.python.org/search/hypermail/python-1994q2/0205.html http://web.archive.org/web/20160513172920/http://legacy.pyth...
    - parrellel 9y ago
      That's what he said, your example just implicitly excludes Python Language devs.
      - danso 9y ago
        No, not really. What's the universal generalization or group here, of which Damore is a counter-example? "Googlers who have written memos like Damore's and were then fired"? Damore's situation is a specific one, and he made specific claims about the importance of freedom of expression at Google: A. Damore spoke out about how Googlers shouldn't feel unsafe to express themselves. B. People at Google are reportedly intimidated about expressing themselves. C. We would expect Damore to be unhappy that Googlers are feeling unsafe to express themselves. That's not a logical fallacy. Doesn't mean that idleword's rhetorical argument can't be criticized for being overbearing. Or for being wrong in its premises, e.g. Damore never explicitly said freedom of expression at Google was important, he alleged that Google management's policies stifle ideological viewpoints. That doesn't mean Damore has an opinion about Google employees being intimidated by the public.
        stagbeetle 9y ago
        I see what you're saying, but it's an edge case for the No True Scotsman, with a mix of "moving the goal posts," i.e what real sincerity is like. >No, not really. What's the universal generalization or group here, of which Damore is a counter-example? "Sincere people." There's also tinges of "wishful thinking."
        danso 9y ago
        Don't get me wrong, the rhetorical trick that idlewords is implied to use is just as annoying. Like, "If pro-life people truly cared about human and babies lives, why don't they speak up for single-payer healthcare?" It involves irrational assumptions and/or over-simplification of issues. And its implications are itself a logical fallacy: If people who support A also support B, and people who support C support B, then people who believe in A but not C are hypocrites But No True Scotsman fallacies can occur without those pre-requisites and it's a common enough fallacy that it deserves its own term, so that it's easier to identify and denounce its use. Also, I really want to know if there is a specific phrase/category that describes what idlewords is accused of, for the same reasons of easier identification and denunciation :)
  - parenthephobia 9y ago
    It's only a fallacy if it isn't true. Is it not true that a supporter of freedom of speech would support other people's freedom to disagree with him without being doxxed by his supporters? It seems to me that it is true, at least if the supporter's conception of freedom of speech includes freedom from harassment after speaking, which Damore certainly appears to be believe to be true. Having said that, although I think it would be commendable for him to publically rebuke doxxers, it is fallacious to argue that his support for freedom of speech carries with it an obligation to do so.
    - throwaway12124 9y ago
      Actually, rhetorical forms are fallacies if they are not universally true. That they may be true in particular instances is not important.
      - IshKebab 9y ago
        That's not what a fallacy is.
edco 9y ago
what are you talking about? who exactly did he dox?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Firebrand 9y ago

You know, when you're wrongly accused of being sexist, attempting to clear your name by having an hour-long, preening conversation with Stefan "The evil that women do is generally invisible to society which is why there’s so much violence in society" Molyneux doesn't seem like the best option.

pteredactyl 9y ago
Yea Stefan was not the greatest choice. But I thought he did well on Bloomberg, even though Emily Chang had it out for him. Cancelling the Town Hall is a cop out.
- danso 9y ago
  It's not much of a "town hall" if employees are afraid to participate.
  - thrway2k17 9y ago
    Google employees that asked questions for Town Hall were already leaked & doxxed by somebody within Google and posted on various websites/youtube. Seems like somebody high up at Google is trying to destroy internal trust or the upper management went completely insane with digital maoism a'la 'Hundred Flowers'.
  - williamle8300 9y ago
    Agreed. Sundar's memo was just posturing... "We want you to feel free to express different opinions..." Proceeds to fire Damore...
    - ghgggh5555 9y ago
      You should emphasize "feel" as well. Then it makes more sense
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      Might not be a crazy idea, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign Invite everyone to freely share ideas. Make lists, then kick out those with the "wrong" ideas. The are often comparisons between large corporations' command economy and the now failed countries with centralized command economy. But perhaps there are interesting parallels about how large corporations discover and weed out those with undesirable ideas and how totalitarian regimes do it. It goes into hyperbole territory there, I know, but perhaps there are some common underlying mechanisms...

pottersbasilisk 9y ago

Its a nice excuse. 50% of googlers disagree with the firing of damore. This will be a massive shitstorm for google internally and out.

RickJWag 9y ago

I quit reading after a few of the inflammatory exaggerations. Obvious bias one way or the other turns me off.

problems 9y ago
Unfortunately other, less biased submissions are getting flagged as dupes.
- jwilk 9y ago
  Links?
  - snerbles 9y ago
    Flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14989835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14989835 Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985094 Are the ones I've seen.
- jshevek 9y ago
  There is an obvious flag brigade with an agenda.

curyous 9y ago

This article is very skewed, it's annoying that she wrote things like "which he claimed was backed up by studies." rather than "which are backed up by studies."

jake-low 9y ago
I'm not sure it's possible to cover such a polarizing breaking-news issue in a way that's not "skewed". Intelligent people will read the same memo and interpret it in different ways. It's too soon for anyone to be impartial. Here's [0] a lengthy analysis from an evolutionary biology Ph.D that concludes that Damore built a harmful narrative around weak and cherry-picked scientific studies. Of course it's as "skewed" as anything else in that it contains an opinion, but it also backs up the quote you're objecting to here -- the argument Dr. Sadedin makes is that Damore "claimed" the studies supported his narrative but in fact they didn't. [0]: https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-anti-diversity-document-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin?share=13d40fd1&srid=Q https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
- foolrush 9y ago
  And the author of the paper (implicitly) cited disagrees with the claims. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-anti-diversity-memo http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-an...
  - krrrh 9y ago
    On the other hand, the Wired article also cherry-picks quotes from Mr. Schmitt, whose comments are more fully elucidated in articles he wrote at Psychology Today[1] and Quillette[2] [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201708/google-memo-about-sex-differences https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/20... [2] http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
  - Smutte 9y ago

alexandercrohde 9y ago

Sounds like an excuse to me. At least I don't see what online criticism has to do with having a town-hall, by moving the discussion in-person it prevents online sniping, no? Edit: All that said, probably a smart move by google. Their is clearly a very strong divide in our culture right now and they probably made a PR mistake by letting themselves get caught in the middle of the issue once already. Not only a strong divide, but one that's very emotional for a lot of people, where progress and civil discourse are especially challenging.

danso 9y ago
The OP doesn't refer to "online criticism". The second sentence of the lede refers to "online harassment": > Google CEO Sundar Pichai has canceled the company’s much anticipated meeting to talk about gender issues today. The move came after some of its employees expressed concern over online harassment they had begun to receive after their questions and names have been published outside the company on a variety of largely alt-right sites. The OP cites the letter as claiming that "our Dory questions appeared externally this afternoon, and on some websites Googlers are now being named personally": > We had hoped to have a frank, open discussion today as we always do to bring us together and move forward. But our Dory questions appeared externally this afternoon, and on some websites Googlers are now being named personally. Googlers are writing in, concerned about their safety and worried they may be “outed” publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall. Dory is Google's Q&A software [0]. It's possible, and likely, that the Googler's who have written in "concerned about their safety" have asked that their questions be withdrawn, which reduces the efficacy of the town hall's Q&A format. [0] http://searchengineland.com/google-moderator-aka-dory-launches-14817 http://searchengineland.com/google-moderator-aka-dory-launch...
- alexandercrohde 9y ago
  So... let's be reasonable here. If our goal is to protect those individuals, wouldn't you simply use those questions anonymously...?
  - deleted 9y ago

thrill 9y ago

True leadership would be inviting James Damore to speak at the meeting.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

sysdyne 9y ago

What are we going to do? Throw tomatos at Pichai? Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity!

wonderwonder 9y ago

I think Google is starting to realize that they jumped the gun on their initial actions. Instead of taking a few moments to get a lay of the land they panicked, flew back their CEO and fired Damore and publicly humiliated him and his opinions. They then scheduled a town hall where I assume the plan was to further demonize him while telling everyone that they still value a free exchange of ideas as long as those ideas are the right ones. Since that initial plan though things have spiraled for them. They have been sued. Damore has been given mainstream press coverage where he has equipped himself reasonably well. They have also likely realized that he followed company policy in regards to using the google approved forums and even formally submitted his memo to google's diversity team. His memo has also incorporated input from other Google employees. Google very visibly stated that if you have certain opinions we find distasteful and express them you will be fired. Not great for moral for those who share those opinions. They are realizing that they have done a terrible job on this from a PR, company moral and legal standpoint and are seeking to regroup. I am not defending Damore's opinion one way or the other but in regards to handling this situation I don't see how Google's executives or many of their staff are feeling positive right now.

jshevek 9y ago
I agree with everything you are saying. It does not look like Google's management reacted fairly, nor rationally. I believe it is vital to the health of our society, our culture, for us to look carefully at why one of the worlds most powerful companies (which historically had a culture valuing data, evidence, and science) would behave in such an irrational, reactionary manner. The answer is surely multifaceted, but I believe that some parts of that answer overlap with other recent events. (Trump's election, Evergreen University, violent attacks by antifa, etc)

letsmakeit 9y ago

I believe this nonsense has deeply damaged the Google brand, almost as badly as the Snowden revelations.