6 ms·

I'm glad she shared what she shared. Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. In many cases, although perhaps not this one, whistleblowers have had an extremely ac

by 55555 5y ago

I'm glad she shared what she shared. Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. In many cases, although perhaps not this one, whistleblowers have had an extremely active and political Twitter account when hired, or are literally being hired _because_ of their wokeness. Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? They certainly don't seem to. Political views and ideological values are subjective, so in a large enough organization you can't avoid some people getting very upset. It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade. I think it's only a matter of time before people who are militantly political or ideological -- on either side of the spectrum -- are going to be seen as toxic by any company big enough to care.

Nevermark 5y ago
It might be a good idea for companies to be up front about their significant moral choices. Then regardless of disgruntled employees, they can defend and discuss their behavior and any mistakes with a majority of consistent internal and external communications. And maybe avoid doing most really bad things. This consistency of purpose and avoidance of causing surreptitious harm is called “integrity”.
- elmomle 5y ago
  As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." When over a trillion dollars of value is on the line, history tells us that people will generally act poorly and come up with any plausible justification for why they're doing good. This isn't to excuse Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, or anybody else in a decision-making position. The first time your business model is widely seen to have played a determining role in a genocide [1], the ethical decision is unambiguous--it's a good time to step down and take your billions to lobby against that business model. There's no moral excuse for doing otherwise. [1] https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violence/ https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violen...
  - fragmede 5y ago
    Is that most ethical? I can think of several people where the world would be worse off if they owned a controlling interest in Facebook. Eg Ergodan.
donw 5y ago
> Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? It would seem that they actively select for it. > It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade. To be fair: Blue Team straight up hit the panic button when Trump was elected in 2016. From a non-US perspective, Trump was... grating? Talked a big game, but clearly didn't have the leadership chops. His "Law and Order" tweets during all the rioting were absolutely pathetic. Blue Team, however, has clearly gone quite insane. At this point, I'm sort of politically homeless, which puts me in good company. Republicans talk hard about winding the clock back but don't actually seem to do much of anything, Libertarians pretend there is no clock, and Democrats evangelize that we'll finally escape the oppression of time itself once we've burned the clock to cinders. What a time to be alive.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  Could you expand on "His "Law and Order" tweets during all the rioting were absolutely pathetic."?
  - donw 5y ago
    Sure, why not. During the riots, Trump kept tweeting out "LAW AND ORDER!", like a crippled old man furious at the neighborhood kids for trashing his roses. He's angry, but doesn't have the means to do anything about it. This made Trump look weak and impotent. All he did was hide in his bunker and shake his tiny fist on Twitter while chaos raged. The rioters placed Trump in a dilemma action. Smart. If Trump does nothing, he looks weak. If he responds with sufficient force to quell the riots, he looks like a tyrant. Off the top of my head, a better play would have been something like: "As President, I am bound by the Constitution to respect the sovereignty of each State. To any state Governor that requests assistance to restore peace, I will put all necessary Federal resources under your direct command." Repeat variants of that, over and over. An offer of assistance demonstrating clear respect for the Constitution. This very diplomatically throws the ball to mostly blue-state governors. Now they either have to be seen as doing nothing, or as collaborating with Trump. Moreover, if they do accept assistance and pull a Kent State, it's on their heads. And I'm some clown on the internet. I imagine somebody that really does statecraft could do better. Trump is a showman. Good at reality TV. Clearly didn't understand how to lead a country.
worrycue 5y ago
Is it me or have things shifted from “prevent what you say online from being traced back to you as much as possible as it could be used against you” to “what you say online is now part of your resume and ‘leaving it blank’ is a ‘bad look’”? I’m … not young and follow the “blank slate” approach. Was just wondering if the world had changed while I wasn’t paying attention.
- muglug 5y ago
  Blank is fine. I don’t think anything really changed there — those of us who think their opinions are worth other people hearing about (and I’m generally in that camp) have been around since time immemorial, and I doubt we’re growing as a percentage. It’s just that social media has provided us a big new platform, much more visible than Usenet or whatever. I think generally companies don’t care what you write online as long as it won’t come back to bite the company.
  - worrycue 5y ago
    There is a difference between being heard and having your real name and a photo of your face attached to what you said like in some cases on Twitter. I was wondering if social media has become so ingrained into the lives of the younger generations (and maybe even the elderly) that it’s effectively as much a part of their public identity as their choice of clothes and academic/career accomplishments.
    - muglug 5y ago
      No — I know lots of young people who hate all public forms of social media, and worry constantly about having any sort of visible opinions — and these are people with socially-liberal political views. It really is just a personal preference, and outside of social media manager positions, employers don’t care.
cratermoon 5y ago
> Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? That's literally illegal.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  In fact, it is perfectly legal in most of US. It is on paper illegal in California, but I haven’t seen this law actually being enforced.
  - Ductapemaster 5y ago
    Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I have a relative who processes digital intakes for a CA ACLU chapter, and they get a huge number of interview-related complaints, which get referred directly to legal assistance who are interested in such cases. My opinion is we likely don’t hear about it because each case is small, and companies have no incentive to publicize settlements.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      I’m quite sure that a lot of interview complains get adjudicated. My point is that few if any of those are complaints related to political discrimination.
    - mudil 5y ago
      The ACLU lost its legitimacy when it stopped defending the civil liberties of people they don't agree with.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        Nobody is asking you to support the ACLU there, the poster just mentioned that a relative working for the ACLU deals with such complaints on a regular basis. Your opinion of the ACLU doesn't make that untrue.
homert 5y ago
Most companies who work at population scales end up being toxic cuz there is a power and information asymmetry, that your average corporate robot with factory defaults, will find hard to resist exploiting. Its what they are programmed to do. When the work environment is exploitative in nature triggering people within the org happens all ths time. The difference today is people who get triggered woke or non woke, can take advantage of networks effects like never before to do serious damage. Companies cant do shit about it. Look at the people she connected with Andrew Bakaj, Jeff Horwitz, 60 minutes etc.
Thorrez 5y ago
>Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? [...] It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade. That sounds likely to cause a lot of employee blowback, and negative news articles somewhat similar to this one. I can see the headline now: "[Tech company] wants employees to be sheep" "Afraid of fallout from whistleblowers who report all the bad things it does, [tech company] has put measures in place to prevent job candidates with any morals from being hired." Who would be the ones doing this? Currently regular employees are the ones conducting interviews. Would there be required interview questions along these lines?
- fragmede 5y ago
  In fact, there was just recently a thread about hiring (YC company filed for IPO) and the comments were filled with less aware interviewers arguing about a je ne sais quoi about candidates. This is WHY there's a rubric and the question is silly whiteboard algorithm questions. The alternative is shit like "so how pregnant are you" which is illegal, and judging candidates on "gut" and it turns out that hinders your company.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade Oh man, do I hope my entrenched competitors do this. Give me your crazy ones.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
danjac 5y ago
Well, FB hired Nick Clegg, whose name is a shorthand in British politics for "I will betray all my promises and principles for a paycheck". So maybe they just assume that anyone who goes to work for them is in it for the money and the "wokeness" is merely performative.
no_butterscotch 5y ago
> Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. It's interesting, I know a bunch of people who work there as I'm sure many on this site do. Nonetheless, none of them have a problem with Facebook or its role in our society. I don't know what to make of it really.
- peterkelly 5y ago
  > I don't know what to make of it really. It means either (1) they don't give a shit about the harm their employer's business practices cause to society, or (2) they do care, but the large amount of money they get paid outweighs their moral compass. Anyone with the skills and expertise to get a job at Facebook has many, many other choices of employers, many of which are at best morally neutral or less damaging than facebook. There's no amount of money I'd accept to work at FB.
- baumy 5y ago
  $$$ It's really that simple. I also think Facebook is a net negative for humanity, but if I was willing to subject myself to leetcoding interviews and passed theirs, I'd work there in a heartbeat because they pay senior engineers with ~6+ years of experience about $400k as a baseline. Quite a bit more if you're particularly good, have competing offers and negotiate well. I have principles, but frankly I care about securing my and my family's future more than standing up for them. The same is probably true for most.
propergentle44 5y ago
Facebook is actually quite open to internal debate on these issues all the time. They want open dialogue from many diverse sets of backgrounds and opinions. Which is why just screen capturing people’s dissent internally is not some gotcha moment where FB is somehow squashing the existence of problems or people disagreeing with the current direction. It’s something that happens literally every day and they work out the best way forward or whether someone independent needs to make a decision for them.

by 55555 5y ago

Nevermark 5y ago

It might be a good idea for companies to be up front about their significant moral choices. Then regardless of disgruntled employees, they can defend and discuss their behavior and any mistakes with a majority of consistent internal and external communications. And maybe avoid doing most really bad things. This consistency of purpose and avoidance of causing surreptitious harm is called “integrity”.

elmomle 5y ago
As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." When over a trillion dollars of value is on the line, history tells us that people will generally act poorly and come up with any plausible justification for why they're doing good. This isn't to excuse Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, or anybody else in a decision-making position. The first time your business model is widely seen to have played a determining role in a genocide [1], the ethical decision is unambiguous--it's a good time to step down and take your billions to lobby against that business model. There's no moral excuse for doing otherwise. [1] https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violence/ https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violen...
- fragmede 5y ago
  Is that most ethical? I can think of several people where the world would be worse off if they owned a controlling interest in Facebook. Eg Ergodan.

donw 5y ago

> Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? It would seem that they actively select for it. > It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade. To be fair: Blue Team straight up hit the panic button when Trump was elected in 2016. From a non-US perspective, Trump was... grating? Talked a big game, but clearly didn't have the leadership chops. His "Law and Order" tweets during all the rioting were absolutely pathetic. Blue Team, however, has clearly gone quite insane. At this point, I'm sort of politically homeless, which puts me in good company. Republicans talk hard about winding the clock back but don't actually seem to do much of anything, Libertarians pretend there is no clock, and Democrats evangelize that we'll finally escape the oppression of time itself once we've burned the clock to cinders. What a time to be alive.

aaomidi 5y ago
Could you expand on "His "Law and Order" tweets during all the rioting were absolutely pathetic."?
- donw 5y ago
  Sure, why not. During the riots, Trump kept tweeting out "LAW AND ORDER!", like a crippled old man furious at the neighborhood kids for trashing his roses. He's angry, but doesn't have the means to do anything about it. This made Trump look weak and impotent. All he did was hide in his bunker and shake his tiny fist on Twitter while chaos raged. The rioters placed Trump in a dilemma action. Smart. If Trump does nothing, he looks weak. If he responds with sufficient force to quell the riots, he looks like a tyrant. Off the top of my head, a better play would have been something like: "As President, I am bound by the Constitution to respect the sovereignty of each State. To any state Governor that requests assistance to restore peace, I will put all necessary Federal resources under your direct command." Repeat variants of that, over and over. An offer of assistance demonstrating clear respect for the Constitution. This very diplomatically throws the ball to mostly blue-state governors. Now they either have to be seen as doing nothing, or as collaborating with Trump. Moreover, if they do accept assistance and pull a Kent State, it's on their heads. And I'm some clown on the internet. I imagine somebody that really does statecraft could do better. Trump is a showman. Good at reality TV. Clearly didn't understand how to lead a country.

worrycue 5y ago

Is it me or have things shifted from “prevent what you say online from being traced back to you as much as possible as it could be used against you” to “what you say online is now part of your resume and ‘leaving it blank’ is a ‘bad look’”? I’m … not young and follow the “blank slate” approach. Was just wondering if the world had changed while I wasn’t paying attention.

muglug 5y ago
Blank is fine. I don’t think anything really changed there — those of us who think their opinions are worth other people hearing about (and I’m generally in that camp) have been around since time immemorial, and I doubt we’re growing as a percentage. It’s just that social media has provided us a big new platform, much more visible than Usenet or whatever. I think generally companies don’t care what you write online as long as it won’t come back to bite the company.
- worrycue 5y ago
  There is a difference between being heard and having your real name and a photo of your face attached to what you said like in some cases on Twitter. I was wondering if social media has become so ingrained into the lives of the younger generations (and maybe even the elderly) that it’s effectively as much a part of their public identity as their choice of clothes and academic/career accomplishments.
  - muglug 5y ago
    No — I know lots of young people who hate all public forms of social media, and worry constantly about having any sort of visible opinions — and these are people with socially-liberal political views. It really is just a personal preference, and outside of social media manager positions, employers don’t care.

cratermoon 5y ago

> Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? That's literally illegal.

xyzzyz 5y ago
In fact, it is perfectly legal in most of US. It is on paper illegal in California, but I haven’t seen this law actually being enforced.
- Ductapemaster 5y ago
  Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I have a relative who processes digital intakes for a CA ACLU chapter, and they get a huge number of interview-related complaints, which get referred directly to legal assistance who are interested in such cases. My opinion is we likely don’t hear about it because each case is small, and companies have no incentive to publicize settlements.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    I’m quite sure that a lot of interview complains get adjudicated. My point is that few if any of those are complaints related to political discrimination.
  - mudil 5y ago
    The ACLU lost its legitimacy when it stopped defending the civil liberties of people they don't agree with.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      Nobody is asking you to support the ACLU there, the poster just mentioned that a relative working for the ACLU deals with such complaints on a regular basis. Your opinion of the ACLU doesn't make that untrue.

homert 5y ago

Most companies who work at population scales end up being toxic cuz there is a power and information asymmetry, that your average corporate robot with factory defaults, will find hard to resist exploiting. Its what they are programmed to do. When the work environment is exploitative in nature triggering people within the org happens all ths time. The difference today is people who get triggered woke or non woke, can take advantage of networks effects like never before to do serious damage. Companies cant do shit about it. Look at the people she connected with Andrew Bakaj, Jeff Horwitz, 60 minutes etc.

Thorrez 5y ago

>Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? [...] It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade. That sounds likely to cause a lot of employee blowback, and negative news articles somewhat similar to this one. I can see the headline now: "[Tech company] wants employees to be sheep" "Afraid of fallout from whistleblowers who report all the bad things it does, [tech company] has put measures in place to prevent job candidates with any morals from being hired." Who would be the ones doing this? Currently regular employees are the ones conducting interviews. Would there be required interview questions along these lines?

fragmede 5y ago
In fact, there was just recently a thread about hiring (YC company filed for IPO) and the comments were filled with less aware interviewers arguing about a je ne sais quoi about candidates. This is WHY there's a rubric and the question is silly whiteboard algorithm questions. The alternative is shit like "so how pregnant are you" which is illegal, and judging candidates on "gut" and it turns out that hinders your company.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade Oh man, do I hope my entrenched competitors do this. Give me your crazy ones.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

danjac 5y ago

Well, FB hired Nick Clegg, whose name is a shorthand in British politics for "I will betray all my promises and principles for a paycheck". So maybe they just assume that anyone who goes to work for them is in it for the money and the "wokeness" is merely performative.

no_butterscotch 5y ago

> Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. It's interesting, I know a bunch of people who work there as I'm sure many on this site do. Nonetheless, none of them have a problem with Facebook or its role in our society. I don't know what to make of it really.

peterkelly 5y ago
> I don't know what to make of it really. It means either (1) they don't give a shit about the harm their employer's business practices cause to society, or (2) they do care, but the large amount of money they get paid outweighs their moral compass. Anyone with the skills and expertise to get a job at Facebook has many, many other choices of employers, many of which are at best morally neutral or less damaging than facebook. There's no amount of money I'd accept to work at FB.
baumy 5y ago
$$$ It's really that simple. I also think Facebook is a net negative for humanity, but if I was willing to subject myself to leetcoding interviews and passed theirs, I'd work there in a heartbeat because they pay senior engineers with ~6+ years of experience about $400k as a baseline. Quite a bit more if you're particularly good, have competing offers and negotiate well. I have principles, but frankly I care about securing my and my family's future more than standing up for them. The same is probably true for most.

propergentle44 5y ago

Facebook is actually quite open to internal debate on these issues all the time. They want open dialogue from many diverse sets of backgrounds and opinions. Which is why just screen capturing people’s dissent internally is not some gotcha moment where FB is somehow squashing the existence of problems or people disagreeing with the current direction. It’s something that happens literally every day and they work out the best way forward or whether someone independent needs to make a decision for them.