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Google's Civil War

fortune.com

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Re: Google's Civil War

#71

Post by malvosenior »

DFHippie wrote: post #45
fyoving wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, they are would be retaliating against employees who generate bad PR for them. For another the rest of the tech companies don't seem to enable let alone tolerate this shenanigans.

Retaliating against whistle blowers is a great way to generate bad PR for yourself. You may disagree that this is whistle blowing. You may view these employees as entitled troublemakers. I expect the googlers doing this view themselves as making personal sacrifices for the greater good. In any case, I doubt Google wants to lose talent to competitors because they are viewed as a hotbed of right-to-workers ideology in…

Google didn't hesitate to fire Damore. Whether you agree with him or not, he was definitely blowing the whistle on what he saw as a problem of political extremism being baked into Google's culture. The move was pretty much universally celebrated in the press (although I suspect it had a much more negative impact among people who are independent thinkers).

Re: Google's Civil War

#72

Post by faissaloo »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #28
dralley wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is, employees shouldn't complain about (censorship, bosses tolerating sexual harassment, etc.), they should either put up with it or leave quietly (possibly to their own financial detriment)? I can't say I agree with you. What you're suggesting is basically the Wall Street model where bad and unethical institutional behavior gets a suboptimal amount of pushback.

That's how employment works. As an employee you are paid to execute the company's strategy. If you disagree you can of course, and even should, voice your disagreement but that should be done in a professional in diplomatic way, in private. If you cannot do that or cannot accept the company's strategy then yes, your alternative is to leave quietly. The new "red guards" of the left may not like it, but that's what pro…

If your company is going to super power the surveillance state and plunge the world into tyranny like we've never seen before why would you make things easy for them?

Re: Google's Civil War

#73

Post by skookumchuck »

lisper wrote: post #8
thrower123 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also gets rid of the awful autoplay video above the fold that starts blaring out immediately. Thanks!

Simply disabling Javascript works too.

This is why I use a separate system to play music, not my computer.

Re: Google's Civil War

#74

Post by village-idiot »

conanbatt wrote: post #56
pjc50 wrote: post #34

> And in an attempt to quell the increase in uncivil interactions on its internal platforms, its new “community guidelines” ban slurs and references to sex acts in any work document Rather surprised that people were getting away with that in the first place. Edit: just realised that, like codes of conduct, the key difference is that now the rule also applies to the people at the top.

I'm surprised a rule is the solution for that.

If you want to change a culture, rules like that are often a start of the process. But the rule alone is certainly insufficient on its own.

Re: Google's Civil War

#75

Post by NotPaidToPost »

eropple wrote: post #48
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how employment works. As an employee you are paid to execute the company's strategy. If you disagree you can of course, and even should, voice your disagreement but that should be done in a professional in diplomatic way, in private. If you cannot do that or cannot accept the company's strategy then yes, your alternative is to leave quietly. The new "red guards" of the left may not like it, but that's what pro…

This is an extremely...one-sided...view of things. Consider a more healthy one: capital and labor should be partners , and labor gets to have a say in the direction of the company, too. It must be said, again and again: corporations exist at the sufferance of the society that grants them their charter and only exist for the benefit of that society. A company that can't do that should have its charter revoked. And its…

[flagged]

Re: Google's Civil War

#76

Post by darkpuma »

itronitron wrote: post #53
pjc50 wrote: post #34

> And in an attempt to quell the increase in uncivil interactions on its internal platforms, its new “community guidelines” ban slurs and references to sex acts in any work document Rather surprised that people were getting away with that in the first place. Edit: just realised that, like codes of conduct, the key difference is that now the rule also applies to the people at the top.

also, how about banning slurs and references to sex acts in any work communication ?

If I twist my ankle and exclaim "fuck!", would that be in violation? It's not a dumb question, there are some people who are genuinely offended by that sort of language. Would the rules back them up, or me?

In theory I'm in favor of these sort of rules, but I hope they leave some wiggle room for common sense, preferably erroring on the side of tolerance.

Re: Google's Civil War

#77

Post by new2627 »

itronitron wrote: post #53
pjc50 wrote: post #34

> And in an attempt to quell the increase in uncivil interactions on its internal platforms, its new “community guidelines” ban slurs and references to sex acts in any work document Rather surprised that people were getting away with that in the first place. Edit: just realised that, like codes of conduct, the key difference is that now the rule also applies to the people at the top.

also, how about banning slurs and references to sex acts in any work communication ?

What about sex workers though?

Re: Google's Civil War

#78

Post by rudolfwinestock »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #69

> at Microsoft, employees say they don’t want to build technology for warfare Does anyone know what exactly Microsoft is doing with the military? Is this like better image recognition for drone strikes / targeting humans or more like providing operating systems for military administration? Because those could both be technically construed as “building technology for warfare” with only the first choice being the actua…

Bill Gates & Paul Allen originally founded Microsoft in Albuquerqe, New Mexico, in order to be reasonably close to Los Alamos because they wanted to get military contracts.

Re: Google's Civil War

#79

Post by jmull »

deogeo wrote: post #18

> Things got even uglier when Damore sympathizers leaked comments made on the message boards by Fong-Jones, a trans woman, and other Google diversity advocates to right-wing news sites. [this fortune.com article] This got me curious, so I tried searching for these leaked comments, while avoiding far-right news sites. This is what I found: > Diversity advocates at Google – including the Mountain View tech giant's high…

I think it’s the publishing of the comments that is the key thing, not the comments themselves.

That’s because it causes the person to be targeted for harassment.

Re: Google's Civil War

#80

Post by TaylorAlexander »

UncleMeat wrote: post #64
idlewords wrote: post #17

I'd be curious to hear rank-and-file Googlers' views on how this dynamic is playing out within the company. It's in both journalists' and organizers' interests to play it up, so the reality can be hard to discern.

It has come up precisely twice in my immediate working group in the last few years (the Damore thing and the first walkout). It has affected by work literally not at all. Some people care deeply about this stuff. I agree with a fair amount of it. But from my perspective calling it a civil war is frankly ludicrous.

I think it affects some groups more than others. A lot of people get mistreated at Google (TVCs, women, people of color, trans people). It’s a lot of high achieving people and a high pressure environment. Inevitably some people will push others without realizing how hard they are pushing. It’s good in my opinion for people to speak out about this.
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