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The external investigators were hired and paid for by Coinbase and we know nothing about the details of their findings (or who they even were) other than that s
by pvg 6y ago
The external investigators were hired and paid for by Coinbase and we know nothing about the details of their findings (or who they even were) other than that single mention in the company's own blog post. There's no mention in the post about 'data' shared with the NYT, they just told them the investigations cleared them. Here's NYT's version:
Ms. Milosevich said Coinbase hired a consultant over the summer who did interviews and looked at the company’s history, and found “no evidence of structural bias.”
“Employees reported a strong culture, fair employee treatment, high employee satisfaction and high energy for belonging, inclusion and diversity,” she said.
Managers in the customer support team, where many of the Black employees work, wrote their own report last month.
- treis 6y agoAs far as I can tell the NYTimes was unable to find evidence either. There's no corroborating witness, emails, slacks, voicemails, statistics, or anything else concrete that you can point at in the article. It's a collection of accusations and color to lend them credence. When a group of people say they see smoke I tend to believe them. But I'm also not a national news paper. I'd have like to see the NYTimes get some concrete facts before making such a serious accusation.
- yunohn 6y agoThe NYT are not the police/FBI. They do not have access to those things, unless employees are able to exfiltrate said info at significant personal risk.
- treis 6y agoSeems a bit incongruous to suggest that people willing and able to accuse Coinbase of racism in the NYTimes are not willing or able to exfiltrate evidence of those accusations.
- pvg 6y agoThese are right in the article: wrote in a Slack message that was viewed by The Times. according to a copy of the message seen by The Times according to a copy reviewed by The Times.
- treis 6y agoNone of those are messages/documents contain racist action by anyone at Coinbase. They are (1) a reaction to a blog post, (2) a reaction to a letter, and (3) a conclusion in a report. They are not concrete evidence of racism.
- pvg 6y agoI'm not sure what your standard is, you said 'corroborating evidence'. This is evidence that corroborates what the employees told the NYT. Now you're at 'concrete evidence'. What would that be? That someone yelled racial slurs at employees and then handed out signed receipts? The coinbase 'prebuttal' doesn't concretely dispute much either, it says you're going to see some stuff in the NYT that's 'hard to read'. If anything, it's striking how little both pieces disagree about the employees' allegations.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoFor example, the article talks extensively about Layllen Sawyerr's case. So I'd expect corroboration to look something like "we talked to suchandsuch other people who confirmed she was treated unfairly", "we read this email in which she was treated unfairly", or perhaps "we heard about this specific personnel decision which was unfair to her". A lack of corroboration doesn't mean her accusations are false, but a lack of attempt to corroborate is very troubling from a national newspaper, especially when the subject of the article is going on the record to say the accusations aren't true. Either Milosevich and Coinbase are lying about their investigation or Sawyerr's story is false - isn't the NYT curious to figure out which one?
- 6y ago