Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#251

Post by chipperyman573 » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #216

_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...

Assuming no mitigating circumstances for not speaking out, it literally is acceptance and tacit perpetuation of the status quo which is most certainly political. I'm not saying there were no mitigating circumstances nor condoning the person's behavior but they are clearly correct on that specific point. "It's not the violence of the few that scares me, it's the silence of the many." Martin Luther King, Jr.

The mitigating circumstances are the un-nessicary stress and responsibilities of dealing with anyone who doesn't 100% agree with what you're saying. Unfortunately these are pervasive on pretty much any platform you are on, so there's no good way around it.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#252

Post by achiang » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

So here's a nuanced view I'm sure will get downvoted into the ground: both FB and the employee were right, but along different dimensions, and this outcome was not only inevitable, but desirable.

The employee, as a white male in tech, is absolutely morally right to use his privilege to call out other powerful white males for their silence.

And make no mistake, silence is complicity. Many smart philosophers have written about this, see MLK Jr. or Maya Angelou for more.

This is the core of being an ally. Use your privilege to make the hard ask from your peers that a less privileged person, who is decidedly not a peer, cannot.

FB, on the other hand, is also right in a different sense, to maintain internal expectations that singling out colleagues with your political opinion in public is ineffective at best and toxic harassment at worst. FB are signalling to the rest of their employees what behavior they will not tolerate.

In the end, this employee leveraged awareness several orders of magnitude more than had he not been fired (and will likely easily find a new job) and FB protected whatever they believe their culture to be (and whatever other HR lawsuits they believed themselves to be at risk for).

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#253

Post by scarmig » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #141

kjksf wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting changes to the website was not a problem. Trying to mobilize Twitter mob against a person that declined your suggestion was a problem.

I don't see any attempt to mobilize a Twitter mob against a person, unless you just consider all disagreements on Twitter to inherently imply a desire for a Twitter mob to come to your side.

Imagine someone went to Gab (or whatever the right wing mob platform du jour is) and denounced a colleague and published their contact info on it. There's no explicit call to contact or harass the person.

Is this appropriate?

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#254

Post by jxramos » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:10 AM UTC

holler wrote: post #38

rubber_duck wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He decides because he believes something strongly it permits him to publicly attack someone he works with... Imagine having to deal with this guy in a team when he has a strong opinion on something the team disagrees with ...

Agree. It's endemic of the political and cultural climate we're in right now, where mob rule is becoming the status quo. Personal politics should be just that, personal.

It's not mob rule it's those who run the outrage-triathlon where those with the highest blood pressure and boil over tops win. If they can't steam anybody up to join them from their effervescence alone they deserve to fall to the wayside and get out the way. The outrage train is coming.

We must ask ourselves daily, "what am I supposed to be outraged about now?"

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#255

Post by dang » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:11 AM UTC

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…

Ok, since the article says both that the employee "wrote on Twitter that he was dismissed for publicly scolding a colleague" and "Facebook confirmed [this] characterization of his dismissal", I think we can syllogize our way to "Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague" as a fact that both sides have confirmed.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#256

Post by pnw_hazor » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

kyrra wrote: post #122

defen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, just my thoughts: Assuming you're in the US, it's my understanding that political affiliation is generally not a protected category. So if it's at-will employment at a private employer, it's probably legal to fire you for your political beliefs / actions (or "no reason" when it's really about political affiliation). If someone is engaging in behavior that bothers you, tell them to stop. If they don't, r…

There are state dependent laws. California for example: https://www.shouselaw.com/employment/political-retaliation.h... Some high level laws by state: https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff...

Some cities have similar laws as well.

The City of Seattle "assure[s] equal opportunity to all persons, free from restrictions because of race, color, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, political ideology, age, creed, religion, ancestry, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status or the presence of any sensory, mental or physical disability."

https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#257

Post by codezero » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

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_...

When someone leads a nation of several hundred million people, it is expected that their public communication be thoroughly vetted. This is even true at a medium to large corporation for an executive.

This is an expectation. I don’t actually believe Trump has anyone filtering his speech and I don’t think he’s educated enough to understand the phrase he said, but with that said, yes, we should expect our leaders to be informed on the nature of the words they say especially in the context of a crisis or emergency.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#258

Post by fzeroracer » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

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.

I have a strong feeling that if the employee was instead protesting Facebook's spying on people he'd be lauded as a hero on here. Or if he posted a particularly long manifesto against diversity policies.

Regardless I can understand why he was fired, since being particularly inflammatory like that will probably lead you to losing your job anywhere. Though that also depends on how high in the food chain you are.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#259

Post by paragraft » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #213

sky_rw wrote: post #105

The best thing about running your own business is never having to deal with people like this. It's vastly under appreciated equity.

Depends on who are your customers, and how easily are they swayed with a twitstorm.

Quite. Plenty of people who've had their small businesses targeted by various social media bandwagons for non-business reasons in the past few years.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#260

Post by Simon_says » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

dlp211 wrote: post #203

Simon_says wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is the president of the States, not the people. Anyways, he won 304 out of 538 votes, which is, in fact, a majority.

Yes, we all know how an archaism in our system allows for what is now the most powerful branch of government to be controlled by the minority in this country.

Sorry, you said that he received fewer votes. I thought you might not know.