New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

Writing and acting are race to the bottom. There are plenty of people who would be willing to act for free. You can't say the same for working at Facebook.

In order to stop the race-to-the bottom SAG-AFTRA artificially constrains the marketplace by forcing studios hire a certain number of union actors. In this case, it doesn't really hurt newbies because they'd otherwise get paid peanuts anyways. However, that isn't something that people would want in tech expect perhaps in the videogame industry.

Nothing about FB or its chief executive indicates they're using a 'moral compass.'

Stocks basically are pay, because anyone who doesn't immediately sell them as they vest is fiscally irresponsible.

>Which is the same as what it would be if it was unionised

Firstly, no. The scale is wide and you are placed somewhere between the low and high points of the scale for your level. Not every L5 engineer earns the same thing. Secondly, total compensation is what matters.

>Also, you have chosen two professions that are run by public organisations, so pay is always going to be low

Tech contractors for public organisations in my area are paid more or less market rate.

>However in other countries, teachers unions are very effective at settling compensation

Not for top performers, they are paid the same as low performers.

>The UK for example has reasonably well paid teachers

If you are the best teacher in the country, you get severely underpaid.

>Statistics say that in practice your probably earning close to median for tech

I earn 110% more than the median wage for my particular level, according to Glassdoor/Levels/etc. I don't think I'm special, but I think I perform highly and are paid in kind for that. Given I'm capable of analysing my own impact, it's pretty clear I'm paid a fraction of the value I provide to the company too.

The D-pad is bound to several predefined words and phrases that are useful such as "Nice shot!" or "Great pass!". Because of the fast paced nature of the game it's pretty tough to try to abuse this system (maybe by spelling words with the first letters of allowed phrases?) but no one does that.

To appease the folks who wanted to express that they were using a curse word, you can also send "$#@%!". It's really satisfying to be able to express a curse when you accidentally send the ball flying towards your own team's goal, for instance.

Of course they also have straight up text chat where they asterisk out curse words and anything that might look like personal info such as phone numbers. If you're on a console, it's unlikely you even have a keyboard hooked up. And the text input system for controllers is just too slow to type anything worthwhile in the limited time you have during goal-replays. Typing anything more than a few words means you're not helping your team which is naturally shamed and can lead to a server kick.

It drastically reduces the toxic bigotry that usually pops up on extremely popular multiplayer games. The only exception is that people sometimes have bigoted usernames which are tougher to censor for the reasons mentioned in the article.

Anyway, while I do think it's an arms race of sorts, Rocket League has gotten about as close to possible to solving the issue.