18 ms·

My own controversial opinion on this, borrowing words from Peter Griffin: "Oh my god, who the hell cares?!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0 https:

My own controversial opinion on this, borrowing words from Peter Griffin: "Oh my god, who the hell cares?!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0 Googler wrote a document which was widely derided internally and externally. Sundar took the conservative option and let him go, due to his toxic effect on work environment. Shouldn't that be the end of the story? Maybe a googler can explain how and why this has exploded into the zeitgeist, because I fail to see it. It seems there were some number of bad actors inside google besides the original author, but a small number. If Google has a mono-culture that's not open to debate about gender and diversity issues, it's neither my business nor my concern, and all the bloggers and Ezra Klein and NYT who are trying to frame a megacorp-sized story about this, are stretching. EDIT: Instead of downvote, maybe an explanation on WHY this incident shows (as the posted article claims) Google's bad intentions for us?

btian 9y ago
In the conservative circle, this is considered a "crusade" against "conservative values". That's why you see tweets from the likes of Kellyanne Conway. Conservative Googlers have been leaking people's names and locations to known white supremacists to harass and threaten people they disagree with, and the snowball is still growing.
- khazhoux 9y ago
  Indeed, this plays into their narrative of hippy-dippy Berkeley liberal feminist handouts entitlement cosmopolitan California.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    "Fired Google engineer compares high-paid tech job to Soviet forced labor": https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/10/16127968/fired-google-engineer-compares-high-paid-tech-job-to-soviet-forced-labor https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/10/16127968/fired-google-eng...
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  Kind of like how the original memo was leaked and resulted in a huge number of threats towards the author? How it resulted in him being fired? People hate it when the alt-right uses the tactics of the left.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  > Conservative Googlers have been leaking people's names and locations to known white supremacists to harass and threaten people they disagree with, and the snowball is still growing. Which, somehow, is not condemned by a single one of the people crying about freedom of speech here. Goes to show that there's only one kind of freedom of speech they care about, and it's theirs.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Kellyanne Conway Kellyanne Conway is a Trump partisan, not a conservative thought leader. I think you're mixing up Trump-style populists with conservatives. Conservatives backed Rubio and Cruz and are still irked (at least) that Trump is president.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Maybe a googler can explain how and why this has exploded into the zeitgeist Not a Googler, but it is pretty clear that it has exploded because the subject matter intersects with prominent issues in the (increasingly literal rather than figurative) culture war in America.
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
> If Google has a mono-culture that's not open to debate about gender and diversity issues, it's neither my business nor my concern 1. Many people feel discriminated against due to these affirmative action policies. If there were policies set in stone saying white men got precedence over black women, would you say "who the hell cares?" 2. The opinions expressed by that Googler are held by many people employed in the company. The fact that the company would sooner fire him instead of discussing the points he raised and explain why he's wrong seems to confirm his claim that there is an echo chamber, which isn't exactly conducive to a meritocratic structure. 3. Google is an incredibly large multinational corporation. What happens there will set precedent for companies around the world. If AA weakens there, it's a sign that corporate policies may change globally.
- khazhoux 9y ago
  > 2. The opinions expressed by that Googler are held by many people employed in the company. The fact that the company would sooner fire him instead of discussing the points he raised and explain why he's wrong seems to confirm his claim that there is an echo chamber, which isn't exactly conducive to a meritocratic structure. I have to imagine Sundar was flooded with emails saying "fire him or I quit." I also imagine there were less-incendiary ways for him to propose his viewpoints. He could have left out his obviously-controversial "facts" (which most people with common sense, I claim, would know were gonna piss people off), or he could have talked directly to HR or his manager or even to Sundar about the diversity policies. The way it played out, he chose probably the most explosive exposition and forum. So Sundar had a right to fire him just on those grounds: not for the opinions expressed, but for the effect of enraging the entire company, and likewise for not having the common sense NOT to piss off all your co-workers. In fact, he did say the firing was for creating a toxic work environment.
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    > I have to imagine Sundar was flooded with emails saying "fire him or I quit." In a company as large and diverse as Google, there will always be people like that during any public outrage. What's telling is that Google gave in to the desires of that particular kind of person. The fired Googler raised his viewpoint in an internal forum designed for that kind of conversation in a respectable manner and with citations. The fact that doing so enraged the entire company tells of a culture that is unable or unwilling to question itself. In such a defensive culture, doing something "enraging" is required to expose the cultural bubble.
caseysoftware 9y ago
I would generally agree with you except for the fact that Google - through both algorithms and manual tweaking - determines what most people see on a daily basis. If Google is a monoculture and yet allows or even encourages dissenting opinion and discussion, we have absolutely nothing to worry about. Alternatively, if Google is a monoculture and forces that monoculture on its visitors and users, then any out/other group is going to suffer and potentially not even realize it. And it turns out that the subtle manipulation is incredibly effective: > "We predicted that our manipulation would produce a very small effect, if any, but that’s not what we found. On average, we were able to shift the proportion of people favouring any given candidate by more than 20 per cent overall and more than 60 per cent in some demographic groups. Even more disturbing, 99.5 per cent of our participants showed no awareness that they were viewing biased search rankings – in other words, that they were being manipulated." Ref: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...
- khazhoux 9y ago
  > If Google is a monoculture and yet allows or even encourages dissenting opinion and discussion, we have absolutely nothing to worry about. Alternatively, if Google is a monoculture and forces that monoculture on its visitors and users, then any out/other group is going to suffer and potentially not even realize it. I understand there's an issue of trust, however every Googler will tell you that impartiality of search results is an overriding priority.
  - freshhawk 9y ago
    Except that the impartiality of a biased monoculture made up of human beings will not actually be impartial. But it strongly believe that it is impartial and be resistant to any change.
    - khazhoux 9y ago
      You can strike of "biased mono" and your statement is more generally true. The impartiality of Google search results is always going to be in question so long as there are humans in the loop. But... this has been recognized by Google's search team since day 1. It's not a new problem. Diversity issues did not suddenly introduce the question of bias into Google's search quality team. Though perhaps it's the first time many people outside Google have recognized the issue of potential bias.
cm2187 9y ago
I don't think it has that much to do with Google than with the enforcement of PC in large companies. It could have happened in a bank or a lawfirm, though those behave more as a club than the silicon valley, and therefore can apply even more pressure on their employees. I think the noise comes from the fact that not everyone agrees with these diversity programs as I think the heated debates on HN illustrated. The debate is impossible internally (as the firing of that guy illustrates, but that's not specific to google, these diversity programs are not up for discussion where I work too), therefore the debate happened outside of google through the proxy of that guy.
cabalamat 9y ago
> Instead of downvote, maybe an explanation on WHY I downvoted you, not for your opinons, but for this: > "Oh my god, who the hell cares?!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0 Too Redditesque for me. What next -- advice animal memes?
- khazhoux 9y ago
  Sorry I wasn't more erudite.

btian 9y ago

In the conservative circle, this is considered a "crusade" against "conservative values". That's why you see tweets from the likes of Kellyanne Conway. Conservative Googlers have been leaking people's names and locations to known white supremacists to harass and threaten people they disagree with, and the snowball is still growing.

khazhoux 9y ago
Indeed, this plays into their narrative of hippy-dippy Berkeley liberal feminist handouts entitlement cosmopolitan California.
- mcguire 9y ago
  "Fired Google engineer compares high-paid tech job to Soviet forced labor": https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/10/16127968/fired-google-engineer-compares-high-paid-tech-job-to-soviet-forced-labor https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/10/16127968/fired-google-eng...
sheepmullet 9y ago
Kind of like how the original memo was leaked and resulted in a huge number of threats towards the author? How it resulted in him being fired? People hate it when the alt-right uses the tactics of the left.
dguaraglia 9y ago
> Conservative Googlers have been leaking people's names and locations to known white supremacists to harass and threaten people they disagree with, and the snowball is still growing. Which, somehow, is not condemned by a single one of the people crying about freedom of speech here. Goes to show that there's only one kind of freedom of speech they care about, and it's theirs.
humanrebar 9y ago
> Kellyanne Conway Kellyanne Conway is a Trump partisan, not a conservative thought leader. I think you're mixing up Trump-style populists with conservatives. Conservatives backed Rubio and Cruz and are still irked (at least) that Trump is president.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Maybe a googler can explain how and why this has exploded into the zeitgeist Not a Googler, but it is pretty clear that it has exploded because the subject matter intersects with prominent issues in the (increasingly literal rather than figurative) culture war in America.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

> If Google has a mono-culture that's not open to debate about gender and diversity issues, it's neither my business nor my concern 1. Many people feel discriminated against due to these affirmative action policies. If there were policies set in stone saying white men got precedence over black women, would you say "who the hell cares?" 2. The opinions expressed by that Googler are held by many people employed in the company. The fact that the company would sooner fire him instead of discussing the points he raised and explain why he's wrong seems to confirm his claim that there is an echo chamber, which isn't exactly conducive to a meritocratic structure. 3. Google is an incredibly large multinational corporation. What happens there will set precedent for companies around the world. If AA weakens there, it's a sign that corporate policies may change globally.

khazhoux 9y ago
> 2. The opinions expressed by that Googler are held by many people employed in the company. The fact that the company would sooner fire him instead of discussing the points he raised and explain why he's wrong seems to confirm his claim that there is an echo chamber, which isn't exactly conducive to a meritocratic structure. I have to imagine Sundar was flooded with emails saying "fire him or I quit." I also imagine there were less-incendiary ways for him to propose his viewpoints. He could have left out his obviously-controversial "facts" (which most people with common sense, I claim, would know were gonna piss people off), or he could have talked directly to HR or his manager or even to Sundar about the diversity policies. The way it played out, he chose probably the most explosive exposition and forum. So Sundar had a right to fire him just on those grounds: not for the opinions expressed, but for the effect of enraging the entire company, and likewise for not having the common sense NOT to piss off all your co-workers. In fact, he did say the firing was for creating a toxic work environment.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  > I have to imagine Sundar was flooded with emails saying "fire him or I quit." In a company as large and diverse as Google, there will always be people like that during any public outrage. What's telling is that Google gave in to the desires of that particular kind of person. The fired Googler raised his viewpoint in an internal forum designed for that kind of conversation in a respectable manner and with citations. The fact that doing so enraged the entire company tells of a culture that is unable or unwilling to question itself. In such a defensive culture, doing something "enraging" is required to expose the cultural bubble.

caseysoftware 9y ago

I would generally agree with you except for the fact that Google - through both algorithms and manual tweaking - determines what most people see on a daily basis. If Google is a monoculture and yet allows or even encourages dissenting opinion and discussion, we have absolutely nothing to worry about. Alternatively, if Google is a monoculture and forces that monoculture on its visitors and users, then any out/other group is going to suffer and potentially not even realize it. And it turns out that the subtle manipulation is incredibly effective: > "We predicted that our manipulation would produce a very small effect, if any, but that’s not what we found. On average, we were able to shift the proportion of people favouring any given candidate by more than 20 per cent overall and more than 60 per cent in some demographic groups. Even more disturbing, 99.5 per cent of our participants showed no awareness that they were viewing biased search rankings – in other words, that they were being manipulated." Ref: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...

khazhoux 9y ago
> If Google is a monoculture and yet allows or even encourages dissenting opinion and discussion, we have absolutely nothing to worry about. Alternatively, if Google is a monoculture and forces that monoculture on its visitors and users, then any out/other group is going to suffer and potentially not even realize it. I understand there's an issue of trust, however every Googler will tell you that impartiality of search results is an overriding priority.
- freshhawk 9y ago
  Except that the impartiality of a biased monoculture made up of human beings will not actually be impartial. But it strongly believe that it is impartial and be resistant to any change.
  - khazhoux 9y ago
    You can strike of "biased mono" and your statement is more generally true. The impartiality of Google search results is always going to be in question so long as there are humans in the loop. But... this has been recognized by Google's search team since day 1. It's not a new problem. Diversity issues did not suddenly introduce the question of bias into Google's search quality team. Though perhaps it's the first time many people outside Google have recognized the issue of potential bias.

cm2187 9y ago

I don't think it has that much to do with Google than with the enforcement of PC in large companies. It could have happened in a bank or a lawfirm, though those behave more as a club than the silicon valley, and therefore can apply even more pressure on their employees. I think the noise comes from the fact that not everyone agrees with these diversity programs as I think the heated debates on HN illustrated. The debate is impossible internally (as the firing of that guy illustrates, but that's not specific to google, these diversity programs are not up for discussion where I work too), therefore the debate happened outside of google through the proxy of that guy.

cabalamat 9y ago

> Instead of downvote, maybe an explanation on WHY I downvoted you, not for your opinons, but for this: > "Oh my god, who the hell cares?!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0 Too Redditesque for me. What next -- advice animal memes?

khazhoux 9y ago
Sorry I wasn't more erudite.