Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

thetimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 615 posts

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#221

Post by ddtaylor »

giwook wrote: post #4

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same. We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it. Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

It's available on libgen as well.

To anyone salty about that, free advertising cuts both ways. I support their work and it would appear that their goal is to spread the ideas and messages, as it should be with all publishing.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#222

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

Aurornis wrote: post #162
surprisetalk wrote: post #10

This book was SO GOOD. It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel…

> This book was SO GOOD. One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it. So while reading it, be ca…

I haven't read the book, but I don't think there's anything dishonest about needing distance to see the context of what she was a part of. Now, if she is trying to paint herself as completely outside of that even while she was knee-deep in it, that's a different matter but hindsight isn't something to be dismissed.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#223

Post by matthewdgreen »

Aurornis wrote: post #162
surprisetalk wrote: post #10

This book was SO GOOD. It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel…

> This book was SO GOOD. One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it. So while reading it, be ca…

If we require every whistleblower to be a saint, then we’ll never hear a whistle. If you have a serious criticism of their credibility, that’s potentially different, but arbitrary criticisms of someone’s moral worth is mostly irrelevant.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#224

Post by amtamt »

BeetleB wrote: post #156
maximinus_thrax wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "non-disparagement" clause Do you believe a civil contract should be able to stop a person from disclosing potential illegal activities?

I doubt such clauses can prevent you from disclosing them to relevant authorities . Disclosing them to the public is a whole other matter.

"disclosing them to relevant authorities" would not bring the message to those affected by such carelessness. I would think "Disclosing them to the public" brings more awareness in the public, and though might be illegal, serves better for public good. Legal is not always just or moral.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#225

Post by julianeon »

Aurornis wrote: post #162
surprisetalk wrote: post #10

This book was SO GOOD. It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel…

> This book was SO GOOD. One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it. So while reading it, be ca…

We would have no book if the author was a hero: they would say "I'm not doing this," quit, and that would be the end of it. By this definition, only an unheroic person could've written it. By the same definition, an firsthand expose of Meta could never be written by a trustworthy person.

This obviously protects the company: you are ceding this ground to them, "No trustworthy person could work at your company and write an expose." I don't think we should cede that to them.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#226

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

Are we shocked that a private entity, when given control of the public square, is using it's position to manipulate the discourse that goes in it's square? You think the quadspillion dollar megacorp is just going to let you criticize them?

The naivety in tech is downright embarrassing sometimes. This isn't the 90s or even the 2010s, we should know the lay of the land by now

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#227

Post by raincole »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #140
petcat wrote: post #26

My understanding is that as part of a severance package she received in 2017 she agreed to some kind of "non-disparagement" clause. She then went on to write a book disparaging the company. The arbitrator didn't rule on the disparagement itself or if anything was true or false. Only ruled that she had to abide by the contract she signed. It sounds like an interesting book, and I'll add it to the list. But it also sou…

> "non-disparagement" clause Do you believe a civil contract should be able to stop a person from disclosing potential illegal activities?

At the end the book is published.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#228

Post by thayne »

oliwarner wrote: post #46
SauntSolaire wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from signing away your freedom of speech.

Is it freedom if you can't make an informed choice to sell it?

You just lost your job, through no fault of your own, or maybe because you did the right thing and blew the whistle on illegal and/or unethical behavior. You don't know how long it will be before you find a new job or how you are going to pay the bills until then. Your employer offers you some money to tie you over, and maybe some resources to tide you over until you get a new job, but you have to agree to a hundred pages of legalese. And you only have a few hours to decide, not enough time to have a lawyer look at it, even if you could afford to pay a lawyer. You are highly stressed, so even if you take the time to read it, you probably don't take it all in, and feel pressured to agree. And your employer also makes vague threats that about what will happen if you don't sign it, like having a hard time finding a new job or maybe having legal action taken against you.

Does that seem like a free informed decision?

Looking at it another way, anti-disparagement agreements are basically bribes to keep quiet even if disclosure would benefit the general population.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#229

Post by bad_haircut72 »

wtallis wrote: post #199
jonahx wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, I think making such non-disparagement clauses illegal is an interesting idea, and could be a net positive. That said, I think the slavery comparison is a stretch. The situation up for debate is: Should you be able to voluntarily accept money in exchange for promising not to say bad things about someone or some company? I don't see a good faith interpretation of that as "signing yourself into slavery".

Nobody was trying to equate non-disparagement clauses with slavery. The relevance of slavery here is as an example of the kind of contract terms that everyone should be able to agree are rightly invalid and unenforceable. Any argument in favor of contract enforceability that would apply to a slavery contract just as easily as it applies to a non-disparagement contract is a bad argument , or at least woefully incomple…

This is legalized buying people off, yes these contracts ought to be illegal and the comparison to slavery (a worse, but same category of morally reprehensible power dynamic) is completely valid

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#230

Post by CPLX »

ryandrake wrote: post #208
giwook wrote: post #4

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same. We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it. Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

Unlike an elected government, who the common people at least in theory have a chance to replace via elections, the public pretty much has no say in what these companies and their leadership are allowed to do. Nobody voted for Meta. Nobody voted for Palantir. Nobody voted for Philip Morris. You can say that someone "voted with their wallet," but that doesn't point to a viable solution. "Not voting with your wallet" es…

The solution is to not allow concentration of corporate power at this level and to break it up when it happens anyways.

The root cause under all this IS government policy. All the giant tech companies are the product of years of already illegal behavior that was not enforced.

Post reply on HN