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Whose privacy? Coinbase's?! They wouldn't be the first company to publicly publish an internal report (voluntary or not; such documents routinely go public via

Whose privacy? Coinbase's?! They wouldn't be the first company to publicly publish an internal report (voluntary or not; such documents routinely go public via the justice system).

roenxi 6y ago
The employee's. If someone makes a complaint to HR it might easily be illegal to investigate then broadcast it to the world accompanied with a "this employee is full of it" style message. Doing that might, for example, damage that employees prospects of finding employment or reveal specific personal details. Certainly appalling form, probably illegal.
- tptacek 6y ago
  You are, due respect, basically just making this up. Companies publish investigator reports of bias and discrimination somewhat regularly. It's possible that Coinbase contractually can't disclose the reports they've already commissioned --- in which case they probably ought not to have tried to refute the article with them --- but they can certainly commission a new one that they can disclose. It's a 600+ employee company; the cost of the report is a rounding error. As it stands, the kernel of Coinbase's defense here is "we paid for a secret report and it says we're great". Reasonable people can find that response unpersuasive.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > Companies publish investigator reports of bias and discrimination somewhat regularly. Are you thinking of a specific example? I don't recall ever seeing this apart from sometimes a short statement on an outcomes (which Coinbase has given us - they found the complaints baseless [0]). > ...but they can certainly commission a new one that they can disclose. I did mention law but this isn't fundamentally a legal argument. I was just saying I'd expect there to be a law, given what releasing a detailed report would entail about employee privacy. I'd be ropeable if someone did that to me after I complained to HR and the story got international attention. Companies have no role at all in airing internal dirty laundry of employees to Hacker News. Coinbase's position is an employee made a baseless claim - in my book it would probably be a very poor precedent for them to start broadcasting details globally. Best case, utterly unfair because of the power imbalance between a company and an individual employee. Worst case, a smear campaign. All cases, unhelpful except for the enjoyment of pundits Hacker News comment threads. [0] EDIT Rather than replying - "all of whom found no evidence of wrongdoing and concluded the claims were unsubstantiated" https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012afc25d27 https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012...
    - tptacek 6y ago
      Sure, an example would be the Uber Covington & Burling report. I don't know where this "baseless claim" thing comes from; the only foundation you have for that belief is that Coinbase said so. The point of an external report is not having to take Coinbase's word for it. What's funny is paying for an external report, then not showing it to anybody, or even disclosing who did it, and relying on that external report as evidence. Here's a reasonable question: is the reason Coinbase won't disclose the external reports they commissioned because they can't, because their investigators won't allow them to, because neither are willing to stake their reputations on the interpretation Coinbase drew from them? If not, how do you know that?
      - roenxi 6y ago
        Do you have a link? I searched quickly and you might have been mislead by lazy titling. They released the recommendations of the report - I can find that very quickly [0] - but the actual investigation isn't obvious. And that was investigating stuff Susan Fowler had already attacked them publicly on. I'm not going to try and look up all the details but it is probably a different set of circumstances. [0] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/covington-recommendations/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/covington-recommendations/ and then https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1s08BdVqCgrUVM4UHBpTGROLXM/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1s08BdVqCgrUVM4UHBpTGROLXM...
  - jollofricepeas 6y ago
    The amount of speculation with regards to this topic among “engineers” and “innovators” is kind of amazing. The HN community appears to be no more rational or evidence-based finders of fact than those found in the comments section of Fox News or the New York Times. What hope do we have if the creators and maintainers are prone to the same proclivities as the users?
    - arolihas 6y ago
      It’s always amusing to me that people are shocked HN isn’t actually that much smarter than any other internet community. The relative level of pretentiousness though is off the charts
      - the_only_law 6y ago
        Eh, I think it’s a bit hyperbolic to compare it to the commenters on the aforementioned sites, but yeah I mostly agree. Given the site’s founders and general audience it’s not really shocking though. I still prefer it over say Reddit, mostly because the more focused nature makes it easier to find the actual smart comments.
        arolihas 6y ago
        I agree there is some great content here, and there’s definitely a lot less nonsense compared to reddit. I do think some of the smaller subreddits are just as good as here though
- sangnoir 6y ago
  Redaction is commonly used on sensitive, non-germane information - this is not an unsolved problem.
- exogeny 6y ago
  This stance is so ridiculous on it's face that I'm more likely to believe that you're Brian Armstrong than someone else.

Whose privacy? Coinbase's?! They wouldn't be the first company to publicly publish an internal report (voluntary or not; such documents routinely go public via the justice system).

roenxi 6y ago

The employee's. If someone makes a complaint to HR it might easily be illegal to investigate then broadcast it to the world accompanied with a "this employee is full of it" style message. Doing that might, for example, damage that employees prospects of finding employment or reveal specific personal details. Certainly appalling form, probably illegal.

tptacek 6y ago
You are, due respect, basically just making this up. Companies publish investigator reports of bias and discrimination somewhat regularly. It's possible that Coinbase contractually can't disclose the reports they've already commissioned --- in which case they probably ought not to have tried to refute the article with them --- but they can certainly commission a new one that they can disclose. It's a 600+ employee company; the cost of the report is a rounding error. As it stands, the kernel of Coinbase's defense here is "we paid for a secret report and it says we're great". Reasonable people can find that response unpersuasive.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > Companies publish investigator reports of bias and discrimination somewhat regularly. Are you thinking of a specific example? I don't recall ever seeing this apart from sometimes a short statement on an outcomes (which Coinbase has given us - they found the complaints baseless [0]). > ...but they can certainly commission a new one that they can disclose. I did mention law but this isn't fundamentally a legal argument. I was just saying I'd expect there to be a law, given what releasing a detailed report would entail about employee privacy. I'd be ropeable if someone did that to me after I complained to HR and the story got international attention. Companies have no role at all in airing internal dirty laundry of employees to Hacker News. Coinbase's position is an employee made a baseless claim - in my book it would probably be a very poor precedent for them to start broadcasting details globally. Best case, utterly unfair because of the power imbalance between a company and an individual employee. Worst case, a smear campaign. All cases, unhelpful except for the enjoyment of pundits Hacker News comment threads. [0] EDIT Rather than replying - "all of whom found no evidence of wrongdoing and concluded the claims were unsubstantiated" https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012afc25d27 https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012...
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Sure, an example would be the Uber Covington & Burling report. I don't know where this "baseless claim" thing comes from; the only foundation you have for that belief is that Coinbase said so. The point of an external report is not having to take Coinbase's word for it. What's funny is paying for an external report, then not showing it to anybody, or even disclosing who did it, and relying on that external report as evidence. Here's a reasonable question: is the reason Coinbase won't disclose the external reports they commissioned because they can't, because their investigators won't allow them to, because neither are willing to stake their reputations on the interpretation Coinbase drew from them? If not, how do you know that?
    - roenxi 6y ago
      Do you have a link? I searched quickly and you might have been mislead by lazy titling. They released the recommendations of the report - I can find that very quickly [0] - but the actual investigation isn't obvious. And that was investigating stuff Susan Fowler had already attacked them publicly on. I'm not going to try and look up all the details but it is probably a different set of circumstances. [0] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/covington-recommendations/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/covington-recommendations/ and then https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1s08BdVqCgrUVM4UHBpTGROLXM/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1s08BdVqCgrUVM4UHBpTGROLXM...
- jollofricepeas 6y ago
  The amount of speculation with regards to this topic among “engineers” and “innovators” is kind of amazing. The HN community appears to be no more rational or evidence-based finders of fact than those found in the comments section of Fox News or the New York Times. What hope do we have if the creators and maintainers are prone to the same proclivities as the users?
  - arolihas 6y ago
    It’s always amusing to me that people are shocked HN isn’t actually that much smarter than any other internet community. The relative level of pretentiousness though is off the charts
    - the_only_law 6y ago
      Eh, I think it’s a bit hyperbolic to compare it to the commenters on the aforementioned sites, but yeah I mostly agree. Given the site’s founders and general audience it’s not really shocking though. I still prefer it over say Reddit, mostly because the more focused nature makes it easier to find the actual smart comments.
      - arolihas 6y ago
        I agree there is some great content here, and there’s definitely a lot less nonsense compared to reddit. I do think some of the smaller subreddits are just as good as here though
sangnoir 6y ago
Redaction is commonly used on sensitive, non-germane information - this is not an unsolved problem.
exogeny 6y ago
This stance is so ridiculous on it's face that I'm more likely to believe that you're Brian Armstrong than someone else.