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Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

nytimes.com

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Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#141

Post by throwaway1230n9 »

itronitron wrote: post #102
_8j50 wrote: post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

what was unpleasant about the very liberal workplace?

Not the OP, but twofold: Being told that certain hobbies/beliefs I had were explicitly disallowed to be discussed, whereas comparable statements on the other side were perfectly OK, and having the situation escalated on me aggressively when I asked to understand the apparent hypocrisy. (These were not radical things, by the way, take an example as 'laser tag'; I'm leaving out detail as I'll mention in my second point)

Secondly, following from the first, the fact that I have to post something even as innocuous as this this anonymously out of fear of retribution of it was linked with my professional identity.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#142

Post by wwweston »

A couple of thoughts:

* As much as I enjoy forwarding and debating my own political ideas in settings where I think there's an opportunity, I've never considered work a primary venue for this, and the premise that political diversity should be a priority for a business is one that doesn't seem to have any kind of supporting argument. Companies exist to organize an economic activity. Other activity is incidental. Ideally your employment status is not affected by outside expressions. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you expect to accomplish internally. Especially if the gestalt is different.

* If Mr. Amerige is a fan of Rand, perhaps he should consider that those who own FB would, under Rand's philosophy, apparently be quite entitled to do whatever the hell they feel like with the company, obligate employees to take whatever position they like or leave.

* I've spent time arguing center-to-somewhat-conservative views on liberal websites like Metafilter. I've spent time forwarding nuanced religious or rationalist points in congregations of believing Mormons. I lean center left among family and friends who often lean pretty right. I know exactly what it's like to have to make a case in front of an audience that's not at all sympathetic to your point of view. Yep, sometimes it's super frustrating. I'm not seeing any discussion of particular consequences at Facebook, though, so it's impossible to tell if Amerige and any who agree with him are facing anything more difficult than the near inescapable social accountability for expressing a view where the stakes are a loss of some respect and gaining a bit of baseline hostility/distrust. And my experience is that even if it's an uphill battle, if you're patient and your position is genuinely well thought-out, it's often possible to make some measure of persuasion to people who you're giving both a reason to like you and a reason to think about what you're saying.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#143

Post by umvi »

intopieces wrote: post #76

I must be naive, because I cannot think of any political topic I would be discussing at work. How is this intolerance of right-wing ideology being expressed? What views specifically are being not-tolerated? Without these specifics, it's hard to understand the problem.

I can't speak for Facebook, but I've seen political drama on GitHub before. Certain people would go around and open issues on repos that had contributors deemed -ist or -obe and call for their removal. Opal comes to mind

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#144

Post by aslkdjaslkdj1 »

civilian wrote: post #99
saudioger wrote: post #48

Kind of moot considering how hard Zuckerberg stanned for Peter Thiel. How much was that Palmer Luckey payout? I'd argue that if you're working for Facebook you're kind of superficially liberal to begin with. Zuckerberg is only liberal until he has to worry about his bank account.

(what does 'stanned' mean? I can't figure out if it's a typo.)

Usually means an obsessed superfan but have evolved to mean someone with unwavering support of a person or entity. Came from the Eminem song "Stan" about a crazy fan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_(song)

>The name of the eponymous character has given rise to a slang term online which refers to overzealous, maniacal, overly obsessed fans of a celebrity or personality; the term has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#145

Post by mindslight »

gweinberg wrote: post #38

Scare quotes are around wrong word.

Maybe the whole topic is a long-con to incept traditional liberal values back in conservatives, repairing the damage from both ignorance parties having trashed the word.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#146

Post by abraham_lincoln »

downandout wrote: post #88
ctvo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those employees complaining were told they're not breaking any company policies. Their group is still open and nothing has been done against them. What a controversy.

It actually is a sign of something terribly wrong with the company's culture. If a notoriously liberal company determined that complaints about "racially offensive" posts in this group were false, then one can reasonably believe that the complaints were indeed false. That means that other employees were simply lodging false complaints to interfere with this group's right to exist. Think about that for a second. Other…

Is anybody really surprised that FB's internal culture could be toxic?

Look at the product and the mission.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#147

Post by xupybd »

_8j50 wrote: post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

I love discussing politics with co-workers that don't agree with me. You have to be careful to respect the person and not make it personal but it's really fun to explore complex ideas.

I think we just need to learn how to disagree in a friendly and constructive way. But also learn when to drop something and just get on with work.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#148

Post by _8j50 »

megaremote wrote: post #108

> Why are companies promoting "pride"...telling workers to attend 'lgbt tolerance' meetings,etc... Wth!!!! You ask this question, then answer it in your very next line. People don't respect everyone. They are intolerant.

Why is disrespecting or demeaning a coworker for any reason allowed? If I disrespect you because your haircut is unfashionable,would that be ok? If the meeting was about supporting neo-nazis ,would that not be saying the conmpany tolerates neo-nazis and does not welcome those who hate neo-nazism? Yet, you should respect your neo-nazi coworker,even if you were not told so.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#149

Post by postnihilism »

_iyig wrote: post #86
brainkim wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first three are deeply problematic and rooted in deep-seated white supremacist beliefs and absent mitigating circumstances I’d consider firing people who held them. Sorry, that’s just how I have to feel given everything that’s been going on these days.

I don’t agree that all criticism of misogynistic divorce laws, violence against “immodest” women, and application of the death penalty for homosexuality or apostasy is driven by “deeply-rooted white supremacy.” I would fire anyone who held such a belief, as I would not trust them around female, gay, or ex-Muslim co-workers.

Equating 'misogynistic divorce laws, violence against “immodest” women, and application of the death penalty for homosexuality' with an entire religion of 1.6 billion people is the issue, not criticism of a specific country's human rights record. You should not come to work and rail against a major world religion...

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#150

Post by __d »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #47
cycrutchfield wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>hot, left-leaning ideas of this time >equal rights for women >equal rights for people regardless of their sexuality What is "this time"? The 1800s?

Western feminism is no longer a movement that does any appreciable work towards equal rights for women. They, uhh, kind of already have that in the developed world.

The fact that "western feminism" doesn't appear to believe that women have achieved equal rights seems to me like maybe there's some more discussion to be had and changes to be made?
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