5 ms·

"Discriminate" because this was obviously intentional prejudicial racism! Of course it's not malicious. This guy is not good people.

by Tohhou 13y ago

chris_wot 13y ago
How do you explain it then? It's good enough for a BuzzFeed writer to get it reinstated, but not good enough to at least verify that it's a real name?
- nysv 13y ago
  Their policy on this has been pointed out to be bad and absurd so many times by now that I'm leaning towards Hanlon's razor now: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
  - crypt1d 13y ago
    Exactly. I for one find it slightly annoying that people use the term _discrimination_ so lightly, even though its quite possible that the reason behind this issue is incompetence.
    - chris_wot 13y ago
      There was nothing light about how I used it. Even if this was not done intentionally, it still discriminated against her. Sort of like how gender fields with only a Male/Female option unintentionally discriminate against transgender people. Nothing intentional, but still happens - and still discrimination.
      - judk 13y ago
        Since Facebook has now fixed this bug in their UI/database, safe to say it is intentional elsewhere. At least in the sense that "supporting gender fluid users is lower priority than adding more whizzy animations to the UI".
    - saalweachter 13y ago
      How about "obstinacy"?
    - vidarh 13y ago
      The two are not incompatible. If your incompetence leads you to implement a policy that disproportionally disadvantages a certain group, you are also discriminating against them. Discrimination does not require intent.
    - walshemj 13y ago
      you can "indirectly discriminate" if you implement polices that effect a larger proportionate of a particular group. It's why stop and search that targets a large number of young black men is seen as racist. It might be incompetence the first time but this has been going on for such a long time now that that is wearing a bit thin as an excuse.
      - judk 13y ago
        This called "disparate impact" in US law. Quite a controversial issue, and only getting worse ad.machine learning algorithms grow in power and influence.
  - hrktb 13y ago
    Shouldn't it be the other way round ? Google's policy was pointed out to be bad and absurd countless times and they knowingly stuck with it anyway, understanding users were prejudiced from it. Isn't it malice ?
    - chris_wot 13y ago
      You mean like some sort of malicious incompetence? That's really twisting Hanlon's razor!
- Tohhou 13y ago
  I will explain it. Google wants personal identity attached to posts on Google+ people Google thinks that people will value what they say when they are not posting anonymously. Some engineer wrote a thing to try to catch obviously fake names, and some kinds of real names, which actually are attached to real identity, get caught in the filter. They didn't target specific groups of people because they hate them ffs. I agree that it's a stupid policy, but calling things which are not really racism racism only dilutes actual racism and victims of racism. "Google+ naming filter thinks American Native Indian style names are not real names"
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    So in other words, it's incompetence then. Which was the alternative to racism. Which is what I said.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    A filter to catch "fake names" based on dictionary words I presume. If you do that for names of German origin (with a German word list) there will be hit after hit Google apparently doesn't know much about names.
  - calibraxis 13y ago
    > calling things which are not really racism racism only dilutes actual racism and victims of racism. I don't know your racial category, but people of color frequently mention how white people aggressively like to redefine racism so it doesn't include their own racism. This particular argument is common among them. Because after all, racism is one of those -isms which are a fundamental part of many cultures (like the US).
    - ebfe 13y ago
      That's really interesting, I'd never heard of this before. Can you give us an example you've heard of a redefinition of racism that would exclude whites from being racist?
      - 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
ceejayoz 13y ago
The writer leaves open the "incompetence" option, if you actually read the article. Discrimination needn't involve intentional malice, either - 50-60 year olds often face hiring discrimination from folks who certainly don't intentionally discount them.
- voteapathy 13y ago
  Well, I would suspect that Google makes deliberate choices on how they set up these sorts of things. They've probably built models which demonstrate that only n percent of the global population will be affected by a certain naming policy and the differences in cost associated with modifying their databases or to accommodate such names or dealing with troll accounts versus maintaining the status quo. [Keep in mind I obviously do not work at Google and clearly have no idea what I'm talking about]. I suspect that, in reality, Google feels that keeping their uses safe from all the Grass Mud Horse's and Assmen of the world doesn't affect their profitability significantly. Frankly, I would love to look into the best ways to deal with the non-universality of names for users while still being able to meaningfully harvest and utilize all of their information for those sweet sweet advertising dollars. Perhaps the best way is just give users a generic field for "name" (not first/last name) and make the good, old-fashioned username be the identifier.
  - codesilverback 13y ago
    I'm not sure incompetence is the same as "doesn't handle every conceivable edge case." As the algorithms take over, "sorry, but you are an edge case we didn't get to" is going to be a common problem.
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      If it's all going to be handled by algorithms, there shouldn't be an appeals process. It seems like in this case "appeal" meant "automatically reprocess and reject again with a form message" until they got the media involved.
  - wpietri 13y ago
aspidistra 13y ago
In the UK, at least, "discriminate" is the right word because it is possible to discriminate indirectly. This is defined in law. If you have rules that apply to everyone but disadvantage people who share a protected characteristic, you are discriminating, whether you intended to or not. http://www.equality-law.co.uk/news/106/66/Types-of-discrimination-definitions/ http://www.equality-law.co.uk/news/106/66/Types-of-discrimin...
- _delirium 13y ago
  That's the usage I'm familiar with even in regular discourse, although apparently many HNers have a different view of what the term means, so maybe usage differs. To me, "discrimination" is more of an objective issue, not the same as "prejudice" or "bigotry" which are more subjective issues. Saying "Google is prejudiced towards Native Americans" would imply that someone there actively dislikes Native Americans, while saying that "Google policy [x] discriminates against Native Americans" only implies (to me) that the policy has a negative effect that specifically impacts Native Americans, but doesn't imply that someone at Google came up with the policy out of a dislike of Native Americans or an actual intent to harm them.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  It's the same in the US, the person you're replying to simply needs to consult a dictionary.
- Tohhou 13y ago
  I don't like his post because he needlessly implies Google engineers are malicious when it's obviously not the case. >staff are either incompetent, or racist. I hope for incompetence. Either is bad, but racism is much worse than incompetence. >protected characteristic http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4 http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/new-equality-act-guidance/protected-characteristics-definitions/ http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/new-e... Does that include names?
  - aspidistra 13y ago
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Accidental discrimination is still discrimination, absence of malicious intent doesn't eliminate negative consequences. Also, continuation of accidental discrimination after being made aware of it becomes purposeful discrimination. If google doesn't fix it they can't use the "oops, we didn't know" defense for much longer.

"Discriminate" because this was obviously intentional prejudicial racism! Of course it's not malicious. This guy is not good people.

by Tohhou 13y ago

"Discriminate" because this was obviously intentional prejudicial racism! Of course it's not malicious. This guy is not good people.

chris_wot 13y ago

How do you explain it then? It's good enough for a BuzzFeed writer to get it reinstated, but not good enough to at least verify that it's a real name?

nysv 13y ago
Their policy on this has been pointed out to be bad and absurd so many times by now that I'm leaning towards Hanlon's razor now: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
- crypt1d 13y ago
  Exactly. I for one find it slightly annoying that people use the term _discrimination_ so lightly, even though its quite possible that the reason behind this issue is incompetence.
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    There was nothing light about how I used it. Even if this was not done intentionally, it still discriminated against her. Sort of like how gender fields with only a Male/Female option unintentionally discriminate against transgender people. Nothing intentional, but still happens - and still discrimination.
    - judk 13y ago
      Since Facebook has now fixed this bug in their UI/database, safe to say it is intentional elsewhere. At least in the sense that "supporting gender fluid users is lower priority than adding more whizzy animations to the UI".
  - saalweachter 13y ago
    How about "obstinacy"?
  - vidarh 13y ago
    The two are not incompatible. If your incompetence leads you to implement a policy that disproportionally disadvantages a certain group, you are also discriminating against them. Discrimination does not require intent.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    you can "indirectly discriminate" if you implement polices that effect a larger proportionate of a particular group. It's why stop and search that targets a large number of young black men is seen as racist. It might be incompetence the first time but this has been going on for such a long time now that that is wearing a bit thin as an excuse.
    - judk 13y ago
      This called "disparate impact" in US law. Quite a controversial issue, and only getting worse ad.machine learning algorithms grow in power and influence.
- hrktb 13y ago
  Shouldn't it be the other way round ? Google's policy was pointed out to be bad and absurd countless times and they knowingly stuck with it anyway, understanding users were prejudiced from it. Isn't it malice ?
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    You mean like some sort of malicious incompetence? That's really twisting Hanlon's razor!
Tohhou 13y ago
I will explain it. Google wants personal identity attached to posts on Google+ people Google thinks that people will value what they say when they are not posting anonymously. Some engineer wrote a thing to try to catch obviously fake names, and some kinds of real names, which actually are attached to real identity, get caught in the filter. They didn't target specific groups of people because they hate them ffs. I agree that it's a stupid policy, but calling things which are not really racism racism only dilutes actual racism and victims of racism. "Google+ naming filter thinks American Native Indian style names are not real names"
- chris_wot 13y ago
  So in other words, it's incompetence then. Which was the alternative to racism. Which is what I said.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  A filter to catch "fake names" based on dictionary words I presume. If you do that for names of German origin (with a German word list) there will be hit after hit Google apparently doesn't know much about names.
- calibraxis 13y ago
  > calling things which are not really racism racism only dilutes actual racism and victims of racism. I don't know your racial category, but people of color frequently mention how white people aggressively like to redefine racism so it doesn't include their own racism. This particular argument is common among them. Because after all, racism is one of those -isms which are a fundamental part of many cultures (like the US).
  - ebfe 13y ago
    That's really interesting, I'd never heard of this before. Can you give us an example you've heard of a redefinition of racism that would exclude whites from being racist?
    - 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

ceejayoz 13y ago

The writer leaves open the "incompetence" option, if you actually read the article. Discrimination needn't involve intentional malice, either - 50-60 year olds often face hiring discrimination from folks who certainly don't intentionally discount them.

voteapathy 13y ago
Well, I would suspect that Google makes deliberate choices on how they set up these sorts of things. They've probably built models which demonstrate that only n percent of the global population will be affected by a certain naming policy and the differences in cost associated with modifying their databases or to accommodate such names or dealing with troll accounts versus maintaining the status quo. [Keep in mind I obviously do not work at Google and clearly have no idea what I'm talking about]. I suspect that, in reality, Google feels that keeping their uses safe from all the Grass Mud Horse's and Assmen of the world doesn't affect their profitability significantly. Frankly, I would love to look into the best ways to deal with the non-universality of names for users while still being able to meaningfully harvest and utilize all of their information for those sweet sweet advertising dollars. Perhaps the best way is just give users a generic field for "name" (not first/last name) and make the good, old-fashioned username be the identifier.
- codesilverback 13y ago
  I'm not sure incompetence is the same as "doesn't handle every conceivable edge case." As the algorithms take over, "sorry, but you are an edge case we didn't get to" is going to be a common problem.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    If it's all going to be handled by algorithms, there shouldn't be an appeals process. It seems like in this case "appeal" meant "automatically reprocess and reject again with a form message" until they got the media involved.
- wpietri 13y ago

aspidistra 13y ago

In the UK, at least, "discriminate" is the right word because it is possible to discriminate indirectly. This is defined in law. If you have rules that apply to everyone but disadvantage people who share a protected characteristic, you are discriminating, whether you intended to or not. http://www.equality-law.co.uk/news/106/66/Types-of-discrimination-definitions/ http://www.equality-law.co.uk/news/106/66/Types-of-discrimin...

_delirium 13y ago
That's the usage I'm familiar with even in regular discourse, although apparently many HNers have a different view of what the term means, so maybe usage differs. To me, "discrimination" is more of an objective issue, not the same as "prejudice" or "bigotry" which are more subjective issues. Saying "Google is prejudiced towards Native Americans" would imply that someone there actively dislikes Native Americans, while saying that "Google policy [x] discriminates against Native Americans" only implies (to me) that the policy has a negative effect that specifically impacts Native Americans, but doesn't imply that someone at Google came up with the policy out of a dislike of Native Americans or an actual intent to harm them.
nknighthb 13y ago
It's the same in the US, the person you're replying to simply needs to consult a dictionary.
Tohhou 13y ago
I don't like his post because he needlessly implies Google engineers are malicious when it's obviously not the case. >staff are either incompetent, or racist. I hope for incompetence. Either is bad, but racism is much worse than incompetence. >protected characteristic http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4 http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/new-equality-act-guidance/protected-characteristics-definitions/ http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/new-e... Does that include names?
- aspidistra 13y ago

InclinedPlane 13y ago

Accidental discrimination is still discrimination, absence of malicious intent doesn't eliminate negative consequences. Also, continuation of accidental discrimination after being made aware of it becomes purposeful discrimination. If google doesn't fix it they can't use the "oops, we didn't know" defense for much longer.