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Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#81

Post by baddox »

dekhn wrote: post #71
dlp211 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where mob rule is becoming the status quo. The Government of the US is currently (mostly) controlled by a party that received fewer votes.

That's not mob rule, that's completely and absolutely how the legal US government operates. Overturning the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment, which is no trivial task. Mob rule is entirely different: it refers to rule imposed from outside the law, possibly by a large group. Also, the "fewer votes" really only applies to the presidency, not the senate, house, or governors.

> That's not mob rule, that's completely and absolutely how the legal US government operates.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. Middle school civics class explanations of the electoral college are fine. You can understand the reasons the electoral college was created and still oppose the fact that there have been multiple recent cases where the electoral college went against the popular vote. And, not that it's particularly relevant, but I highly doubt the very people who designed the electoral college would approve of its use when it seems to routinely elect someone who lost the popular vote.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#82

Post by [deleted] »

underwater wrote: post #29
nsainsbury wrote: post #4

I think a key phrase here is "he was dismissed for publicly challenging a colleague’s silence". In other words, he publicly harassed a colleague who (for what could be any number of perfectly valid reasons) preferred not to publicly state their beliefs. That would seem to me to be an eminently reasonable reason to fire someone. If you go around publicly harassing your colleagues to publicly state their political opin…

He called out a colleague, and then when the colleague reached out to him privately so they could discuss, called him out again for not conversing in public on Twitter. I'm sympathetic to his motivations, but his behaviour was unprofessional and unwarranted.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#83

Post by dekhn »

JohnBerea wrote: post #28
dceddia wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase has some history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_looting_starts,_the...

Is the history of that phrase commonly known? That long and detailed Wikipedia Article was only created after Trump said the phrase: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=When_the_looting_...

Yes, the history is fairly well known by people who lived in the late 1960s. It was reported in the press and major magazines.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#84

Post by m_ke »

dvt wrote: post #60
m_ke wrote: post #52

Few things to consider: 1. Peter Thiel sits on Facebook's board and was one of its first investors. 2. Thiel donated 1.25 million to Trump's campaign right before the election when it looked like he had no chance of winning. 3. Thiel also donated millions of dollars to Mercer's Super PAC which was funding Cambridge Analytica (which Mercer cofounded with Bannon). 4. Thiel is looking to start a conservative news channe…

I'm not sure why your default position is that conservatism is anti-minority. It just seems intellectually lazy. Thiel is a pretty hardcore libertarian, so it makes sense that he looks at the world through a lens of personal responsibility, as opposed to group tribalism. It's merely a question of first principles. If you disagree, that's fine (and plenty of people do), but accusing him of being racist (or racist-adja…

See #7 in my updated comment. For a hardcore libertarian he sure loves government contracts.

Also I'm not accusing him of being a racist, just trying to point out that he's a major figure in the alt right circus and that it might have something to do with how Facebook deals with Trump.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#85

Post by sdinsn »

draw_down wrote: post #2

I'm sure the free speech brigade will be along any second now, to plead this person's cause. Yep, aaaaany second now.

You don't have freedom of speech protections against your private employer.

You only have protection against government action. And there is no government action in this story.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#86

Post by rjkennedy98 »

nemothekid wrote: post #72
_b3dj wrote: post #30

> “Intentionally not making a statement is already political,” Dale wrote in the tweet No it’s not. And this reminds me of the Dictatorship of the small minority [0] from NN Taleb. There are small intolerant minorities who are extremely vocal on certain matters to the point their opinions resemble a dictatorship [0] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

Almost every day on HN I read that multiple flavors of "FB/Palantir/Google/MS engineers who do nothing while Zuckerberg/USG/China invades more and more of our privacy are complicit in the cog that is Zuckerberg's ambition", but when it comes to race relations, suddenly engineers should be allowed to work in silence. I understand there's nuance, but I only hope the hivemind considers this nuance the next time they pil…

How does this even apply when it’s employees on the same company and team having disagreements?

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#87

Post by jackcodes »

baddox wrote: post #57
underwater wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He called out a colleague, and then when the colleague reached out to him privately so they could discuss, called him out again for not conversing in public on Twitter. I'm sympathetic to his motivations, but his behaviour was unprofessional and unwarranted.

It's a public open-source project. Why shouldn't the response of an open-source project toward a current important movement be conducted in public? It seems to me that the fact that both people are Facebook developers is not particularly relevant. If the other person had not been a Facebook employee, should Facebook have fired this person?

Because it’s a private discussion between two people of opposing views. Same reason you can still text your friends even if you work in public office.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#88

Post by rboyd »

baddox wrote: post #61
mgleitub wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed -- here is some additional context that the article doesn't provide: The fired employee Tweeted today: >In the interest of transparency, I was let go for calling out an employee’s inaction here on Twitter. I stand by what I said. They didn’t give me the chance to quit [0] He then specifically cited [1] the Tweet in question that was the cause: >I asked @Vjeux to follow @reactjs's lead and add a statement of su…

What do you mean by "specifically targeting an individual front-end engineer at FB?" This seems to be "targeting" the person in control of the website of that open source project, and why wouldn't this communication be targeted at that person? Targeting it at anyone else, or just tweeting into the wind, would be completely ridiculous. It also doesn't strike me as "harassment" or an "attack" or even particularly hosti…

Publicly shaming the guy for not wanting to take a public stance? Sounds pretty close to harassment the way these Twitter brigades can go.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#89

Post by baddox »

sdinsn wrote: post #78
baddox wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that it's not true (that silence is not complicit), then shouldn't you attempt to explain that?

Wanting to be silent at work and thinking that silence is being complicit are both compatible beliefs. Work isn't your entire life, you can be loud outside of work and yet still be silent at work. Think of the phrase, "Don't shit where you eat".

In this case, it's a public open source project that was being discussed. That both people are also Facebook developers (and from what I can tell both worked on the project as part of their job), doesn't seem particularly relevant.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#90

Post by johannes1234321 »

Grimm1 wrote: post #50
mgleitub wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed -- here is some additional context that the article doesn't provide: The fired employee Tweeted today: >In the interest of transparency, I was let go for calling out an employee’s inaction here on Twitter. I stand by what I said. They didn’t give me the chance to quit [0] He then specifically cited [1] the Tweet in question that was the cause: >I asked @Vjeux to follow @reactjs's lead and add a statement of su…

Politics should be kept out of the workplace.

How do you do that? Avoid talking? - might already be political ...
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