Live data from Hacker News

Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

axios.com

331–340 of 1001 posts

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

#331
post #6

> We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, beneficial and universally impactful for everyone. The new(ly leaked) moderation guidelines might suggest otherwise...

Apparently they consider platforming hate speech to be beneficial because it could bolster sympathy for the groups being attacked. I wish I was joking. https://www.platformer.news/meta-new-trans-guidelines-hate-s... Alex Schultz, the company’s chief marketing officer and highest-ranking gay executive, suggested in an internal post that people seeing their queer friends and family members abused on Facebook and Instag…

Bullies important part of playground ecosystem, says bully lol

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

#333
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…

My company did (still does? Not sure) have a policy similar to that, even for IC roles.

We would frequently miss out on opportunities to hire qualified candidates because we couldn't make an offer until satisfying the interview quota. By the time we did, the candidate accepted another offer.

I think it's probably a net positive for underrepresented people (it's kind of hard to argue harm to white people when they just get other offers elsewhere that are good enough to accept without waiting), but I'm really not sure if it's a net positive for the company (pre-ipo, still trying to grow a lot).

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

#334
I remember meeting Maxine Williams on my first day at Facebook. She gave a strong introductory address that left me with a deep appreciation of the value of diversity not just as a moral good, but as a good business decision. Seeing her work denigrated and thrown under the bus to appease the bigotry of Trump, Elon, and their odious ilk is a gut blow.

We are in for some dark times.

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

#336
post #320

> At Meta, we have a principle of serving everyone. This can be achieved through cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. At last, a corporation acknowledges it's _cognitive_ diversity that matters. Most other forms of diversity are superficial, inherent human characterstics that are already equal under law, and make no difference t…

Are you serious that you’ve never witnessed any discrimination against women or minorities?

I have witnessed:

* co-workers being extremely wary of offending them in any way

* superiors telling me to hire them

* corporate literature that focuses on promoting their interests

* corporate networks that grant them additional networking and social opportunities

I have worked at a hedge fund, market data company, American and Australian investment banks and a travel startup.

I have NEVER witnessed racism or sexism in the workplace. If I ever did, I would find it shocking and very weird.

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

#338

Musk buying Twitter had a profound effect on the discourse. I don’t think this happens without him buying it. I don’t think Trump wins without it. People can speak freely and it’s just obvious some of these sacred cows were unpopular and only in place due to pressure. Overton window has shifted big time.

Except you can’t say anyone is cisgender, so not that freely.

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

#339

Contrast Meta's stance with Costco's, when [Costco responded][1] to a shareholder that proposed Costco prepare a report on "the risks of the Company maintaining its current DEI roles, policies and goals." Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members, and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics: For our employ…

Note the yaml formatted text string of their statement, very cs-forward (I assume newlines where stripped out by the web UI here.

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

#340

Does this mean we can go back to using "master" as our git repo's default branch?

[flagged]

> Just the other day merely mentioning George Floyd's length criminal history and drug use

But like what's the reason to bring it up unless to imply that he deserved to be killed?

Post reply on HN