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Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

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Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#21
post #5

Why don't they revolt by quitting? I know not every employee is able to do that but I'm guessing that at Facebook the vast majority could switch job fairly easily. Once Facebook realizes that they are losing good employees they are more likely to change those policies. Unfortunately most Facebook employees want to continue getting outrageously paid at the 95 percentile of the market and soft "revolting" without riski…

> I know not every employee is able to do that but I'm guessing that at Facebook the vast majority could switch job fairly easily. Switch easily even right now ? I imagine they'd lose something in the process...

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#22
"The React Core team is joining the Facebook employee walkout in solidarity with the Black community.

Facebookʼs recent decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe. We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction."

https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1267544361929256966

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#23
post #10

Why don't they revolt by quitting? I know not every employee is able to do that but I'm guessing that at Facebook the vast majority could switch job fairly easily. Once Facebook realizes that they are losing good employees they are more likely to change those policies. Unfortunately most Facebook employees want to continue getting outrageously paid at the 95 percentile of the market and soft "revolting" without riski…

Leaving your position also leaves you without any power to enact change within the organization. You can't win a game without playing it, in other words.

A normal engineer or designer doesn't have that power either way. The only power they have is staying or leaving.

Upper management, yeah, they might be able to effect change from within. But, even that is going to be severely limited in the face of a big-name founder like Zuckerberg.

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#24
post #22

"The React Core team is joining the Facebook employee walkout in solidarity with the Black community. Facebookʼs recent decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe. We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction." https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1267544361929256966

Man, every time I click a twitter link I'm reminded just how incredibly toxic and confrontational it is a community, and it almost always comes from blue check mark "endorsed contributors".

I now strongly believe it is negative for us as a society.

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#25

One man's racism is another man's free speech. Just like one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Facebook and the other SV tech companies have a clear political bias that often seems like selective and directed censorship.

Both are false equivocations, and a bad analogy.

Blowing up a bus full of kids achieves no political goal in no scenario, nor should it.

Racism is racism, although reprehensible, is protected from government censorship and prior restraint. Companies providing for-profit platforms aren't the government and can do whatever they want since the first amendment doesn't apply to them.

If people really wanted free speech, they wouldn't popularize a company's platform but would pay a little to support and use a non-profit public commons platform that was sensibly/lightly regulated.

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#26
post #10

Why don't they revolt by quitting? I know not every employee is able to do that but I'm guessing that at Facebook the vast majority could switch job fairly easily. Once Facebook realizes that they are losing good employees they are more likely to change those policies. Unfortunately most Facebook employees want to continue getting outrageously paid at the 95 percentile of the market and soft "revolting" without riski…

Leaving your position also leaves you without any power to enact change within the organization. You can't win a game without playing it, in other words.

By the way, this means that Google and others should do business in China right? Doesn’t the same logic work on that level too?

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#27
post #21
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know not every employee is able to do that but I'm guessing that at Facebook the vast majority could switch job fairly easily. Switch easily even right now ? I imagine they'd lose something in the process...

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yes, and this agrees with my point that it probably cannot be done "easily".

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#28
post #16

I actually like Zuckerberg's response. I dont want tech companies being the arbiters of truth, leave that up to us to decide. As far as 12 employees upset they are not getting their way, we all work in companies with people having differing opinions and perspectives. We can't force everyone to do as we feel and have to accept that we are going to have to work with other people and decisions may not fit our specific w…

its an interesting problem.

remove the digital aspect, how would we the community or the law react to someone organizing mass pamphlet drops saying the same inflammatory things?

I suspect we wouldn't do anything except put a sign up individually saying "no pamphlets...

Re: Facebook Employees Begin to Revolt

#30

Why don't they revolt by quitting? I know not every employee is able to do that but I'm guessing that at Facebook the vast majority could switch job fairly easily. Once Facebook realizes that they are losing good employees they are more likely to change those policies. Unfortunately most Facebook employees want to continue getting outrageously paid at the 95 percentile of the market and soft "revolting" without riski…

Spoken like someone who doesn’t make that kind of money and never had to make that decision.

Facebook will not lose employees at their pay rate, they’ll just get different ones.

You are definitely correct in that soft revolting is a waste.

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