6 ms·

It's not just being seen with someone. He went to a public, televised hearing to sit behind him. It's a show of support coming from a public face of FB.

by lenzm 8y ago

dvtrn 8y ago
"him" is his friend FTA. I feel like there's a gap between appearing at these hearings at surface level and showing up because its your friend giving testimony. Maybe I'm being too nuanced and applying too much of the human element by looking at it like so but it's that very gap between supporting Kabanaugh the nominee who lost his temper in a SJC hearing and supporting Kavanaugh his friend accused of sexual assault and the focus of a Senate confirmation and FBI investigation that makes me take the position I have here.
- paulmd 8y ago
  It's pretty well-established that you can be fired or suffer repercussions by your employer, for things that you do on your own personal time. There's plenty of people who did something shocking or offensive, a video went viral, and they found they'd lost their mcjob, so let's not pretend this is unusual at all. If anything stricter standards should be applied to upper management than to the rank-and-file, because part of the job is absolutely to be publically representing facebook, so it's really unsurprising that people are perceiving it as such. Keeping your nose clean is part of why they pay you the big bucks. Kaplan is free to go to this as a private citizen, people are free to be shocked by it, and Facebook is free to do something about it if the negative attention becomes a liability. That's how things work. Unlike the McJob worker, if they do want to get rid of him, he'll have a nice golden parachute, I'm sure.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    I would love to be a fly on the wall in whatever court room is utilized for the inevitable lawsuit that comes from someone getting fired for attending a government function that is arguably in the interest of public policy like a SCOTUS confirmation hearing. Especially when that person has the job title of "VP of Global Public Policy", at-will or right-to-work laws be damned. Edit: And no. This isn't me saying that's what should happen or even trying to publicly litigate whether or not such a person would win or should win. Just that that behavior sounds like something that would immediately get an employee sued and I'd really be interested to hear the legal arguments from both sides and the opinion of the court.
    - paulmd 8y ago
      So we pivot from "he's just a private citizen supporting his friend on his own time, nothing to do with Facebook!" back to "he's representing Facebook in his professional capacity as a senior management figure"? You can't have it both ways. Being honest here, there is no direct connection to Facebook's interests. This is not a court case in which Facebook has some stake, at best they would just be there to "show the colors". Either way you take it, someone is supporting Kav here. It's either Kaplan personally, or Facebook professionally. (and again, I am also not commenting here about whether he should be confirmed or not, but let's not pretend that everybody just showed up for a free 8oz bottle of water. Whether Kaplan's interest is personal or official, there is an interest.)
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        I'm not trying to have it both ways, I'm remarking that there may be a very simple and good reason for Kaplan to appear while recognizing there could be very interesting outcomes if-as you put it-he or anyone else were to lose their job for it. This isn't a remarkably difficult exercise of mental plurality. Nor is it one of partisan critique. If someone attends a government function as a private citizen and is fired for it, I think that would make for an interesting set of legal questions with regards to employment law. If someone were fired for doing the same even in an official capacity, that-to me-would be even more interesting. Since you brought up strict standards for certain levels of employees, I responded to that. You can't very logically say my response to this is trying to have it both ways if all I've done is respond to your talking points. That's all there is to that, imo. Don't read between the lines here because there's really nothing there to read; I am positing that one really doesn't need to connect many dots for Kaplan's attendance at these hearings, but I can entertain the idea you presented: that being fired for attending a government function would make for interesting legal theater as an impartial and dispassionate onlooker.
  - aliston 8y ago
    While all those statements are technically true, the band of what has become acceptable in Silicon Valley has apparently swung so far to the left that supporting a respected US Circuit Judge in his nomination to the Supreme Court is enough to cause “shock.” In my view, that is the problem - some in our generation believe there is a right to be shielded from dissenting viewpoints to the extent that it has become acceptable in SV to potentially fire someone for what is considered a perfectly reasonable position in most parts of the country.
    - tmh79 8y ago
      > some in our generation believe there is a right to be shielded from dissenting viewpoints I don't think that is the problem at all. Its not that people want to be shielded from dissenting viewpoints, its that the vast majority of people on the right and the left are basically entirely politically disenfranchised, while people like Zuckerberg or Kaplan hold a vastly inordinate amount of power through their connections and their money. What we are seeing here isn't "lefty people crushing dissent", it is "people organizing around and exercising one of the only viable channels of political influence that they have (challenging the means of production of their billionaire boss) in order to exert a tiny amount of political power".
      - aliston 8y ago
        Except in this case Zuckerberg likely agrees with their cause. You don’t see calls from conservative employees at Facebook to fire Sheryl Sandburg for her support of Barack Obama because the predominant political orientation in SV is liberal.
    - archagon 8y ago
      Respected by who? The ACLU, a number of bar associations, several law schools, countless other judges, and even his own roommates have publically denounced Kavanaugh. Don’t pretend this is a matter of ideology.
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        Interesting that you bring up the ACLU here, several lawyers I know have expressed a bit of surprise at the ACLU denouncing Kavanaugh-as they have a long and established track record of NOT speaking out one way or another on SCOTUS nominations-to say nothing of this move being outside of their very on policy on the affair.
  - overcyn 8y ago
    > you can be fired or suffer repercussions by your employer, for things that you do on your own personal time Yes this happens, but should it be the case? Is this something you morally support? Should people be fired for smoking weed in their personal time? Posting on social media? Making a joke to a friend? Donating a political campaign? People have been fired for these things but I don't think it should be lauded. I don't think its healthy for companies to monitor their employee's personal life, so they can punish them at work.
    - lovich 8y ago
      The people in charge of these firings are executives like Zuckerberg and Kaplan. It's completely disengenous to phrase the argument as "should this happen at all?" when it's really "should executives be allowed to punish workers for their personal life choices, while not holding themselves to the same standards?"
      - overcyn 8y ago
        Are you saying that it is a bad thing. But since it is happening it should happen to everyone? If so, it just seems like you're propagating more of bad thing. Why not just advocate for the the corporate world to be more accepting of personal life choices? Firing Kaplan doesn't get you any closer to that.
        lovich 8y ago
        Because they are not going to be more accepting. The leadership is only trying to pull this argument out because it bothers them. I agree that when all else is equal, we shouldn't do bad things to one person just because they happened to someone else. All else is not equal here. Given the power Facebook has over their employees lives and in politics in general, they are like a feudal lord. When they stop enforcing the rules on just them and their friends, that's a breakdown of the rule of law which leads to a breakdown of social harmony and leads to people starting to rebel against leadership like you see here with Facebook's employees
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    > It's pretty well-established that you can be fired or suffer repercussions by your employer, for things that you do on your own personal time. In California, you cannot he fired for political activity. Not saying that his act was political activity, but if he is fired for it, it would be because it’s being viewed as a political activity.
    - zaroth 8y ago
      Tell that to Brendan Eich.
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        Brendan Eich wasn't fired. He stepped down voluntarily. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-...
        Reelin 8y ago
        You know, forced resignation is a legally recognized construct. I don't pretend to have any idea what actually happened behind the scenes here, but given the circumstances I can't blindly take his resignation at face value.
        dvtrn 8y ago
        I wouldn't blame you for it, either. Just stating the facts as we have them
        BrendanEich 8y ago
        Speaking purely hypothetically, there are three possibilities: 1. I resigned without negotiating a constructive separation. 2. I resigned but with a constructive separation leveraged by legal and other (e.g., public relations) risks inherent in (1) and (3), but about which I cannot talk. 3. I was fired under color of resignation, but I for some reason did not pursue legal action under CA Labor Law (1101,1102). Hope this helps! Probably not, but it should put a stake through any false dilemma (binary exclusive/exhaustive choice).
woodpanel 8y ago
To be fair, would anyone have recognized him there without this article pointing it out? To make this claim valid, that this is a public show of support a multiple of stars would have to align here: Joel Kaplan must have thought that he's famous enough that people will recognize him in public, better yet the third row of that testimony AND know that he's not a bystander or supporter of the alleged victims, but of the accused. And that he wanted to antagonize half of FB's staff about it.

It's not just being seen with someone. He went to a public, televised hearing to sit behind him. It's a show of support coming from a public face of FB.

by lenzm 8y ago

It's not just being seen with someone. He went to a public, televised hearing to sit behind him. It's a show of support coming from a public face of FB.

dvtrn 8y ago

"him" is his friend FTA. I feel like there's a gap between appearing at these hearings at surface level and showing up because its your friend giving testimony. Maybe I'm being too nuanced and applying too much of the human element by looking at it like so but it's that very gap between supporting Kabanaugh the nominee who lost his temper in a SJC hearing and supporting Kavanaugh his friend accused of sexual assault and the focus of a Senate confirmation and FBI investigation that makes me take the position I have here.

paulmd 8y ago
It's pretty well-established that you can be fired or suffer repercussions by your employer, for things that you do on your own personal time. There's plenty of people who did something shocking or offensive, a video went viral, and they found they'd lost their mcjob, so let's not pretend this is unusual at all. If anything stricter standards should be applied to upper management than to the rank-and-file, because part of the job is absolutely to be publically representing facebook, so it's really unsurprising that people are perceiving it as such. Keeping your nose clean is part of why they pay you the big bucks. Kaplan is free to go to this as a private citizen, people are free to be shocked by it, and Facebook is free to do something about it if the negative attention becomes a liability. That's how things work. Unlike the McJob worker, if they do want to get rid of him, he'll have a nice golden parachute, I'm sure.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  I would love to be a fly on the wall in whatever court room is utilized for the inevitable lawsuit that comes from someone getting fired for attending a government function that is arguably in the interest of public policy like a SCOTUS confirmation hearing. Especially when that person has the job title of "VP of Global Public Policy", at-will or right-to-work laws be damned. Edit: And no. This isn't me saying that's what should happen or even trying to publicly litigate whether or not such a person would win or should win. Just that that behavior sounds like something that would immediately get an employee sued and I'd really be interested to hear the legal arguments from both sides and the opinion of the court.
  - paulmd 8y ago
    So we pivot from "he's just a private citizen supporting his friend on his own time, nothing to do with Facebook!" back to "he's representing Facebook in his professional capacity as a senior management figure"? You can't have it both ways. Being honest here, there is no direct connection to Facebook's interests. This is not a court case in which Facebook has some stake, at best they would just be there to "show the colors". Either way you take it, someone is supporting Kav here. It's either Kaplan personally, or Facebook professionally. (and again, I am also not commenting here about whether he should be confirmed or not, but let's not pretend that everybody just showed up for a free 8oz bottle of water. Whether Kaplan's interest is personal or official, there is an interest.)
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      I'm not trying to have it both ways, I'm remarking that there may be a very simple and good reason for Kaplan to appear while recognizing there could be very interesting outcomes if-as you put it-he or anyone else were to lose their job for it. This isn't a remarkably difficult exercise of mental plurality. Nor is it one of partisan critique. If someone attends a government function as a private citizen and is fired for it, I think that would make for an interesting set of legal questions with regards to employment law. If someone were fired for doing the same even in an official capacity, that-to me-would be even more interesting. Since you brought up strict standards for certain levels of employees, I responded to that. You can't very logically say my response to this is trying to have it both ways if all I've done is respond to your talking points. That's all there is to that, imo. Don't read between the lines here because there's really nothing there to read; I am positing that one really doesn't need to connect many dots for Kaplan's attendance at these hearings, but I can entertain the idea you presented: that being fired for attending a government function would make for interesting legal theater as an impartial and dispassionate onlooker.
- aliston 8y ago
  While all those statements are technically true, the band of what has become acceptable in Silicon Valley has apparently swung so far to the left that supporting a respected US Circuit Judge in his nomination to the Supreme Court is enough to cause “shock.” In my view, that is the problem - some in our generation believe there is a right to be shielded from dissenting viewpoints to the extent that it has become acceptable in SV to potentially fire someone for what is considered a perfectly reasonable position in most parts of the country.
  - tmh79 8y ago
    > some in our generation believe there is a right to be shielded from dissenting viewpoints I don't think that is the problem at all. Its not that people want to be shielded from dissenting viewpoints, its that the vast majority of people on the right and the left are basically entirely politically disenfranchised, while people like Zuckerberg or Kaplan hold a vastly inordinate amount of power through their connections and their money. What we are seeing here isn't "lefty people crushing dissent", it is "people organizing around and exercising one of the only viable channels of political influence that they have (challenging the means of production of their billionaire boss) in order to exert a tiny amount of political power".
    - aliston 8y ago
      Except in this case Zuckerberg likely agrees with their cause. You don’t see calls from conservative employees at Facebook to fire Sheryl Sandburg for her support of Barack Obama because the predominant political orientation in SV is liberal.
  - archagon 8y ago
    Respected by who? The ACLU, a number of bar associations, several law schools, countless other judges, and even his own roommates have publically denounced Kavanaugh. Don’t pretend this is a matter of ideology.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Interesting that you bring up the ACLU here, several lawyers I know have expressed a bit of surprise at the ACLU denouncing Kavanaugh-as they have a long and established track record of NOT speaking out one way or another on SCOTUS nominations-to say nothing of this move being outside of their very on policy on the affair.
- overcyn 8y ago
  > you can be fired or suffer repercussions by your employer, for things that you do on your own personal time Yes this happens, but should it be the case? Is this something you morally support? Should people be fired for smoking weed in their personal time? Posting on social media? Making a joke to a friend? Donating a political campaign? People have been fired for these things but I don't think it should be lauded. I don't think its healthy for companies to monitor their employee's personal life, so they can punish them at work.
  - lovich 8y ago
    The people in charge of these firings are executives like Zuckerberg and Kaplan. It's completely disengenous to phrase the argument as "should this happen at all?" when it's really "should executives be allowed to punish workers for their personal life choices, while not holding themselves to the same standards?"
    - overcyn 8y ago
      Are you saying that it is a bad thing. But since it is happening it should happen to everyone? If so, it just seems like you're propagating more of bad thing. Why not just advocate for the the corporate world to be more accepting of personal life choices? Firing Kaplan doesn't get you any closer to that.
      - lovich 8y ago
        Because they are not going to be more accepting. The leadership is only trying to pull this argument out because it bothers them. I agree that when all else is equal, we shouldn't do bad things to one person just because they happened to someone else. All else is not equal here. Given the power Facebook has over their employees lives and in politics in general, they are like a feudal lord. When they stop enforcing the rules on just them and their friends, that's a breakdown of the rule of law which leads to a breakdown of social harmony and leads to people starting to rebel against leadership like you see here with Facebook's employees
- gnicholas 8y ago
  > It's pretty well-established that you can be fired or suffer repercussions by your employer, for things that you do on your own personal time. In California, you cannot he fired for political activity. Not saying that his act was political activity, but if he is fired for it, it would be because it’s being viewed as a political activity.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    Tell that to Brendan Eich.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Brendan Eich wasn't fired. He stepped down voluntarily. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-...
      - Reelin 8y ago
        You know, forced resignation is a legally recognized construct. I don't pretend to have any idea what actually happened behind the scenes here, but given the circumstances I can't blindly take his resignation at face value.
        dvtrn 8y ago
        I wouldn't blame you for it, either. Just stating the facts as we have them
        BrendanEich 8y ago
        Speaking purely hypothetically, there are three possibilities: 1. I resigned without negotiating a constructive separation. 2. I resigned but with a constructive separation leveraged by legal and other (e.g., public relations) risks inherent in (1) and (3), but about which I cannot talk. 3. I was fired under color of resignation, but I for some reason did not pursue legal action under CA Labor Law (1101,1102). Hope this helps! Probably not, but it should put a stake through any false dilemma (binary exclusive/exhaustive choice).

woodpanel 8y ago

To be fair, would anyone have recognized him there without this article pointing it out? To make this claim valid, that this is a public show of support a multiple of stars would have to align here: Joel Kaplan must have thought that he's famous enough that people will recognize him in public, better yet the third row of that testimony AND know that he's not a bystander or supporter of the alleged victims, but of the accused. And that he wanted to antagonize half of FB's staff about it.