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

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#271

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

chipperyman573 wrote: post #251

guerrilla wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's pretty necessary to deal with racism. It's life and death, in fact. The fewer who speak out, the more stress for everyone who abrogates their responsibility.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#272

Post by waheoo » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:28 AM UTC

fault_lines wrote: post #220

scarmig wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that in, another Tweet, someone is giving Arthur shit for... not having his pronouns in his bio. ETA: apparently the user giving Arthur shit is just trolling

[flagged]

He took it serious and apologised before updating his profile.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#273

Post by rasz » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

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.

Was a famous IBM motto in the thirties. You dont receive der Fuhrer's "The Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star", granted to 'honor foreign nationals who made themselves deserving of the German Reich.' by talking bad about political leaders now do you.

IBM commercial from 1934 'Übersicht hollerith lochkarten' https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/im...

IBM CEO photo-op with the leader https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/punched-cards/2/1...

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#274

Post by kenneth » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

The workplace is not a soapbox for personal political opinion. I'm surprised Facebook hasn't taken a harsher stance on employees publicly criticizing their leadership. It takes a special level of entitlement to be able to expect to represent oneself publicly as an employee of a company and criticize it…and not face disciplining by the company. It's a clear fireable offense. If I were leadership, I would make that clear and take the necessary steps to terminate each employee who violates that policy,

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#275

Post by clairity » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #225

clairity wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The malignant dictatorship of social media rage in the US is becoming insufferable. It's probably going to require government regulation to stop it.” you know you can just not tune in, right? it’s not coercive in any way, unlike said dictatorship or government regulation. amplification of voice is not a civil right.

You can easily find yourself dragged into situation where activists at your workplace demand you sign a letter, or else you will be branded . If you depend on these people in any way, you will be in trouble. And it's the social media that turned your coworkers that way. These days you don't have to go to social media to find trouble - the social media comes to you.

folks just gotta learn how to say no gracefully. it's a useful workplace skill anyway.

as for the branding, you can say no without conceding either side. the target of this twitterer seems to have done it successfully, keeping their job and not conceding either way.

note that i'm not taking sides here either. just making a point about having the fortitude to put social media in its proper place.

further, if you can't take a principled stand under pressure (another useful skill), it might be an indication that the stand isn't principled, or at the very least, you need to find the foundational principles on which to stand.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#276

Post by baddox » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

pnw_hazor wrote: post #244

baddox wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only makes sense if you believe that land area is the appropriate unit to attempt to equalize political influence over, rather than people. If you think the people are who should have political influence in a democracy, rather than units of land, then it should be desirable that politicians campaign to as many people as they reasonably can.

Land area is not the appropriate unit. States are the appropriate unit. Absent the electoral college there would not be a United States of America.

The parent comment referred to sparsely populated states. That is a function of population and land area.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#277

Post by chipperyman573 » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:39 AM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #271

chipperyman573 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's pretty necessary to deal with racism. It's life and death, in fact. The fewer who speak out, the more stress for everyone who abrogates their responsibility.

You completly ignored everything that I said

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#278

Post by waheoo » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:40 AM UTC

achiang wrote: post #252

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 writt…

Silence is complicency, for racial hate crimes and actions, yes, i agree, you should t stand by and let bad shit happen.

This isn't silence though, this is rejecting an order to partake in a protest.

Even if it is silence, staying silent is still a right.

Harrassing people for silence is akin to harassing people exercising their freedom of speech.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#279

Post by DenisM » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

clairity wrote: post #275

DenisM wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily find yourself dragged into situation where activists at your workplace demand you sign a letter, or else you will be branded . If you depend on these people in any way, you will be in trouble. And it's the social media that turned your coworkers that way. These days you don't have to go to social media to find trouble - the social media comes to you.

folks just gotta learn how to say no gracefully. it's a useful workplace skill anyway. as for the branding, you can say no without conceding either side. the target of this twitterer seems to have done it successfully, keeping their job and not conceding either way. note that i'm not taking sides here either. just making a point about having the fortitude to put social media in its proper place. further, if you can't…

You missed the point. I don't want to take any principled stands. That's not why I came to work.

Re: Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague

#280

Post by baddox » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:42 AM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #240

baddox wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've asked elsewhere in this thread, but what in his tweets do you consider to be public shaming? I don't see anything even remotely close to what I would call public shaming. There is also nothing remotely resembling a solicitation for others to attack.

You must be new to twitter. The whole thing is a solicitation for others to attack.

That’s simply not true. It is a mistake to project your coarse impression of Twitter onto every individual tweet.