I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails • Hacker News Board

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#51

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #20

> I was able to ask my PhD college, and several other institutions, to see all emails in which my name appeared in either the subject line or the body of the email Hmm, I don't think I like this, and I don't understand how the GDPR allows you to do this. While I understand that stored emails that mention you are technically "data about you", I wouldn't consider them "your data". Emails are a form of personal communic…

This has been the case under the old data protection regime as well, and indeed I know someone else who used it against an educational institution who they suspected was blacklisting them - and also turned out to be right.

It's squarely within the spirit of data protection as well. Are those emails data? Yes. Do they relate to you? Yes. Are they being used to make decisions which affect your employment? Also yes.

Redacting the PII of others in the same emails is an extremely tricky problem though.

The lesson of this and other things like the LIBOR chatroom has to be "don't conspire against people on your employer's computer systems".

There is a flip side to blacklisting; one of the things that has emerged from the #metoo era is that many institutions had staff who were "missing stairs" - they were widely known to harass female staff, and the whisper networks propagated this, and even in some cases the male staff were aware that they shouldn't leave X alone with a female staff member, but no action was taken.

GRPR forces institutions to be open with their disciplinary processes. You can't "shadowban" staff, unless you're willing to do it entirely verbally without ever committing to email.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#52

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #44

icebraining wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR does say "the right to obtain a copy (...) shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others", but it doesn't spell out what that means. Still, your work email account can be monitored by your employer (though in the EU they have to provide notice of that monitoring), so you don't have the same protection as in a private account. OTOH, it could be a violation of privacy / data-protection for the a…

> rights and freedoms of others", but it doesn't spell out what that means Hmm, that's unfortunate it's not at least a little more specific, but at the least I'd expect the right to lawful freedom of speech. I get that these are "work emails", but this just feels very wrong to me, and doesn't seem to fit with the intent of the GDPR.

How does this infringe on freedom of speech? You can still make the speech, but it may get back to the person you're speaking about. Which, in an employment context, is kind of necessary for procedural fairness.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#53

Post by literallycancer » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

hycaria wrote: post #23

norswap wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way or another, we can't really know. But I believe people have an unalienable right to tell their version of a story. As far as these story go, this is one is very civil (and doesn't name the people that are accused of destroying a career and a life). What I don't really understand is what this comment brings to the table. Why try to cast aspersions on an otherwise mild testimony, the truth of which is pretty mu…

Well, what's the point of the article in the first place anyways ? Yeah stuff like that happen, have and will, and sometime verbally so good luck fighting that. Self-improvement seems the most efficient way of fighting that for oneself. I just wanted to remind that the other side of the story was way more probable. Because outcasting her for her accent, despite all the good it brings a team to sprout successful acade…

There's plenty of educated people that are incompetent. It matters less than you think.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#54

Post by meijer » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

hycaria wrote: post #5

>Where my personality was called into question perhaps my working-class background, my northern accent, and my Aspergers could be a reasonable explanation. Easier to resort to such hypotheses than be self critical, I guess. Do we really fall in the category where one student with apparently decent thesis results gets ostarcized by her advisor AND the examiners, where no one in the faculty or comittee would stand for…

For me the point is: you should treat people well even if you don't like them. And that includes not spreading slander.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#55

Post by istjohn » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #20

> I was able to ask my PhD college, and several other institutions, to see all emails in which my name appeared in either the subject line or the body of the email Hmm, I don't think I like this, and I don't understand how the GDPR allows you to do this. While I understand that stored emails that mention you are technically "data about you", I wouldn't consider them "your data". Emails are a form of personal communic…

I can't speak to European law, but in the US, work-related emails of government employees are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Sensitive information, like health or education data of individuals is redacted before it is released.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#56

Post by austhrow743 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

hycaria wrote: post #5

>Where my personality was called into question perhaps my working-class background, my northern accent, and my Aspergers could be a reasonable explanation. Easier to resort to such hypotheses than be self critical, I guess. Do we really fall in the category where one student with apparently decent thesis results gets ostarcized by her advisor AND the examiners, where no one in the faculty or comittee would stand for…

I don't understand how that's not being self critical. On finding that they're not well liked they thought up aspects of their personality others might not like.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#57

Post by sp332 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

traderjane wrote: post #19

motohagiography wrote: post #8

Anecdotally, I met someone who stopped updating their linkedin profile because he found out someone was making anonymous comments and allegations to his employers. He didn't know what they were or who it was because it came second hand from a colleague who told him that an exec had asked about him because of an anonymous message. Also, whisper networks in tech are very much a thing and they are full of just the quali…

Whisper networks just mean powerful people who talk among each other and do their research. That will always be the case. In politics isn’t that just the standard form of discourse?

Whisper networks are less-powerful people warning each other about more-powerful people. People with power don't need to hide their communications so much because they are less vulnerable.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#58

Post by sysbin » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

air7 wrote: post #32

> Where my personality was called into question perhaps my working-class background, my northern accent, and my Asperger's could be a reasonable explanation. It's quite likely that ones background and developmental disorders shape one's personality. However, it's still their personality. So what if it has a reason? This touches on the dark abyss of "free will". In some sense all we are is a cellular-automata chugging…

Free will is an illusion and simply it doesn't exist.

You cannot make either a choice or decision that's truly your own. Simply, you cannot without being effected by the system you're in.

People don't choose the life they're born into and why does anything that comes after birth be assumed differently. The answer cultural conditioning and from religious ideology that has rooted deeply into society. The belief that god gave humanity free will.

No part of your actions are truly the responsibility of you as a person but the fate of cause & effect and everything outside one's control. The system of society with genetics & environment being imperfect makes bad people. Otherwise we would just have 'people' in a system of perfect equality.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#59

Post by mistermann » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #14

motohagiography wrote: post #8

Anecdotally, I met someone who stopped updating their linkedin profile because he found out someone was making anonymous comments and allegations to his employers. He didn't know what they were or who it was because it came second hand from a colleague who told him that an exec had asked about him because of an anonymous message. Also, whisper networks in tech are very much a thing and they are full of just the quali…

The real world is crazy. The amount of bullying, stalking and attacks I've gotten after getting a series of promotions in a rotten workplace with a few bad apples is unbelievable. If I knew better, I'd have paid attention to the above comment.

> The real world is crazy.

It's quite amazing how large the gap is between the way the world is described to us through various mediums, versus the clearly observable reality of it.

FTA:

> I approached the individuals and the institutions concerned about the content of my Subject Access Request. They all refused to discuss the matter with me, so I can only speculate as to what was going on.

Of course, these people were just "avoiding drama" they'd tell us. But then, is avoiding drama that what they were doing when they were trashing this person behind their back in emails?

I think people have a tendency to conceptualize a stark, "real" line between adolescence and adulthood, but the reality of the matter seems to be that many adults are little more than high school kids plus some added expertise in some narrow domains. The adult world, even at the highest levels of authority, largely consists of the same petty cliques, backstabbing, lying, and whatnot that you'd experience in high school.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#60

Post by sct202 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #43

I actually think I've been "blacklisted" at a government agency in my country, or at least someone with hiring power must be working there who specifically does not want to hire me. Two reasons - 1. some years ago there was a job listing at the agency for a programmer with experience in a governmental specification that I was the technical guy in the working group that made the specification, for heavy experience in…

I don't know if your government is like my government, but a lot of the hiring decisions my government makes are often corrupt and based on X government leader owes Y person so this job will go to one of Y person's friends.