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I have to wonder to what extent this is just punishment from the establishment for Coinbase’s recent rejection of political activism in the workplace. Of course

by nilkn 6y ago

I have to wonder to what extent this is just punishment from the establishment for Coinbase’s recent rejection of political activism in the workplace. Of course we will need to see the article from the NYT first before drawing any conclusions, but the timing is pretty suspicious; this implies that the NYT more or less launched this project immediately after that announcement went out.

wilg 6y ago
Sounds like a good conspiracy theory to me!
Barrin92 6y ago
Probably because the announcement made people question if the change in policy was prompted by exactly something like this brewing internally. That's kind of how investigative journalism works. It's like Google changing their policy to never mention the words 'marketshare' in internal documentation and journalists going out and investigating Google's antitrust situtation and writing about it. That's not a bad thing, that's what generally prompts journalists taking a look at a company
- nilkn 6y ago
  Completely fair point.
gamblor956 6y ago
Coinbase's political non-activism policy announcement at the end of September had no bearing on this article. Investigations into racial discrimination or sexual harassment complaints take months (see for example, at Riot Games, an internal investigation took almost 5 months even though most of the facts were already publicly known at the start of the investigation. https://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/26686134/how-got-here-line-riot-games-cultural-controversy https://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/26686134/how-got-her...). This means that the race complaints predated the September announcement. Additionally, given that investigative pieces generally involve months of investigation, fact-checking, re-writing, it's very likely that this article was already being researched or written at the time of Coinbase's original political non-activism announcement.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Doubtful the NYT would spend >2 months on a story about one relatively small company. Journalist time isn't free. The timing does look very odd and let's face it, the NYT has a lot of people who would absolutely hate a tech firm standing up to their agenda in the way Coinbase has done. Having successfully politicised the NYT they'd certainly feel entitled to do the same everywhere else. The 100% idpol nature of the story also lends weight to this theory. I very much doubt that Coinbase is actually racist against blacks (er, sorry, Blacks). Never encountered a tech company that was.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    None of what you said makes sense, and Coinbase isn't standing up to any hidden agenda. It's simply being called it for is corporate behavior. And based on it's past behavior, it's likely the NYT report is true.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      What past behaviour? Do you have any evidence that anyone at Coinbase is geniunely racist in any way at all? I've never heard such accusations before. On the other hand, leftists spuriously accusing people of being racist happens all the time. My prior for such accusations being true is like 0.05
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

by nilkn 6y ago

wilg 6y ago

Sounds like a good conspiracy theory to me!

Barrin92 6y ago

Probably because the announcement made people question if the change in policy was prompted by exactly something like this brewing internally. That's kind of how investigative journalism works. It's like Google changing their policy to never mention the words 'marketshare' in internal documentation and journalists going out and investigating Google's antitrust situtation and writing about it. That's not a bad thing, that's what generally prompts journalists taking a look at a company

nilkn 6y ago
Completely fair point.

gamblor956 6y ago

Coinbase's political non-activism policy announcement at the end of September had no bearing on this article. Investigations into racial discrimination or sexual harassment complaints take months (see for example, at Riot Games, an internal investigation took almost 5 months even though most of the facts were already publicly known at the start of the investigation. https://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/26686134/how-got-here-line-riot-games-cultural-controversy https://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/26686134/how-got-her...). This means that the race complaints predated the September announcement. Additionally, given that investigative pieces generally involve months of investigation, fact-checking, re-writing, it's very likely that this article was already being researched or written at the time of Coinbase's original political non-activism announcement.

thu2111 6y ago
Doubtful the NYT would spend >2 months on a story about one relatively small company. Journalist time isn't free. The timing does look very odd and let's face it, the NYT has a lot of people who would absolutely hate a tech firm standing up to their agenda in the way Coinbase has done. Having successfully politicised the NYT they'd certainly feel entitled to do the same everywhere else. The 100% idpol nature of the story also lends weight to this theory. I very much doubt that Coinbase is actually racist against blacks (er, sorry, Blacks). Never encountered a tech company that was.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  None of what you said makes sense, and Coinbase isn't standing up to any hidden agenda. It's simply being called it for is corporate behavior. And based on it's past behavior, it's likely the NYT report is true.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    What past behaviour? Do you have any evidence that anyone at Coinbase is geniunely racist in any way at all? I've never heard such accusations before. On the other hand, leftists spuriously accusing people of being racist happens all the time. My prior for such accusations being true is like 0.05
deleted 6y ago
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