> "The upside to this is that white people no longer make up the majority at Facebook."
I am all for diversity, but this sentence upsets me. Decreasing one population in the place should not be the goal.
Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
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Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#32Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is. Why did we decide race, and sex are the important immutable factors that we're going to measure? I grew up in what is today Trump Country. My high school prepared me to work in a factory. Then the factory moved to China, and now the only jobs left in the area…
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#33Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is. Why did we decide race, and sex are the important immutable factors that we're going to measure? I grew up in what is today Trump Country. My high school prepared me to work in a factory. Then the factory moved to China, and now the only jobs left in the area…
I don't know why this is getting downvoted; he has a very valid point. Economic class/background is as important when it comes to diversity.
I feel like there's little conversation about it because it's an even harder problem to tackle and a less obvious one to see. I will say though, to a large extent economic class and race still remain tied in the US.
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#34Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is. Why did we decide race, and sex are the important immutable factors that we're going to measure? I grew up in what is today Trump Country. My high school prepared me to work in a factory. Then the factory moved to China, and now the only jobs left in the area…
I also think it's discrimination against the tech industry to pressure them for equality more than other biased fields: hairdressers, wedding planners, childcare workers, sanitation workers, firefighters. All these occupations have severe biases that go ignored by the people who continually roll FANG through the ringer because they aren't "diverse".
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#35This Techcrunch write has a long storied history of playing identity politics some would even argue with racist undertones.
I recently saw a new "the more you know ad" on YouTubeTV and was really impressed with the message. Instead of playing identity politics and blaming "patriarchal white men" it encouraged women to join the engineering and science movement and become more active in technology. That's the message we should be sending.
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#36Can someone tell me why these tech companies even publish these numbers? It seems like they always end up with egg on their face. And they have no obligation to be transparent as private (or public) entities. But now they all have to have chief diversity officers and diversity councils and PR/recruiting teams for diversity - all of which cost money and hasn't seemed to move the needle very much. And which as another…
Because they care?
I know it's a shocking concept, but people actually care. "Big corporations" aren't some amorphous number crunching machine. They're staffed by people, and those people have concerns, and priorities, and principles. When you specifically hire for people who share those principles, and announce them loudly as part of your culture, people actually can, and do, get upset, and demand change when you don't act accordingly — and change can and does happen.
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#37The fact is that diversity doesn't start at companies. It needs to be part of parenting (encouraging daughters to explore STEM). Needs to be part of early education in schools, and also colleges. Until the diversity spectrum in college admissions and graduates improves, companies are going to find it hard to meet their diversity requirements if there aren't enough diversity in skilled workers out in the market.
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#38Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is. Why did we decide race, and sex are the important immutable factors that we're going to measure? I grew up in what is today Trump Country. My high school prepared me to work in a factory. Then the factory moved to China, and now the only jobs left in the area…
Economic mobility is definitely a part of social justice. But let's note that those groups that most suffer from a lack of economic mobility are Black and Latinx groups. Even among whites, white men tend have better economic mobility than white women. See for example the data at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-y....
So, race and sex are directly tied to economic mobility, which is why they are the important factors that are being measured.
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#39> When the Cambridge Analytica scandal went down, some pointed to Facebook’s overall lack of diversity as part of the problem. That’s because homogenous cultures lead to limited perspectives and potential lack of awareness of things that may be more obvious to diverse groups of people. If the purpose is to gain greater perspective and awareness through less homogeneous employees, then it would be more effective to hi…
Agreed, genuine diversity of intellectual approach is the gold standard IMHO.
Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years
#40Techs diversity problems start early in school before college. Facebook are just the last mile. The sex based targeting of childrens toys would be a good place to start , but you won't see results for 20 years.
Sex targeted toys sell. Most parents want that for their kids. It's not a conspiracy by the toy companies.