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Google Protest Leader Leaves

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Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#201

Post by KirinDave »

Merrill wrote: post #129
KirinDave wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally illegal. There are laws against retaliation against whistleblowers. That is why it is surprising. > I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. Because you don't want to see the thing you worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"? Seems reasonable to me. Google's got a…

What did she do that is protected under the various whistleblower protection laws? https://www.whistleblowers.gov/sites/wb/files/2019-06/whistl... I don't think that objecting to your company's AI work for DoD or plans to comply with Chinese internet search regulations fall under any of them. What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build?

> What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build?

Have you made any effort to investigate who Meredith Whittaker is on your own?

Her work on AI ethics was much appreciated and celebrated precisely because she was a distinguished contributor. The cultural aversion to building weapons is not novel thing in that culture.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#202

Post by pvg »

dmix wrote: post #185
pvg wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you edited it a bit now but my point is, you're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what "equal compensation" is about. If it's the former, the linked page is a good place to start.

I could link you to plenty of politic hot topics that I care about. But I don’t see how that helps explain the role of highly politicized work environments. Violence on the other hand also has no place in the work environment. Which is why harassment of all forms isn’t tolerated.

It's not a matter of 'hot topics' or 'politicization'. Workers demands for fair compensation in general have a long history and are a central part of the relationship between employer and employee. If you think the fact that siblings might experience different economic outcomes has anything to do with this, you've (most charitably interpreted) misunderstood the topic.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#204

Post by 0815test »

whatshisface wrote: post #5

Google works like crazy to hire all of the smartest and the best people, but do they really need them? Billions and billions in shareholder value could be extracted by hiring a bunch of mid-tier Java programmers and having them farm Ad Words for the next decade, until the first competition shows up.

> by hiring a bunch of mid-tier Java programmers

Replace Java with Go (not much of a change, all things considered!) and that's exactly what Google seems to be doing. It's a big problem for them in the long run because it does mean accruing a mass of technical debt that will not necessarily be easy to get rid of. You'd expect "smart" folks in a tech-oriented enterprise to do better than that, especially if they're unutilized otherwise, but it can't be easy to do that sort of management at Google scale.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#205

Post by lawnchair_larry »

KirinDave wrote: post #87
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks good for Google to me. These protests were getting out of hand, and their demands were showing some major entitlement.

You don't understand Google culture if you think this line would fly with anyone there. Entitlement for full time employees is baked into the charter, along with transparency. That's a good thing and a bad thing, in different ways. It gave bad actors a lot of autonomy, but it also exposed them to scrutiny and pushback from good actors. What's surprising is that now these reprisals are trying to push that back to make…

Everyone I know at Google hates these “protests” and can’t stand the entitlement. It sounds to me like they are a vocal minority.

This has nothing to do with transparency and speaking out against your employer. The issue is not that they have a voice, it’s how they choose to use it.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#206

Post by Afton »

dmix wrote: post #147
Jasper_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if only there was some news story alleging that Google treated workers poorly after raising harassment concerns. Sounds like you want to see that!

She reported an incident of sexual harassment that was ignored and then she was fired?

From the actual article: ```She was one of six women who organized massive walkouts after reports that Google paid handsome sums to executives accused of sexual harassment.```

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#207

Post by hirundo »

Rowboat politics. If one of the rowers decides that she doesn't like the direction the coxswain is steering and starts to row in the other direction, it tends to annoy the other rowers. This is true whether she is right or not. If she can't change the coxswain's mind it's better for both her and the rest of the crew for her to find another rowboat.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#208

Post by serioussecurity »

Merrill wrote: post #129
KirinDave wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally illegal. There are laws against retaliation against whistleblowers. That is why it is surprising. > I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. Because you don't want to see the thing you worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"? Seems reasonable to me. Google's got a…

What did she do that is protected under the various whistleblower protection laws? https://www.whistleblowers.gov/sites/wb/files/2019-06/whistl... I don't think that objecting to your company's AI work for DoD or plans to comply with Chinese internet search regulations fall under any of them. What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build?

So many arm chair lawyers on HN. The parent is wrong. It's illegal because it violates the NLRA, not whistleblower protections.

"Protected concerted activity".

If you want a good primer, "Labor Law for the Rank and Filer" is a good one.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#209

Post by lawnchair_larry »

qntty wrote: post #91
geofft wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're the people making Google work. Why shouldn't they be entitled?

Some people think the leaders of Google are entitled to unilaterally decide what people at Google work on, and if you resist that sense of entitlement, people call you entitled.

Seriously? Leaders who hired you and pay you are entitled to direct your work. What planet are you from?

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#210

Post by AnimalMuppet »

geofft wrote: post #25
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #13

I thought this story had already been reported a month ago. But no, I was wrong, that was the other organizer of the Google Protests, Claire Stapleton: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/07/google-wa... So to clarify, both of the female Google employees who lead/organized the protests have now left because they say they faced retaliation. That looks very bad for Google.

Liz Fong-Jones (who left Google earlier this year after some 11 years there) tweeted about this last night: https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1150960547803860993 Of the walkout organizers alone, four out of seven have now left.

That looks very bad.

On the other hand, if you're organizing a walkout, you're probably pretty fed up already. How far are you from quitting at that point? Probably not very. If you organize the walkout and nothing changes, even if there is zero retaliation, do you quit?

At a minimum, this probably indicates that there was not enough improvement, fast enough, at Google.

Note well: I am not saying that there was not retaliation. I am saying that this, by itself, does not prove retaliation.

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