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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

#211

Post by ranger_danger »

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.

> It's completely unusable

I will rail on FB just as hard as the next guy, but realistically, from a business perspective, if facebook's wild popularity and 3 billion active monthly users still says "unusable" to you... well, do you really think most people would agree with you? And more importantly to the company... whose opinion matters the most?

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

#212

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

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…

[flagged]

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

#213

Post by klooney »

wussboy wrote: post #152
loeg wrote: post #56

Good to hear. Racism / sexism has no place in hiring practices and was always illegal.

I feel like people who say this haven't read the research about our unconscious biases. My personal "hit me on the head" moment was reading about the Cincinnati Orchestra who started auditioning candidates behind a curtain and suddenly found their ratio of male:female went from 3:1 to 1:1. No one at that organization was consciously discriminating. Everyone thought as you did that they were acting without racism/sexi…

You're behind the times- blind auditions have been disfavored by DEI-practitioners for years, on the grounds that they're not as effective as quotas.

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

#214

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

davidw wrote: post #162
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #26

There are two things that are important to separate here: 1. In one hand, the rolling back of how DEI has/was implemented I think can be a good thing. I think lots of people, myself included, believe that it "went off the rails", but most importantly, I think it ended up being counterproductive to its end goals. Nearly everyone I know who wasn't part of the DEI cottage industry came to view many/most of these program…

They also got rid of some messenger themes: https://www.404media.co/meta-deletes-trans-and-nonbinary-mes... You can argue about the proper way to do DEI or not and its effectiveness, but this is all blatantly political. I mean, if someone got some enjoyment out of having those themes, what's it to anyone else?

Wow, that example is even more blatant, and just goes to show how all this free speech talk is bullshit. Exactly as you put it, "what's it to anyone else"? And if anything, I'd be all for adding more themes: You want everything in MAGA red? Cool, knock yourself out.

I hope lots of people at Meta are in full-on quiet quitting mode.

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

#216

Post by MisterBastahrd »

rapsey wrote: post #28
jandrese wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only seems bizarre if you didn't consider DEI programs to be largely symbolic corporate puffery in the first place. For all of the hate they received from some political spheres they were largely just PR initiatives right from the start, especially in larger companies.

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A guy I worked for 20 years ago goes on rants on LinkedIn about how he can't find a job as a recruiting manager because of his age and DEI. Maybe if he wasn't such an overt racist crybaby, then he'd have more success at finding a job.

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

#217

Post by GeekyBear »

teeray wrote: post #171
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…

> the company has NO ONE's interests at heart Except for shareholder value

Isn't that more about the value of the shares they personally received as part of their compensation package?

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

#218

Post by AlexandrB »

wussboy wrote: post #152
loeg wrote: post #56

Good to hear. Racism / sexism has no place in hiring practices and was always illegal.

I feel like people who say this haven't read the research about our unconscious biases. My personal "hit me on the head" moment was reading about the Cincinnati Orchestra who started auditioning candidates behind a curtain and suddenly found their ratio of male:female went from 3:1 to 1:1. No one at that organization was consciously discriminating. Everyone thought as you did that they were acting without racism/sexi…

This is a funny example because some in the pro-DEI movement advocate for ending blind auditions to enhance diversity[1].

I think if we could somehow do "blind auditions" for any kind of work, that would be the ideal case of non-biased hiring. But if the outcomes of this kind of blind hiring did not result in a "diverse" workforce, I don't think many DEI advocates would be on board.

[1] https://archive.is/iH2uh

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

#219

Post by gip »

dmazzoni wrote: post #126
jandrese wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only seems bizarre if you didn't consider DEI programs to be largely symbolic corporate puffery in the first place. For all of the hate they received from some political spheres they were largely just PR initiatives right from the start, especially in larger companies.

Do you actually have experience with those programs? Here's what DEI programs actually do in practice, in my experience. As a simple example, let's say there is an opening for a somewhat senior position, like a director. Your team does some interviews and wants to make an offer. DEI vetos it because every single candidate they interviewed was a white male. They don't tell you who to hire or not to hire, they just say…

This has been my experience as well as a director of engineering. I also think more diverse candidates is a good thing.

The thing that was harder for me was working with the people hired to run the DEI recruiting programs. I never was able to establish a great working relationship with them even though I was able to do so with a good cross-section of the rest of the organization. Not really sure why tbh.

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

#220

Post by whycome »

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…

> acknowledging that such DEI program was performative in the first place

The retraction in itself is performative as well. It’s trying to highlight that “we only did it because it was a necessary performative action at the time due to the political climate then — we didn’t really mean it.”

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