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Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

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Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#191

Post by lantry »

greenthrow wrote: post #182
paxys wrote: post #88

DEI was a song and dance that companies put on for the media, politicians, investors, employees, and the public at large. Now anti-DEI is a song and dance for the exact same reason. If you have been in the business long enough, you will know that the company has NO ONE's interests at heart. Never had and never will. They will discriminate against any race they have to, whether majority or minority, if it leads to an…

This take is cynical to the point of wilfull ignorance. My spouse works in DEI and I guarantee you her and her coworkers are sincere and trying to instill better, less biased hiring practices and to make everyone feel welcome and part of the team. Not everyone is going to be the same but that's like anything else. Being 100% dismissive is as much of a mistake as being 100% unquestioningly accepting.

I think both things are true: there are people who sincerely want to change things, but the organization and incentive structure for large public orgs means the corps will only do things that don't lower their profits.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#192

Post by Karrot_Kream »

jandrese wrote: post #22
jsheard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently they consider platforming hate speech to be beneficial because it could bolster sympathy for the groups being attacked. I wish I was joking. https://www.platformer.news/meta-new-trans-guidelines-hate-s... Alex Schultz, the company’s chief marketing officer and highest-ranking gay executive, suggested in an internal post that people seeing their queer friends and family members abused on Facebook and Instag…

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Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#193

Post by glitchc »

JohnMakin wrote: post #3

I'm a PoC, and stuff like this reads extremely bizarre to me. On the one hand, you're acknowledging rolling back DEI initiatives in part because of the "political landscape," and that you were already committed to diversity on your teams. That's all well and good, but then, why the initiative in the first place? It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performativ…

I think that's the point. DEI is performative. A business cannot survive unless it hires the best person for the job.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#194

Post by [deleted] »

JohnMakin wrote: post #3

I'm a PoC, and stuff like this reads extremely bizarre to me. On the one hand, you're acknowledging rolling back DEI initiatives in part because of the "political landscape," and that you were already committed to diversity on your teams. That's all well and good, but then, why the initiative in the first place? It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performativ…

[deleted]

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#195

Post by throw16180339 »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #80
JohnMakin wrote: post #3

I'm a PoC, and stuff like this reads extremely bizarre to me. On the one hand, you're acknowledging rolling back DEI initiatives in part because of the "political landscape," and that you were already committed to diversity on your teams. That's all well and good, but then, why the initiative in the first place? It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performativ…

It's entirely reasonable to read this entire Meta post as "we had DEI programs, they were meaningful and effective, but now there's an administration in office that will use anti-trust laws to cut us into pieces unless our privately-held supports their political preferences." I'm not saying that's the case (well, I do think it is) but if it is true, then trying to extract meaningful conclusions about the performance…

Trump previously threatened to imprison Zuckerberg for life on trumped up charges (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-warns-mark-zuckerberg-c...). He said in an interview that's probably why Meta changed their policies (https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lf66oltlvs2l).

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#196

Post by cocacola1 »

romellem wrote: post #112

Contrast Meta's stance with Costco's, when [Costco responded][1] to a shareholder that proposed Costco prepare a report on "the risks of the Company maintaining its current DEI roles, policies and goals." Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members, and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics: For our employ…

Costco's always interested me as a company. Still the only place where I pay to be able to shop. It's a personal point of pride whenever I go there and spend less than $100.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#197

Post by pc86 »

portaouflop wrote: post #130
TSUTiger wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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No thanks I won’t waste my limited lifetime tweaking some algorithm to serve me better ragebait. Haven’t used any of these platforms in the last 5 years and I haven’t missed it a single minute - you should try it sometime

They were talking to someone else so not sure what the point of this reply is?

If you don't want to use the site there's no problem with that, just don't use it. But this is in direct response to a claim "this site [with a brand new user account with no history] is unusable" which - if your goal is to use the site - is easily fixed.

If your goal is just to go "well I don't even use the site and you should try it and be as Good a person as I am" then it doesn't really matter either way.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#198

Post by pavl- »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #145
gorgoiler wrote: post #124

Diversity in tech hiring never felt like the right end of the funnel. It’s why I went into teaching and I’m proud to say after what seems like a ridiculously short amount of time (“they grow up so fast” etc.) the girls from my classes are now entering the work force as SWE and ML interns. Not many, but more than none. When we focus diversity efforts on high school kids then we get a turnaround at the funnel entrypoin…

This is just common sense, or should be. Unfortunately common sense is as uncommon as people tend to joke about. So you get a lot of focus on business hiring practices, even though it's literally impossible to hire candidates that don't exist. Sometimes this gets taken to absolutely farcical levels. I recall reading a blog from an Irish writer about how activists were trying to demand that companies there hire black…

One of the smartest people I know almost quit software her first year out of school, because her all-male team spent an afternoon teasing her about how they were going to start a strip poker game and they think she'd be "a natural", or some nonsense like that. Do you think such dynamics introduce barriers to female participation in tech? Do you think focusing solely at the "bottom of the funnel" could still result in a lack of diversity if the "top of the funnel" isn't pleasant for certain demographics to work? Do you think such an event would've occurred without pushback on a team with more than 1 woman? Do you think what you consider to be "common sense" is shaped very much by your personal experience, and that you'd have no "common sense" intuition for how frequently things like this happen because it doesn't personally impact you?

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#199

Post by TranquilMarmot »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #135
mempko wrote: post #73

I started a new account on Twitter just to see what it's like. It's completely unusable. The place is filled with shit content that a I don't want to see and bots. Not sure what competitive advantage you are talking about.

The fact that you're being downvoted for accurate reporting that can be easily verified by anyone who makes a Twitter account.. lol Before I deleted my Twitter account, I tried really hard to just block every account that posted content I felt was pol-tier.. it just doesn't work. That platform is FUBAR, and the prime example is the owner of the platform who has been completely brainrotted from staring into the orb fo…

I had my Twitter account for almost 15 years before deleting it.

I hadn't blocked ANYBODY for 13 of those years, but towards the end I was blocking dozens of users per day. Not not just, "I don't agree with this person" but "Wow this person is genuinely hateful and not contributing anything meaningful, and I would rather not see that."

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#200

Post by Karrot_Kream »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #145
gorgoiler wrote: post #124

Diversity in tech hiring never felt like the right end of the funnel. It’s why I went into teaching and I’m proud to say after what seems like a ridiculously short amount of time (“they grow up so fast” etc.) the girls from my classes are now entering the work force as SWE and ML interns. Not many, but more than none. When we focus diversity efforts on high school kids then we get a turnaround at the funnel entrypoin…

This is just common sense, or should be. Unfortunately common sense is as uncommon as people tend to joke about. So you get a lot of focus on business hiring practices, even though it's literally impossible to hire candidates that don't exist. Sometimes this gets taken to absolutely farcical levels. I recall reading a blog from an Irish writer about how activists were trying to demand that companies there hire black…

The problem I've heard from friends in education is that it's just very difficult to affect these in the US education system because of how underfunded the system is as a whole. Most of these issues, at least when we talk about cisgendered folks, come from how parents push their values onto their kids. I have plenty of friends whose parents discouraged daughters from exploring technically or mechanically involved interests because of ideas they had about masculinity and femininity.

My parents softly discouraged my sister from playing with Legos as a kid because "girls like pretty things."

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