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1. Lying about why an employee fired in an easily verified way is a huge unforced error. We can probably assume Google is not that incompetent. 2. She hasn't

1. Lying about why an employee fired in an easily verified way is a huge unforced error. We can probably assume Google is not that incompetent. 2. She hasn't denied the accusations.

marricks 6y ago
She could of downloaded documents for an attorney or to search for the allegations Timnit was accused of. Google will of course phrase it as damningly as possible. So once again, why assume Google has the moral high ground (in any way) in this firing or is being honest at all in it?
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  I'm not assuming Google has the moral high ground. I'm assuming that Google is not lying about an easily verifiable fact to the media especially when Meg is not disputing Google's events. > She could of downloaded documents for an attorney or to search for the allegations Timnit was accused of This would support Google's description of events as "exfiltrating a bunch of documents related to Gebru". They also have a second source close to Meg that confirms she was running a script to exfiltrate a bunch of documents related to Gebru.
  - Cacti 6y ago
    I’m curious why there needs to be a script involved and feel like we are missing a big part of the story here. You don’t need “a script” to search your email. And you don’t need to take the risk to “exfiltrate documents” if it’s just emails in your possession or if you’re just worried about being fired. And it doesn’t make sense that a computer expert would take the risk to do all this electronically where it is easily monitored. Perhaps she made a dumb mistake but Dr Gebru and her colleague were both managers, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this script her colleague was running was not just backing up her emails but rather pulling management-only and HR docs related to Gebrus situation. Which would be a much more serious offense and explain a lot of what’s going on here.
pseudalopex 6y ago
Exfiltration could just mean forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer. Any lawyer would tell her not to comment on the accusations. Especially before she was fired.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  And any lawyer would also tell Google not to blatantly lie about easily verifiable facts around the firing.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    It would be misleading to call forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer exfiltration. But it wouldn't be lying.
    - simonh 6y ago
      It wouldn't be either misleading or lying, if her or her lawyer want personal copies of the emails they can apply to a court. They have no right to unilaterally decide to take personal copies of internal communications.
      - pseudalopex 6y ago
        Legal counsel is a common exception to NDAs. Different jurisdictions have different specific rules. Are you familiar with California's rules?
- bleah1000 6y ago
  Except you can't do that. The problem is Google has no idea that this is where the documents/e-mails went. All they can see is that a large number of documents and e-mails were sent outside of Google. I can't imagine Google would say, well it's okay if you take the law into your own hands. Any lawyer should be able to send a note telling Google to preserve the files for potential litigation. And given that she seems to have people sympathetic to her cause, it's unlikely that Google would be able to make all documents and e-mails she thinks are supportive of her case disappear. Now, I can see if she wanted to take a few key e-mails out because any lawsuit needs some evidence or it might be quashed in summary judgement. So maybe that's what she thought she was doing, but it sounds like she grabbed a lot more than that. I would also really be wary of this because people can get death threats when e-mail that they thought was company internal are leaked out. I wouldn't be surprised that a bunch of e-mails will make it into a lawsuit with the people's names on them. Anyone knows that lawsuits can easily take an e-mail out of context to make it say something that is changed by the context around it. Even worse, company internal e-mails probably have a tremendous amount of internal company information. There is no way that any company will just shrug and go, well if you sent it to yourself and your lawyer, then that it's okay that you might have sent out company secrets.

1. Lying about why an employee fired in an easily verified way is a huge unforced error. We can probably assume Google is not that incompetent. 2. She hasn't denied the accusations.

marricks 6y ago

She could of downloaded documents for an attorney or to search for the allegations Timnit was accused of. Google will of course phrase it as damningly as possible. So once again, why assume Google has the moral high ground (in any way) in this firing or is being honest at all in it?

JamesBarney 6y ago
I'm not assuming Google has the moral high ground. I'm assuming that Google is not lying about an easily verifiable fact to the media especially when Meg is not disputing Google's events. > She could of downloaded documents for an attorney or to search for the allegations Timnit was accused of This would support Google's description of events as "exfiltrating a bunch of documents related to Gebru". They also have a second source close to Meg that confirms she was running a script to exfiltrate a bunch of documents related to Gebru.
- Cacti 6y ago
  I’m curious why there needs to be a script involved and feel like we are missing a big part of the story here. You don’t need “a script” to search your email. And you don’t need to take the risk to “exfiltrate documents” if it’s just emails in your possession or if you’re just worried about being fired. And it doesn’t make sense that a computer expert would take the risk to do all this electronically where it is easily monitored. Perhaps she made a dumb mistake but Dr Gebru and her colleague were both managers, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this script her colleague was running was not just backing up her emails but rather pulling management-only and HR docs related to Gebrus situation. Which would be a much more serious offense and explain a lot of what’s going on here.

pseudalopex 6y ago

Exfiltration could just mean forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer. Any lawyer would tell her not to comment on the accusations. Especially before she was fired.

JamesBarney 6y ago
And any lawyer would also tell Google not to blatantly lie about easily verifiable facts around the firing.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  It would be misleading to call forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer exfiltration. But it wouldn't be lying.
  - simonh 6y ago
    It wouldn't be either misleading or lying, if her or her lawyer want personal copies of the emails they can apply to a court. They have no right to unilaterally decide to take personal copies of internal communications.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Legal counsel is a common exception to NDAs. Different jurisdictions have different specific rules. Are you familiar with California's rules?
bleah1000 6y ago
Except you can't do that. The problem is Google has no idea that this is where the documents/e-mails went. All they can see is that a large number of documents and e-mails were sent outside of Google. I can't imagine Google would say, well it's okay if you take the law into your own hands. Any lawyer should be able to send a note telling Google to preserve the files for potential litigation. And given that she seems to have people sympathetic to her cause, it's unlikely that Google would be able to make all documents and e-mails she thinks are supportive of her case disappear. Now, I can see if she wanted to take a few key e-mails out because any lawsuit needs some evidence or it might be quashed in summary judgement. So maybe that's what she thought she was doing, but it sounds like she grabbed a lot more than that. I would also really be wary of this because people can get death threats when e-mail that they thought was company internal are leaked out. I wouldn't be surprised that a bunch of e-mails will make it into a lawsuit with the people's names on them. Anyone knows that lawsuits can easily take an e-mail out of context to make it say something that is changed by the context around it. Even worse, company internal e-mails probably have a tremendous amount of internal company information. There is no way that any company will just shrug and go, well if you sent it to yourself and your lawyer, then that it's okay that you might have sent out company secrets.