5 ms·

This is what the outsized tolerance for internal political activism inside SV companies has resulted in. (European observer)

by tpmx 6y ago

snazz 6y ago
Without getting into the argument of whether any speech is apolitical or whether politics belongs in the workplace, Twitter clearly has a huge place in politics as a result of its nature as the premier social media platform for world leaders and journalists and anyone with an opinion today. Regardless of their internal culture, Twitter will always have to make some political decisions.
- wongarsu 6y ago
  > the premier social media platform for world leaders Mostly one world leader. The rest of them seem to continue to primarily communicate through press conferences, television appearances and other fairly traditional methods.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    .. which they announce on Twitter, or else people and journalists would miss them. Traditional methods are on the way out
3np 6y ago
Hard disagree. It’s inevitable with any company in their position. There should be no company in that position. We need to decentralize and federate. Mastodon is AFAIK the prominent implementation here but regardless, we need to start pushing for and exploring networks and platforms operated under completely different premises.
- tpmx 6y ago
  Just to clarify: You don't disagree with what I wrote, but rather with the existence of something that caused me write something like that in the fist place?
  - 3np 6y ago
    No. I think this has nothing to do with “too much tolerance for political activism in companies”. Perhaps even the opposite.
_qulr 6y ago
Why do you think the pressure is coming from inside? There are billions of people watching these platforms. Even governments scrutinizing them. Unruly employees are fairly easy to handle, as long as there's not outside pressure too, but in this case the outside pressures are immense.
- TigeriusKirk 6y ago
  The changes give Twitter employees a vast amount of power over determining what's allowed to be said and what isn't. That fact alone makes me believe this is a result of internal pressure.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    Social network moderators are almost always low-paid, low-power, low-profile employees. It's not a great job. It's a high-volume job, like an assembly line. The highly compensated Twitter and Facebook software engineers are not doing the content moderation. They don't have the time, and they would run away screaming if they had to do it for an hour. It's likely that a lot of this work is even outsourced.
    - tpmx 6y ago
      I assume they have created an hierarchy with a number of different roles. That's generally how you scale people-intensive tasks. I have no idea why you would want to classify all of those roles as "assembly line".
      - _qulr 6y ago
        Let me ask this: what evidence is there that the results of Twitter's censorship are actually in line with the political beliefs of Twitter's employees? In many cases, Twitter's rules have been used to suspend accounts that people thought they were supposed to protect. And Twitter has gone out of its way and contorted every rule in order to protect the President from censorship and suspension, out of "public interest", despite the fact that he has repeatedly violated the rules that would have caused anyone else to be suspended.
JPKab 6y ago
It's really become a religion at this point, with Capitalization of certain Sacred Words and canonical texts that are required reading to even engage in critical discussion of overwrought, overly broad claims. The worst part is that the people in these companies rarely have any experience with traditional religion, let alone extreme/fundamentalist religion, and therefore don't see the obvious patterns used by these extreme activists. I grew up as a dissenter in a fundamentalist Christian family, and the reactions I got when I stood my ground and said that I believed in evolution and a billions year-old earth are incredibly similar to what I see when trying to argue with these extreme activists. Also similar to my fundamentalist upbringing are the subgroup (minority) of people who obviously derive immense satisfaction from their piety, and won't hesitate to condemn others in the in-group for not demonstrating their full dedication to The Mission. These enforcers fit a personality profile that is identical to what I encounter at my overly woke workplace. Recently one of these enforcers told a guy (he was raised by Polish immigrants in a poor, inner-city neighborhood of Philadelphia) that he was wrong when he committed the horrible atrocity of celebrating the purchase of his first car, and saying how he "deserved it" after all these years. She was quick to spoil the happy hour at the outdoor bar by forcing him to acknowledge his privilege.
googthrowaway42 6y ago
I completely agree with you and I used to work at Google and see this kind of activism first hand. It's not just activism though, the C-suites of these companies believe in this kind of thing.
- tpmx 6y ago
  How far up? All the way? Edit: I mean, Sundar must be an opportunist rather than an ideologist, right? Larry and Sergey: I assume very few people know what they actually think about the big issues.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  People forget that SV companies being pro gay rights pre-dated the Obergefell decision.
  - tzs 6y ago
    Being pro gay rights has not really been reasonably mainstream in the US for quite a while now. Overall, the majority has been pro gay rights since around 2004. By 2017 it was 70% for, 24% against. Breaking down by party in 2017, Democrats were 83% for, Republicans 54% for. Women 73% for, men 66% for. White 73%, Hispanic 70%, Black 63%. 81% postgrad, 77% college grad, 66% some college, 64% high school or less. 83% 18-29, 79% 30-49, 65% 50-64, 58% 65+. See [1]. When it comes to same sex marriage, by 2019 61% overall approved. That's been above 50% since 2013, and above the percentage opposed since 2011. Republicans still aren't majority in favor, at 44%. Democrats are at 75%. By religion, 79% of the unaffiliated are in favor, 66% of white mainline protestants, 61% of Catholics, 44% of Black protestants, and only 29% of white evangelical protestants. 66% of women, 57% of men. 62% of whites, 58% of Hispanics, and 51% of Blacks. 74% of Millennials, 58% Gen-X, 51% Boomers, and 45% of the Silent Generation. See [2]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/05/5-homosexuality-gender-and-religion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/05/5-homosexual... [2] https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga...
ssalazar 6y ago
Silicon Valley tech workers were sold on a dream of “changing the world” rather than building any other normal business, so I would not expect any different really.
- tpmx 6y ago
  Yeah, that backfired spectacularly.
simias 6y ago
That makes no sense to me. Do you think social networks would be less toxic and less abused if all the devs at Facebook or Twitter were apolitical? How would that work? It's the quest for "engagement" and getting always more users and ad views that generates this situation. What can be used to sell you shoes and earphones can also be used to sell you political ideas. When the algorithm wants to show you some inflammatory and misleading political factoid because it knows that it's very likely to make you react, it's working as intended. Not because it was written by a communist, but because it was written by somebody optimizing for this metric. As a counter example: do you think HN manages to remain mostly not completely trash because it's run by apolitical people or because it's effectively run not-for-profit? I think I know the answer to this question. It's amusing how I've seen this "internal politic" boogeyman pop up in discussions over the past month or so. As if all the woes of the silicon valley could suddenly be blamed on those pesky "woke" devs while everybody else just tries to get the job done. This American election can't be over soon enough, everybody seems to be losing their marbles.
- tpmx 6y ago
  Well, Paul Graham, YC founder seems to agree with me: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1310583298666696705 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1310583298666696705 Edit: To clarify, he is saying the right way ahead for companies is to be apolitical, or, "mission-founded". Coinbase offered employees not comfortable with the non-political mission-founded way exit packages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899
  - konjin 6y ago
    Those thoughts aren't welcome on HN any more.
    - tpmx 6y ago
      As a European looking at this spectacle from a distance: SV is eating itself. Well, good for Europe, I guess. Edit: but also good for China, and they're a lot better positioned to take advantage of this.
deanCommie 6y ago
This is literally the opposite of the conclusion you should be coming to. This is what a lack of will to clamp down on misinformation, and lies from the President on their platform, out of fear of being of subsequently being politically repressed has resulted in. Twitter is twisting and contorting itself in a million knots to avoid simply banning the president's account for the damage it is causing to society, the economy, and literally human life.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  ... and their terms of service. They changed the TOS to account for America electing an internet troll.

This is what the outsized tolerance for internal political activism inside SV companies has resulted in. (European observer)

by tpmx 6y ago

This is what the outsized tolerance for internal political activism inside SV companies has resulted in. (European observer)

snazz 6y ago

Without getting into the argument of whether any speech is apolitical or whether politics belongs in the workplace, Twitter clearly has a huge place in politics as a result of its nature as the premier social media platform for world leaders and journalists and anyone with an opinion today. Regardless of their internal culture, Twitter will always have to make some political decisions.

wongarsu 6y ago
> the premier social media platform for world leaders Mostly one world leader. The rest of them seem to continue to primarily communicate through press conferences, television appearances and other fairly traditional methods.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  .. which they announce on Twitter, or else people and journalists would miss them. Traditional methods are on the way out

3np 6y ago

Hard disagree. It’s inevitable with any company in their position. There should be no company in that position. We need to decentralize and federate. Mastodon is AFAIK the prominent implementation here but regardless, we need to start pushing for and exploring networks and platforms operated under completely different premises.

tpmx 6y ago
Just to clarify: You don't disagree with what I wrote, but rather with the existence of something that caused me write something like that in the fist place?
- 3np 6y ago
  No. I think this has nothing to do with “too much tolerance for political activism in companies”. Perhaps even the opposite.

_qulr 6y ago

Why do you think the pressure is coming from inside? There are billions of people watching these platforms. Even governments scrutinizing them. Unruly employees are fairly easy to handle, as long as there's not outside pressure too, but in this case the outside pressures are immense.

TigeriusKirk 6y ago
The changes give Twitter employees a vast amount of power over determining what's allowed to be said and what isn't. That fact alone makes me believe this is a result of internal pressure.
- _qulr 6y ago
  Social network moderators are almost always low-paid, low-power, low-profile employees. It's not a great job. It's a high-volume job, like an assembly line. The highly compensated Twitter and Facebook software engineers are not doing the content moderation. They don't have the time, and they would run away screaming if they had to do it for an hour. It's likely that a lot of this work is even outsourced.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    I assume they have created an hierarchy with a number of different roles. That's generally how you scale people-intensive tasks. I have no idea why you would want to classify all of those roles as "assembly line".
    - _qulr 6y ago
      Let me ask this: what evidence is there that the results of Twitter's censorship are actually in line with the political beliefs of Twitter's employees? In many cases, Twitter's rules have been used to suspend accounts that people thought they were supposed to protect. And Twitter has gone out of its way and contorted every rule in order to protect the President from censorship and suspension, out of "public interest", despite the fact that he has repeatedly violated the rules that would have caused anyone else to be suspended.

JPKab 6y ago

It's really become a religion at this point, with Capitalization of certain Sacred Words and canonical texts that are required reading to even engage in critical discussion of overwrought, overly broad claims. The worst part is that the people in these companies rarely have any experience with traditional religion, let alone extreme/fundamentalist religion, and therefore don't see the obvious patterns used by these extreme activists. I grew up as a dissenter in a fundamentalist Christian family, and the reactions I got when I stood my ground and said that I believed in evolution and a billions year-old earth are incredibly similar to what I see when trying to argue with these extreme activists. Also similar to my fundamentalist upbringing are the subgroup (minority) of people who obviously derive immense satisfaction from their piety, and won't hesitate to condemn others in the in-group for not demonstrating their full dedication to The Mission. These enforcers fit a personality profile that is identical to what I encounter at my overly woke workplace. Recently one of these enforcers told a guy (he was raised by Polish immigrants in a poor, inner-city neighborhood of Philadelphia) that he was wrong when he committed the horrible atrocity of celebrating the purchase of his first car, and saying how he "deserved it" after all these years. She was quick to spoil the happy hour at the outdoor bar by forcing him to acknowledge his privilege.

googthrowaway42 6y ago

I completely agree with you and I used to work at Google and see this kind of activism first hand. It's not just activism though, the C-suites of these companies believe in this kind of thing.

tpmx 6y ago
How far up? All the way? Edit: I mean, Sundar must be an opportunist rather than an ideologist, right? Larry and Sergey: I assume very few people know what they actually think about the big issues.
shadowgovt 6y ago
People forget that SV companies being pro gay rights pre-dated the Obergefell decision.
- tzs 6y ago
  Being pro gay rights has not really been reasonably mainstream in the US for quite a while now. Overall, the majority has been pro gay rights since around 2004. By 2017 it was 70% for, 24% against. Breaking down by party in 2017, Democrats were 83% for, Republicans 54% for. Women 73% for, men 66% for. White 73%, Hispanic 70%, Black 63%. 81% postgrad, 77% college grad, 66% some college, 64% high school or less. 83% 18-29, 79% 30-49, 65% 50-64, 58% 65+. See [1]. When it comes to same sex marriage, by 2019 61% overall approved. That's been above 50% since 2013, and above the percentage opposed since 2011. Republicans still aren't majority in favor, at 44%. Democrats are at 75%. By religion, 79% of the unaffiliated are in favor, 66% of white mainline protestants, 61% of Catholics, 44% of Black protestants, and only 29% of white evangelical protestants. 66% of women, 57% of men. 62% of whites, 58% of Hispanics, and 51% of Blacks. 74% of Millennials, 58% Gen-X, 51% Boomers, and 45% of the Silent Generation. See [2]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/05/5-homosexuality-gender-and-religion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/05/5-homosexual... [2] https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga...

ssalazar 6y ago

Silicon Valley tech workers were sold on a dream of “changing the world” rather than building any other normal business, so I would not expect any different really.

tpmx 6y ago
Yeah, that backfired spectacularly.

simias 6y ago

That makes no sense to me. Do you think social networks would be less toxic and less abused if all the devs at Facebook or Twitter were apolitical? How would that work? It's the quest for "engagement" and getting always more users and ad views that generates this situation. What can be used to sell you shoes and earphones can also be used to sell you political ideas. When the algorithm wants to show you some inflammatory and misleading political factoid because it knows that it's very likely to make you react, it's working as intended. Not because it was written by a communist, but because it was written by somebody optimizing for this metric. As a counter example: do you think HN manages to remain mostly not completely trash because it's run by apolitical people or because it's effectively run not-for-profit? I think I know the answer to this question. It's amusing how I've seen this "internal politic" boogeyman pop up in discussions over the past month or so. As if all the woes of the silicon valley could suddenly be blamed on those pesky "woke" devs while everybody else just tries to get the job done. This American election can't be over soon enough, everybody seems to be losing their marbles.

tpmx 6y ago
Well, Paul Graham, YC founder seems to agree with me: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1310583298666696705 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1310583298666696705 Edit: To clarify, he is saying the right way ahead for companies is to be apolitical, or, "mission-founded". Coinbase offered employees not comfortable with the non-political mission-founded way exit packages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899
- konjin 6y ago
  Those thoughts aren't welcome on HN any more.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    As a European looking at this spectacle from a distance: SV is eating itself. Well, good for Europe, I guess. Edit: but also good for China, and they're a lot better positioned to take advantage of this.

deanCommie 6y ago

This is literally the opposite of the conclusion you should be coming to. This is what a lack of will to clamp down on misinformation, and lies from the President on their platform, out of fear of being of subsequently being politically repressed has resulted in. Twitter is twisting and contorting itself in a million knots to avoid simply banning the president's account for the damage it is causing to society, the economy, and literally human life.

shadowgovt 6y ago
... and their terms of service. They changed the TOS to account for America electing an internet troll.