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An upcoming story about Coinbase

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#241

Post by jimmygrapes »

muglug wrote: post #182
nullc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jimmygrapes two comments up stated that he believed coinbase expected the NYT would not be "being factual" and that he expected the article "written as an exaggerated hit piece full of emotional appeal rather than, well, news". To which muglug replied extolling the irrefutable virtue of speaking truth to power-- which is an insultingly irrelevant response to someone accusing them of being non-factual.

I’m not an expert debater, but if you’re going to accuse an organisation of being race-baiting, it’s always good to at least provide an example or two. Since the commenter didn’t, I sort of zeroed in on that.

In order to provide examples of "race-baiting propaganda" as I called it, we would have to first agree on what constitutes race-baiting and propaganda. I assume we can agree that propaganda is material designed to sway an opinion, yet labels itself implicitly or explicitly as something other than "opinion".

As for race-baiting, my definition is anything that brings race into the conversation when it is materially irrelevant, or when it is introduced solely as a means of depicting one race (or a representative member thereof) in a positive or negative fashion, to the exclusion of further context, nuance, or counter samples.

The 1619 Project itself is a prime example.

I am on mobile and have difficulty linking, but you can search on NYT's website for the word "racist", filtering out anything other than world/U.S. news, within the last month, and you will see a bevy of articles written to highlight how "good" or "bad" somebody is for even hinting at race being a factor in something (such as a descriptor) - not going to go into the hypocrisy there, but it's hard to miss if you apply the same standards NYT uses to depict someone as "racist" to their own staff.

A simple recent example, for the person in a cousin comment asking me to expound, is in the recent news article about Honestie Hodges, a young girl whose handcuffing by police caused "outrage" according to NYT, and who recently died apparently of COVID-19 related causes. In that article you can read through and see several points where race was introduced, not as a relevant point, but as a way to introduce further division between two races in an article where those facts are immaterial.

It is through their omissions and irrelevant insertions, through their implications and labels, that NYT is race-baiting; the propaganda part comes from using the reach of the organization to spread such content as pure unbiased fact, when in truth it is manipulative.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#242

Post by [deleted] »

drewbug01 wrote: post #213
julianmarq wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we really must remember that Do we? Your opinion that is poorly executed doesn't actually mean that it is. > But we must read what they’ve written as an attempt at controlling the narrative. And...? God forbid their wanting to control the narrative about... Themselves? I'm not seeing the problem there. > They’re asking the world to discredit an article that (as you’ve mentioned) hasn’t been published yet. That dese…

> But the NYT should be inherently trusted, unless I read your original comment incorrectly. Yes - I believe you did read it incorrectly. I am personally inclined to trust the NYT more than the words of a CEO of a tech company; I personally put more trust in the former rather than the latter. As you’ve eloquently laid out - that’s a personal choice I make, and I own that. But I am not declaiming in my comment that th…

[deleted]

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#243

Post by antpls »

drewbug01 wrote: post #27

Well, the whole press release / internal email smells of a company desperately trying to spin what they expect to be a very, very bad article. But this line jumped out at me twice: > To be specific: Although the story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase.…

> only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase.

"Only"? I'm from EU, and three complaints seem already like a lot for any standard company. Maybe it is different in the US?

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#244

Post by deleteme34444 »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #214
peteretep wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Defending myself against ridiculous allegations What in the heck are you doing that's inviting frequent accusations of racism?

Making nice little statements like this: > The point is, if you want to face reality rather than live in a comfortable fantasy, you have to confront the possibility that the racists are right about one thing: It's possible that some races really do have less intelligence than others. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24889113

It is very rude of you to completely neglect the reasonable discussion surrounding that cherry-picked quote and present it in this way that implies they are "racist" -- this is exactly the sort of behavior that needs to stop.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#245

Post by barry-cotter »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #119
barry-cotter wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. Cardinal Richelieu There’s no need to lie in a hit piece. You can select your material, shade the truth and quote people who hate your subject on their opinions. Lying leaves you open to libel and slander too.

"Hit piece" is in and of itself a framing that clearly has a bias toward one side. Was the reporting from multiple outlets on Theranos a series of hit pieces? They were all negative, but that doesn't mean they were wrong. Coinbase has preemptively presented their side of the story in an effort to make us all say "oh, yeah, that's the hit piece we were warned about," but we haven't actually seen the other side of the…

All framing has bias. That’s standpoint theory in four words. It’s entirely possible the NYT reporter working on the piece about CoinBase feels they are being scrupulously honest and that anyone who reviewed their notes, interviews and background work would come to the same conclusions they do in the article. Not everyone would actually agree. People have divergent experiences and beliefs and will come to different conclusions based on exactly the same evidence because their prior beliefs are different.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#246

Post by shadowprofile77 »

peteretep wrote: post #26

> We are committed to maintaining an environment that is safe, supportive and welcoming to employees of all backgrounds I don’t think this is compatible with dismissing the struggle for human dignity in America as “politics”

And exactly what made said struggle so overpoweringly morally correct in every possible way that you can qualify it as a pure struggle for human dignity that can't be subjected to any valid criticism? Or claim that nobody has a morally sound right to stay out of it or claim it's too tinged with politics? Pray tell.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#247

Post by apexalpha »

avolcano wrote: post #17

This is an odd thing to see widely published. I'm at a company that had a rather detailed negative article written about us, and we were warned about it internally shortly before it was published, after the reporter had contacted us with details and questions. However, we didn't go public with a reaction until after it was out, since it seemed rather pointless to respond to something that hadn't been published yet, e…

It seems their reasoning is explained partly in the FAQ at tho bottom:

We provided several written, on-the-record statements to The Times. We have no control over whether and how The Times uses those statements (in whole or in part) in the story. Given this, we decided to make our email to employees and FAQ publicly available to provide additional facts and context.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#248

Post by newunov30 »

TerminalWarrior wrote: post #116
predictmktegirl wrote: post #56

[edit: Not going to risk retaliation for my family, not sure why I bothered]

So not promoting people because they are black is now enough to get called raciest? I guess that's exactly how Kamala Harris has made it to where she is.

Pretty much. And if you don't promote a woman you're sexist. This is where tech has gone.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#250

Post by lyschoening »

gpm wrote: post #142
peteretep wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you get accused of racism, what can you even do? Make sure nobody has any examples of you being racist

Say you're, I don't know, the person who gives driving license tests. You fail a person, person claims you are racist against . How do you make sure no one has examples like that? Just always pass literally everyone no matter how bad a driver they are in case they're going to later claim discrimination? You can avoid explicit examples with evidence attached ("he called me a n-word and fired me, see ") but I don't see…

You can provide the reason for your decision. If you routinely evaluate driving tests, you will have based your decision on factors that you have applied without bias.

And if you feel so inclined, you can express your understanding to that person who feels that they have been wronged because of their background. Chances are they have been right far more often than they have been wrong and it's very stressful having to deal with an ever-present potential for unprovoked adversity.

It should be a very small burden on you to acknowledge their situation.

To return to the topic, Coinbase doesn't lose a breath acknowledging their Black employees who did file complaints. If they had any sympathy for these employees — which they should have even if they were not wronged for being Black — why didn't they express it in the statement?

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