Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Protest Leader Leaves

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 442 posts

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#351

Post by renjimen »

ehvatum wrote: post #197

“Whittaker also publicly denounced some Google decisions, including the appointment of Kay Coles James, a conservative think tank leader, to an AI ethics board. Google soon nixed the board.” Many people hold strong beliefs that conflict with the strong beliefs of others and engage in open debate rather than walk-outs. I can only assume Whittaker realized that her views would not prevail, but felt that she was nonethe…

Or maybe she just didn't want to work for a company with questionable morals anymore.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#352

Post by username90 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #299
cobookman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manager feedback was posted in an internal mailing list. It said no such thing. manager asked her to focus on her day to day job. Her ai ethics work was not aligned to the job she was hired for.

This is not correct. Her day to day work is/was in the AI bias and ethics space, even within google.

> Her day to day work is/was in the AI bias and ethics space, even within google.

Her manager apparently disagreed. I can easily imagine that the AI bias work could have been a 20% project which she spent way more than 20% time on, and now the manager decided that enough is enough.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#353

Post by tptacek »

dmix wrote: post #53
CydeWeys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bad to retaliate against workers who organize against sexual harassment and gender compensation disparity in the workplace. It looks bad because it is bad.

So as long as you have good intentions you should be free to bring whatever politics to work? Regardless of how, as long as what your protesting the right things everything else doesn’t matter?

You're composing a bit of a motte-and-bailey argument here. From your replies downthread, it seems clear that you have issues with the underlying concerns of the protests. But your opening bid for the argument is "politics don't belong in the workplace".

If you were up-front about this, you'd say "harassment and discrimination are political issues that shouldn't be organized around". Of course, that argument wouldn't carry well here. But it'd be more intellectually honest.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#354

Post by tptacek »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #205
KirinDave wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You seem to know weird subsets of people at different companies. If we weren't ostensibly in the same field, I wouldn't comment (because of course two random people on HN would know different people at Google). But we are, and the Google security people I talk to are more supportive of the protests; several are now on the job market because of it.

I feel pretty comfortable with how representative the people I talk to are of Google product security and vulnerability research, for whatever that's worth to you.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#355

Post by ocdtrekkie »

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.

I actually got on Liz's block list for suggesting that Google the company "wasn't worth saving", when Liz was still at Google organizing employee action to try and "fix" it.

I get the impression we'd agree on that point much more today than we did then.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#356

Post by franimalia »

Cute timing wrt Whittaker’s departure, considering Peter Thiel’s diatribe against Google just yesterday regarding Google’s involvement in proceedings with China. [1]

Meanwhile, Facebook assumes widespread immunity in ethical ontology within Thiel’s (goofy) narrative, all being quite selectively convenient given Thiel sits on FB’s board.

Both stories were initially broken by Bloomberg, which is also charmingly harmonic, temporally. Thiel likely pushed to collate onto Whittaker’s thunder is my (mere) immediate speculation.

Disclaimer: Worked as an engineer at Bloomberg 8+ years (now in academic scientific research), I doubt Bloomberg consciously coordinated the stories but anything’s possible, I suppose. (as mentioned, more likely the stories coordinated themselves in alignment to Bloomberg publication - if anything).

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20447055

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#357

Post by joshuamorton »

username90 wrote: post #352
joshuamorton wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. Her day to day work is/was in the AI bias and ethics space, even within google.

> Her day to day work is/was in the AI bias and ethics space, even within google. Her manager apparently disagreed. I can easily imagine that the AI bias work could have been a 20% project which she spent way more than 20% time on, and now the manager decided that enough is enough.

I'm not sure where you're getting that from, but it's not correct. If you're in google, I'm happy to source what I'm saying more specifically.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#358

Post by ocdtrekkie »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #275
ketzo wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think organizing a walkout is something you do if you don't want to leave. I mean, if they were really just fed up, they could have just left like you said. I think these people (as a couple have said publicly) really did want to help change Google for the better because they love at least some parts of it.

I agree that they don't want to leave, that they want to fix it. And yet, they have to be dissatisfied with current conditions, or they would not have organized the walkout in the first place. How dissatisfied? I'd guess pretty bad. Dissatisfied to the point that you're willing to do something that has some possibility of costing you your job. So they want to stay, and yet they're not that far from being fed up enoug…

I mean, the honest truth is: They walked out, made clear demands. Google refused to enact all but one of them. If they stuck around, it wouldn't suggest they were very committed to their goals.

I guess my biggest surprise was that there wasn't a second, more severe "walkout" or "strike" after Google declined to respond adequately. The Walkout made news but it wasn't nearly a strong enough action to really say it was all they could do. Most of the people who walked out went right back to their desks after work and kept working.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#359

Post by ameister14 »

kpU8efre7r wrote: post #112
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 laws? Source for that please.

https://lmgtfy.com/?q=corporate+whistleblower+protection+law...

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#360

Post by lawnchair_larry »

marktani wrote: post #262
KUcxrAVrtI wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Having a company culture where _everyone_ feels safe enough to speak up and being heard (instead of getting kicked out) is not democracy. It is smart and crucial, in my opinion. I am surprised that critizing something at a company equals being a trouble maker to you.

I am sure James Damore also wanted that. They went even further with him and outright fired him and shamed him.
Post reply on HN