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The tone of the responses are objectively creepy. Almost cultish. It makes you wonder if FB has become known as an amazing place to work because their HR org ha

The tone of the responses are objectively creepy. Almost cultish. It makes you wonder if FB has become known as an amazing place to work because their HR org had become so good at selling the FB culture to anyone who joins to keep them in line. Now that mirage has a few cracks in it and executives are freaking out. Reminds me of Westworld.

mlb_hn 9y ago
There's also selection bias at work here though - the only responses that'll get media attention are the ones that are novel or 'newsworthy' - we aren't seeing the normal boring comments.
- dawhizkid 9y ago
  It's unusual for a company that big to have so few leaks in their 14 years of existence, especially one that is that high profile. My understanding is that FB does not have a "fear-based" culture that would've prevented leaks, so really the only way they could keep people in line at scale is if there was a cultish element to their onboarding process that makes people "love" FB so much that employees are actually so offended by a leaker to make comments like this.
  - lovelearning 9y ago
    But it does have a fear-based culture when it comes to leaks. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/facebooks-secret-police-catchers-leakers-former-employee-alleges.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/facebooks-secret-police-catc...
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      Fairly capable private investigative and security forces are pretty common for tech companies now. I am not surprised Facebook falls into this category. Google's is run by a guy named Brian Katz, who's been the subject of a lawsuit before: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/anonymous-googler-files-suit-against-his-employer-over-secrecy-policies/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/anonymous-google... and the very same has allegedly threatened a bartender who found a prototype Nexus 4: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224589/Google-threatened-bartender-employee-accidentally-left-secret-phone-bar.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224589/Google-threa... Apple security folks have tossed a guy's home looking for a prototype iPhone, escorted by police. All of them, allegedly, had badges: https://gizmodo.com/5836990/lost-iphone-5-investigators-were-impersonating-police https://gizmodo.com/5836990/lost-iphone-5-investigators-were... They obviously can intimidate employees into silence, but it's far more useful and beneficial for morale to go for the "loyalty" angle, and make sure employees shame others who leak.
      - DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
        you'd be surprised by the number of "job opportunities" where Mike Ehrmantraut skills are required (jobs subcontracted to subcontractors) in multinational corporations.
- deleted 9y ago
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mrits 9y ago
That is some real interesting insight derived from a gossip column about a few facebook posts.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
You can see the same approach at Google. Leaks are characterized as betrayal of the Google family/social group. The goal of this seems to be to ideally prevent people from leaking things they can't be fired for leaking. You leak of trade secret, you can be fired. But if you talk about work practices, that's a legally protected right that these companies don't want you to talk about. If they can make people who do feel ostracized and like they're betraying their family, maybe they'll reconsider sharing what goes on behind the curtain.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  There are three kinds of leaks. Those that leak upcoming products or company roadmaps, those that leak internal company reorgs, meetings, mailing lists/announcements, and those that leak gripes. I assume you're ok with people being mad about leaked products they've been working hard on for years having their big debut ruined? So why would employees be mad about the leaking of internal meetings or discussions? Because in the majority of the cases, these leaks don't hurt company management, they hurt employees. Several times in the past, Googlers have had their physical or mental safety threatened by such leaks. What you see as a company discussion leaked, turns out to be a real life Doxx-ing of employees. Would Damore have been fired if someone hadn't leaked his memo externally? Probably not, he'd be quietly transferred by HR and maybe managed out, but able to preserve his career elsewhere in the valley. The response to his firing was that the internal company meeting questions got leaked and the real names of several female and transgender employees got forwarded to alt-right sites, which proceeded to harass them, send death threats, etc. And one year, an "innocent" leak of Google's yearly company Christmas present, a brown envelope with cash in it, put the physical safety of Googlers at risk, because Google Shuttle bus stops are well known and Googlers are easily identified in public, and that day, everyone knew Googlers would be carrying hundreds of dollars of cash in brown envelopes. These leaks often harm employees, not management.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Allegedly, Google's confidentially demands go well beyond not disclosing product launches, as a lawsuit that, to my knowledge, has not been concluded, has claimed: https://www.scribd.com/document/334736972/John-Doe-vs-Google-Inc#fullscreen&from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/334736972/John-Doe-vs-Google... Furthermore, you can see in this letter from Brian Katz, the head of stopleaks, more or less everything discussed here, and certainly, it coming from "management": https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/katz-letter-google.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/katz-letter-google.pdf (Actually, everything here is useful/interesting: https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/discovery.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/discovery.pdf ) Note that he expressly suggests bringing concerns to a manager rather than speaking publicly about them, which likely includes concerns about working conditions or illegal conduct. He also cites the whole "damages our culture" aspect that is extremely relevant to the topic at hand. Edit: Removed off-topic addressing of removed content from parent post.
dotsh 9y ago
Yea, they sell culture and give away free food. As you can see[0], most devs at FB are eating, traveling, eating, going to cafes or eating some more. ;-) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWFDujYzvbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWFDujYzvbI
marricks 9y ago
The Guardian has a great piece on this, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-valley-internal-work-spying-surveillance-leakers https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-v... Below is an excerpt ——— The public image of Silicon Valley’s tech giants is all colourful bicycles, ping-pong tables, beanbags and free food, but behind the cartoonish facade is a ruthless code of secrecy. They rely on a combination of Kool-Aid, digital and physical surveillance, legal threats and restricted stock units to prevent and detect intellectual property theft and other criminal activity. However, those same tools are also used to catch employees and contractors who talk publicly, even if it’s about their working conditions, misconduct or cultural challenges within the company.
- candiodari 9y ago
  I wonder, I work as a consultant, and if you think surveillance at a place like Google or Facebook (from what I've been able to tell at interview), surveillance there is minimal. McDonalds, and more general retail businesses, Target, Walgreens, ..., call centres, ... those are the ones both installing massive surveillance and actually getting it analyzed. Or at least, enough to pay me loads of money to make it possible, and I've had some conversations, they do this routinely. And frankly, I'm pretty sure that since this is directed by low-level managers (you can't do it otherwise, not at that scale, all tracking is done by the store manager) there will be tons and tons of abuse of these systems. I mean for trivial reasons, like stealing, attempting to make a false accusation of stealing stick, stalking girls (or even men), that sort of thing. From what I can tell, at FB the entrances and exits, some presumably high value locations inside and to a lesser extent the parking lot, those are the places under surveillance. I'm pretty sure that at most places in the FB buildings nobody can see you on any security monitor (it's one of those open plan offices, not much privacy, easy to get everything under surveillance, but they're not doing it. I've been to several call centres where surveillance was utterly pervasive in the same sort of environment. Although the environment was much, much better at FB. Big open office plan, but the air was perfect, for lack of a better word. It wasn't cramped at all, it wasn't like those call centres at all, no wall smelled, not like smoke, not like oil, nothing like that). And of course you hear stories, like "sneaking" into the office on sunday for a board game because it's an easy place and central for everyone to get together is pretty normal. Of course I realize that this is "fake" like it is fake at any company. Unless you're the CEO AND own a majority of the shares, the company is not a social club, it is not there to have your back. But they have that vibe going there, and they wouldn't have that vibe if they broke it for trivial reasons. > legal threats and restricted stock units to prevent and detect intellectual property theft Protecting yourself against insider threats by giving employees means for a good life ! How UNAMERICAN ! I'm pretty sure at your local supermarket you'd find those same threats, except they're totally pervasive. Every employee will have been threatened, and I assure you, ... ... not with restricted stock units or any kind of reward.
heymijo 9y ago
Identity and cognitive dissonance. I would imagine people at FB that believe working there is objectively good are having a hard time reconciling that belief with the negative externalities that are playing out in society at large.
protonimitate 9y ago
Everyone puts them (and other Big N) on such a pedestal that when they finally land the job they feel like the company is a reflection of them as a person. If you see working at one of these companies as a status symbol, you'll do whatever it takes to protect that image.
Analemma_ 9y ago
Agreed, but I would point out that if I were an FB employee and I disagreed with the memo, I certainly wouldn't be saying "yeah, we suck" on the highly-traceable internal discussion board! I'd say that stuff face-to-face with people I trusted at the water cooler or something. There's a strong selection bias at work here in these posts and I think it's a serious statistical error to assume this represents the median view of Facebook employees.

mlb_hn 9y ago

There's also selection bias at work here though - the only responses that'll get media attention are the ones that are novel or 'newsworthy' - we aren't seeing the normal boring comments.

dawhizkid 9y ago
It's unusual for a company that big to have so few leaks in their 14 years of existence, especially one that is that high profile. My understanding is that FB does not have a "fear-based" culture that would've prevented leaks, so really the only way they could keep people in line at scale is if there was a cultish element to their onboarding process that makes people "love" FB so much that employees are actually so offended by a leaker to make comments like this.
- lovelearning 9y ago
  But it does have a fear-based culture when it comes to leaks. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/facebooks-secret-police-catchers-leakers-former-employee-alleges.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/facebooks-secret-police-catc...
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Fairly capable private investigative and security forces are pretty common for tech companies now. I am not surprised Facebook falls into this category. Google's is run by a guy named Brian Katz, who's been the subject of a lawsuit before: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/anonymous-googler-files-suit-against-his-employer-over-secrecy-policies/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/anonymous-google... and the very same has allegedly threatened a bartender who found a prototype Nexus 4: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224589/Google-threatened-bartender-employee-accidentally-left-secret-phone-bar.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224589/Google-threa... Apple security folks have tossed a guy's home looking for a prototype iPhone, escorted by police. All of them, allegedly, had badges: https://gizmodo.com/5836990/lost-iphone-5-investigators-were-impersonating-police https://gizmodo.com/5836990/lost-iphone-5-investigators-were... They obviously can intimidate employees into silence, but it's far more useful and beneficial for morale to go for the "loyalty" angle, and make sure employees shame others who leak.
    - DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
      you'd be surprised by the number of "job opportunities" where Mike Ehrmantraut skills are required (jobs subcontracted to subcontractors) in multinational corporations.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

mrits 9y ago

That is some real interesting insight derived from a gossip column about a few facebook posts.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

You can see the same approach at Google. Leaks are characterized as betrayal of the Google family/social group. The goal of this seems to be to ideally prevent people from leaking things they can't be fired for leaking. You leak of trade secret, you can be fired. But if you talk about work practices, that's a legally protected right that these companies don't want you to talk about. If they can make people who do feel ostracized and like they're betraying their family, maybe they'll reconsider sharing what goes on behind the curtain.

cromwellian 9y ago
There are three kinds of leaks. Those that leak upcoming products or company roadmaps, those that leak internal company reorgs, meetings, mailing lists/announcements, and those that leak gripes. I assume you're ok with people being mad about leaked products they've been working hard on for years having their big debut ruined? So why would employees be mad about the leaking of internal meetings or discussions? Because in the majority of the cases, these leaks don't hurt company management, they hurt employees. Several times in the past, Googlers have had their physical or mental safety threatened by such leaks. What you see as a company discussion leaked, turns out to be a real life Doxx-ing of employees. Would Damore have been fired if someone hadn't leaked his memo externally? Probably not, he'd be quietly transferred by HR and maybe managed out, but able to preserve his career elsewhere in the valley. The response to his firing was that the internal company meeting questions got leaked and the real names of several female and transgender employees got forwarded to alt-right sites, which proceeded to harass them, send death threats, etc. And one year, an "innocent" leak of Google's yearly company Christmas present, a brown envelope with cash in it, put the physical safety of Googlers at risk, because Google Shuttle bus stops are well known and Googlers are easily identified in public, and that day, everyone knew Googlers would be carrying hundreds of dollars of cash in brown envelopes. These leaks often harm employees, not management.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Allegedly, Google's confidentially demands go well beyond not disclosing product launches, as a lawsuit that, to my knowledge, has not been concluded, has claimed: https://www.scribd.com/document/334736972/John-Doe-vs-Google-Inc#fullscreen&from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/334736972/John-Doe-vs-Google... Furthermore, you can see in this letter from Brian Katz, the head of stopleaks, more or less everything discussed here, and certainly, it coming from "management": https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/katz-letter-google.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/katz-letter-google.pdf (Actually, everything here is useful/interesting: https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/discovery.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/22/discovery.pdf ) Note that he expressly suggests bringing concerns to a manager rather than speaking publicly about them, which likely includes concerns about working conditions or illegal conduct. He also cites the whole "damages our culture" aspect that is extremely relevant to the topic at hand. Edit: Removed off-topic addressing of removed content from parent post.

dotsh 9y ago

Yea, they sell culture and give away free food. As you can see[0], most devs at FB are eating, traveling, eating, going to cafes or eating some more. ;-) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWFDujYzvbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWFDujYzvbI

marricks 9y ago

The Guardian has a great piece on this, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-valley-internal-work-spying-surveillance-leakers https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-v... Below is an excerpt ——— The public image of Silicon Valley’s tech giants is all colourful bicycles, ping-pong tables, beanbags and free food, but behind the cartoonish facade is a ruthless code of secrecy. They rely on a combination of Kool-Aid, digital and physical surveillance, legal threats and restricted stock units to prevent and detect intellectual property theft and other criminal activity. However, those same tools are also used to catch employees and contractors who talk publicly, even if it’s about their working conditions, misconduct or cultural challenges within the company.

candiodari 9y ago
I wonder, I work as a consultant, and if you think surveillance at a place like Google or Facebook (from what I've been able to tell at interview), surveillance there is minimal. McDonalds, and more general retail businesses, Target, Walgreens, ..., call centres, ... those are the ones both installing massive surveillance and actually getting it analyzed. Or at least, enough to pay me loads of money to make it possible, and I've had some conversations, they do this routinely. And frankly, I'm pretty sure that since this is directed by low-level managers (you can't do it otherwise, not at that scale, all tracking is done by the store manager) there will be tons and tons of abuse of these systems. I mean for trivial reasons, like stealing, attempting to make a false accusation of stealing stick, stalking girls (or even men), that sort of thing. From what I can tell, at FB the entrances and exits, some presumably high value locations inside and to a lesser extent the parking lot, those are the places under surveillance. I'm pretty sure that at most places in the FB buildings nobody can see you on any security monitor (it's one of those open plan offices, not much privacy, easy to get everything under surveillance, but they're not doing it. I've been to several call centres where surveillance was utterly pervasive in the same sort of environment. Although the environment was much, much better at FB. Big open office plan, but the air was perfect, for lack of a better word. It wasn't cramped at all, it wasn't like those call centres at all, no wall smelled, not like smoke, not like oil, nothing like that). And of course you hear stories, like "sneaking" into the office on sunday for a board game because it's an easy place and central for everyone to get together is pretty normal. Of course I realize that this is "fake" like it is fake at any company. Unless you're the CEO AND own a majority of the shares, the company is not a social club, it is not there to have your back. But they have that vibe going there, and they wouldn't have that vibe if they broke it for trivial reasons. > legal threats and restricted stock units to prevent and detect intellectual property theft Protecting yourself against insider threats by giving employees means for a good life ! How UNAMERICAN ! I'm pretty sure at your local supermarket you'd find those same threats, except they're totally pervasive. Every employee will have been threatened, and I assure you, ... ... not with restricted stock units or any kind of reward.

heymijo 9y ago

Identity and cognitive dissonance. I would imagine people at FB that believe working there is objectively good are having a hard time reconciling that belief with the negative externalities that are playing out in society at large.

protonimitate 9y ago

Everyone puts them (and other Big N) on such a pedestal that when they finally land the job they feel like the company is a reflection of them as a person. If you see working at one of these companies as a status symbol, you'll do whatever it takes to protect that image.

Analemma_ 9y ago

Agreed, but I would point out that if I were an FB employee and I disagreed with the memo, I certainly wouldn't be saying "yeah, we suck" on the highly-traceable internal discussion board! I'd say that stuff face-to-face with people I trusted at the water cooler or something. There's a strong selection bias at work here in these posts and I think it's a serious statistical error to assume this represents the median view of Facebook employees.