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

Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 368 posts

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#311

Post by HackerThemAll »

duxup wrote: post #34

I'm all for some good old civil disobedience as far as every day choices go in the outside world. However, I also think if you're employed somewhere there are reasonable expectations as far as workplace behavior goes that would prohibit the same "protest" or "civil disobedience" type behavior. It is interesting that the protestor immediately declares that they don't wan to work for such a company. It sorta begs the q…

So, immediate termination is ok for just yelling a few words, none of them being an f word against the CEO? I think they could just reprimand him and not fire him. This company is becoming a fear- and power-fueled autocracy of the board. Which won't bring any good to them.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#312

Post by smsm42 »

HackerThemAll wrote: post #311
duxup wrote: post #34

I'm all for some good old civil disobedience as far as every day choices go in the outside world. However, I also think if you're employed somewhere there are reasonable expectations as far as workplace behavior goes that would prohibit the same "protest" or "civil disobedience" type behavior. It is interesting that the protestor immediately declares that they don't wan to work for such a company. It sorta begs the q…

So, immediate termination is ok for just yelling a few words, none of them being an f word against the CEO? I think they could just reprimand him and not fire him. This company is becoming a fear- and power-fueled autocracy of the board. Which won't bring any good to them.

Depending on the words, yes. Obviously, they disagree on what is the best way for the company to behave. In this case, the management of the company, by definition, has the priority, and if the differences are large enough, ending the employment relationship looks like the right way to go. Working at google is not some kind of right that belongs to everyone, it's a relationship between two sides, and each side can end it. Staging a protest on a keynote sounds like a good reason to end it.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#313

Post by smsm42 »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #151
duxup wrote: post #34

I'm all for some good old civil disobedience as far as every day choices go in the outside world. However, I also think if you're employed somewhere there are reasonable expectations as far as workplace behavior goes that would prohibit the same "protest" or "civil disobedience" type behavior. It is interesting that the protestor immediately declares that they don't wan to work for such a company. It sorta begs the q…

The trouble is that "reasonable expectations" are set by those in power. Slave overs set "reasonable expectations" for slaves, feudal lords set "reasonable expectations" for peasants. In such a world "reasonable expectations" by their nature foster a continuation of the existing power structures. Behavior that challenges "reasonable expectations" does so precisely because of the belief that the continuation of the st…

Nobody owes you or anybody to validate your beliefs. Employee, however, owes the company certain standards of behavior. If you violate them, you get fired, and can continue holding your beliefs outside of employment.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#314

Post by smsm42 »

C6JEsQeQa5fCjE wrote: post #238

From the article: > One employee asked about Gemini's bias. Specifically, the person wrote that when asking Gemini, "Do women in Gaza deserve human rights?" the chatbot didn't have a response and directed the user to try Google search. But when the employee asked the same question of women in France, Gemini answered "Absolutely," followed by multiple bullet points backing up the assertion. > CNBC replicated the searc…

What would you expect to achieve asking a question like that? If you try to use an LLM as your moral guide in figuring out whether women deserve human rights, you just may be too dumb to be allowed to connect to the internet (though I'm not sure how it relates to possibility of employment with Google). But I don't think any living human being is actually this dumb and still can figure out how to submit a question to Gemini. So we have to move on to the other alternative - asking this question is just trying to mine the outrage and procure a weapon in pushing some kind of agenda (probably not a big secret which one) and waging culture war (and in this case, also real killing war, unfortunately). I am not a manager of Google, but if I found out that enabling people like that is not a priority for Google managers, I would not find it dreadful at all, I'd find it completely normal and even - with all my reluctance of applying this word to Google managers - commendable.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#315

Post by smsm42 »

blueflow wrote: post #5

Why is employee dissent such a problem in google and not a problem in other companies?

Do you think any other company wouldn't fire an employee who made a scene at a PR event?

I suspect, though, that in most companies the employees already know what would happen, and would not do things like that - first, because they don't feel entitled using the company's resources for personal goals, and second - because the consequences may be too heavy for them. But in Google, one probably can be both rich enough already to be fired and not sweat about it too much, and entitled enough to feel like something like this is the right thing to do.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#316

Post by deterministic »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #151
duxup wrote: post #34

I'm all for some good old civil disobedience as far as every day choices go in the outside world. However, I also think if you're employed somewhere there are reasonable expectations as far as workplace behavior goes that would prohibit the same "protest" or "civil disobedience" type behavior. It is interesting that the protestor immediately declares that they don't wan to work for such a company. It sorta begs the q…

The trouble is that "reasonable expectations" are set by those in power. Slave overs set "reasonable expectations" for slaves, feudal lords set "reasonable expectations" for peasants. In such a world "reasonable expectations" by their nature foster a continuation of the existing power structures. Behavior that challenges "reasonable expectations" does so precisely because of the belief that the continuation of the st…

There are none. Power is the currency of the world. I don’t personally like it. However I want to see the world as it is and not live in a make believe fantasy bubble.

Laws and rules are created and enforced by people in power. They are designed to force the less powerful to behaving in a certain way. It has nothing to do with “morals” or “justice”. You might happen to agree morally with certain laws or rules and not with others. However that doesn’t matter unless you are powerful enough to change those laws.

In the case of companies, the people in power can make whatever rules they want. Unless more powerful people (the government/large groups of costumers/powerful unions) threaten the company with repercussions if those rules aren’t changed.

Imagine (for example) a group of Vegans becoming powerful enough to outlaw eating meat. With heavy penalties (including death by execution) for anybody buying or selling meat for consumption. That is absolutely something that could happen. With the most extreme Vegans feeling morally justified in enforcing those rules. The only thing stopping this from happening is their lack of power.

Another example is religion. Do as your told or you will go to hell. If you truly believe there is a hell then this threat is the most extreme usage of power you can possible imagine. We are talking about being tortured all the time in every conceivable way forever.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#317

Post by deterministic »

archagon wrote: post #208
lordfrito wrote: post #125

Lately it seems that more and more rank-and-file employees believe that a company has some sort of moral obligation to take their political opinions into consideration. Corporations aren't democracies. Unless you're an executive or high ranking decision maker, you're along for the ride. I don't ask my kids for their opinion about my home budget, what house I should buy, etc. So it is at work. Expecting a company to k…

If enough employees want it to be so, a company can certainly be coerced into becoming more democratic.

Absolutely. The only power that can change the rules is (surprise surprise) power. If the Google employees managed to organize themselves into an effective union, they absolutely could force Google management to change the rules. If the employees can’t do that, only governments or (ad) customers can.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#318

Post by pbiggar »

tptacek wrote: post #296
pbiggar wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I addressed that in the first line! To restate: why is Hamas' attack on Oct 7 bad? It's because they killed civilians. If we condemn that, then we must condemn all the IDF killings of civilians. If we do not, what basis do we have to condemn Hamas? Israel's killing of civilians is a horrendous war crime. No we are not doing a carve-out because they really want to kill Hamas fighters. Absurd and horrific to suggest th…

Hamas has an objective of killing civilians. You will of course argue that Israel does as well, but that will be an argument, not a plain statement of fact.

[flagged]

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#319

Post by CydeWeys »

HackerThemAll wrote: post #311
duxup wrote: post #34

I'm all for some good old civil disobedience as far as every day choices go in the outside world. However, I also think if you're employed somewhere there are reasonable expectations as far as workplace behavior goes that would prohibit the same "protest" or "civil disobedience" type behavior. It is interesting that the protestor immediately declares that they don't wan to work for such a company. It sorta begs the q…

So, immediate termination is ok for just yelling a few words, none of them being an f word against the CEO? I think they could just reprimand him and not fire him. This company is becoming a fear- and power-fueled autocracy of the board. Which won't bring any good to them.

You shouldn't be yelling at your boss's boss's boss in a large company forum. That's rank insubordination, and easily punishable with firing. Hell it could be punished with much worse than insubordination in other kinds of organizations; imagine a private yelling at a general when the entire corps is being reviewed.

Companies are indeed hierarchical, and sometimes it feels like people forget that. You can indeed be fired at any time, and this is exactly the kind of situation you can put yourself in to have it happen to you.

Re: Google fires employee who protested Israel tech event, shuts forum

#320

Post by CydeWeys »

blueflow wrote: post #5

Why is employee dissent such a problem in google and not a problem in other companies?

Who says it's not a problem in other companies? I think it just doesn't make the news as much.

At my previous company, at an offsite retreat, one of the guys got drunk and started chewing out the company's founders and the main office manager. Sure enough, he was fired by the time the retreat was over, and was never seen in the office again. A similar thing happened to someone who had a huge blowout argument and emailed the entire company his manifesto (of sorts).

Post reply on HN