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An upcoming story about Coinbase

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#161

Post by wonderwonder »

Barrin92 wrote: post #137
wonderwonder wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is probably correct though. Often times a company or person will do something that catches attention, this then provides an opportunity for a story on a subject that people are already aware of and drives interest. If Coinbase had not published the prior memo, this article would likely have not been written. Was it written by someone with an axe to grind, I don't know (maybe) but the odds of the article being gree…

is that an actual problem though? Controversial actions drawing attention to other issues isn't exactly new in journalism, what matters is if the allegations in the piece are going to be substantiated, and this preemptive post makes me think that will be the case. When I read that previous coinbase statement I actually wondered immediately if they have internal issues like this, and their policy was just an attempt t…

Not a problem, just a result of their actions. Oftentimes leaders of these high profile, unicorn style companies have a self focused, semi - narcissitic view of the world and have a hard time understanding the consequences of their decisions. Now a personality like this may at times be helpful in driving success (see Elon) but it also blinds them (see Elon's 420 tweet). Coinbase's ceo may have had a pro Trumpian view of the world or he may have just thought cutting off political / cultural conversations at work was the best thing to do, odds are either way he probably did not understand the type of focus this would bring in a hyper partisan media. Culture wars sell clicks and papers.

All things being equal, the Coinbase office is probably going to be a pretty awkward place to be the next couple of months.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#162

Post by oh_sigh »

doublekill wrote: post #79
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #10

It's really really hard to prove your not racist. If anyone has any clue as how to do so, please share. They could have waited until the story was published I guess to share this statement, but publishing it preemptively makes sense too I believe (it's an always open entity that is incredibly easy to switch away from). But truly, when you get accused of racism, what can you even do?

What I learned from diversity training is that you need to accept the fact that society is systematically racist, and as a white person you benefit from this. So all whites are profiting from racism already. They have to come to terms with this, acknowledge the role that their ancestors played in furthering or creating racial inequality, and do everything in their privileged power to right this wrong: hire more black…

I'm a white american, and my ancestors had nothing to do with american slavery and were in fact slaves themselves in the ukraine.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#164

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jolux wrote: post #148
manigandham wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not?

It's taking a side and saying that if you don't like the side they take then you can leave. The side they're taking is "we're above politics."

As I understood the "we're above politics", it was "you don't do politics at work". How is that taking a side? And if it is taking a side, which side?

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#165

Post by disown »

jolux wrote: post #70
ve55 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I cannot claim to defend Coinbase when I know nothing of the matter. But since news is inherently cherry-picked (after all, one cannot report on literally everything ), there will generally be an inherent slant to the information provided, and such an inherent slant will likely tend more towards an optimization of metrics (clicks, engagement, ad revenue, subscriptions, etc) rather than perfect statistical repre…

This is enormously unfair to the journalistic profession. There are quite a lot of leaps from "it's not possible to report every fact" to "all journalism is slanted for metrics." Journalists like getting a big scoop but the good ones do their due diligence and go to great pains to report fairly and accurately.

Journalists exist to push a narrative. They don't exist to present facts. Only naive children believe in that fairy tale. Anyone paying attention realizes now that journalists are partisan political activists and should be treated as such. That's all they've ever been really. Just a quick overview of the history of the news industry would reveal as much.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#166

Post by roenxi »

peteretep wrote: post #92
roenxi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is unlikely to work. You may have heard of implicit bias [0]? A case can be made that you were born a racist and you have to prove that you have shaken yourself free from your racist beginnings. I personally think it is a silly case, but 'well, just don't be racist' is a silly defense - so maybe they'll work well together. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_stereotype

Anybody can accuse you of anything, it’s true, but accusations of racism without specific allegations of racist behaviours or actions are rarely reported in NYT.

The NYT? After the Trump presidency? Here is a helpful attack article they wrote about an issue that turned out not to involve any particular racial undertones [0] - although you wouldn't figure that out from the NYT reporting. They aren't known for being careful before calling people racist with light evidence. Another good example of 'nobody has any examples of you being racist' being nowhere near enough to keep a reputation intact too.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/us/covington-catholic-hig...

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#167

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jolux wrote: post #95
roenxi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is unlikely to work. You may have heard of implicit bias [0]? A case can be made that you were born a racist and you have to prove that you have shaken yourself free from your racist beginnings. I personally think it is a silly case, but 'well, just don't be racist' is a silly defense - so maybe they'll work well together. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_stereotype

Implicit bias is extremely hard to argue in the absence of other examples of racist behavior. In the court of public opinion, well. I think you're doing well as a baseline if the only arguments someone can make are about implicit bias. An accusation of implicit bias is far easier to defend against than one of racial abuse.

Not sure that's true. An allegation of racial abuse you defend against by saying "I did not do that", hopefully with evidence on your side (other people were at the meeting, maybe).

But how do you defend against implicit bias? "No, I'm not"? In the current climate, I'm not sure that saves your public image...

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#168

Post by nullc »

muglug wrote: post #156
nullc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about speaking truth to power is that there are two components to the statement. It isn't met only by attacking a group perceived to be affiliated with "power"-- it also has to involve the truth.

What untrue statements on the topic of race has NYTimes’ news section published recently?

That would be a great question to direct to jimmygrapes, rather than the truth to power old saw.

My gell mann amnesia for the NYT has been permanently shattered through personal experience, so I endeavour to avoid reading anything they publish.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#169

Post by nullc »

throwlastone wrote: post #36

Lies are countered with facts, not generic dismissals. The post is textbook PR pointing to some unspecified inaccuracy which is supposed to cast doubt on the substance of the story. Then self-investigation and self-exoneration. Every company trying to cover up wrong doing writes the same thing.

Their response contains specific facts, such as information on the number of and their handling of reported complaints.

That isn't much-- I agree-- but I doubt that they know enough about the time's intended allegations to respond more specifically. And if they did respond too specifically presumably the times would shift their allegations to different specifics in any case, making a general response the only durable one.

Interestingly, other commenters here characterized Coinbases' message with language such as "incredibly thorough prebuttal" and suggested that this indicated that the story was devastating. You seem to be arguing the opposite, that it is perfectly generic and is thus indicative of a traditional cover-up approach. From this it seems to me that regardless of what approach they took it would be characterized as evidence against them.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#170

Post by hda2 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #22

> Let’s keep focused on building an amazing company together; we are hitting amazing new records on users, volume and revenue, and we have so much great work to do together. Ignore any potential negativity, everything we do is great, all that matters is revenue, nothing bad ever happens hear, blah blah blah. Don't focus on the bad part, those are all lies! The NYTimes article isn't released so I can't comment on the…

Coinbase has been on the receiving end of news media abusive for a short while (ever since they offered to pay their disruptive employees to leave). I don't really blame them for wanting to preemptively defend themselves.
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