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A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

nytimes.com

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Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#361

Post by rendall »

rl3 wrote: post #335
rendall wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those seem like issues for prosecutors to pursue, not for Google, unless the abuses were happening in Google offices or were sponsored by them. I'm glad someone else gets my point. These were all someone else's problems to deal with, but this guy kept sticking his nose in even when he was repeatedly asked by his friend, a manager, to butt out.

> I'm glad someone else gets my point. These were all someone else's problems to deal with, but this guy kept sticking his nose in even when he was repeatedly asked by his friend, a manager, to butt out. That manager could very well have been complicit in corruption. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in wine purchases isn't exactly trivial. That said, it sounds like the guy was just trying to keep the GDS division afl…

> certainly protecting his own paycheck either way

Yeah, no. He did not protect his paycheck. He did the opposite.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#362

Post by dubswithus »

ineedasername wrote: post #277
abeppu wrote: post #274

So, if the author was fired for the reasons they believe, that's pretty bad behavior. But if he had not been fired, what was management supposed to have done about the cult members working for this department? Yes, the cult's leader sounds like a pretty awful person, but he wasn't working there. What were the cult members doing in their work in the department that was clearly wrong? It's suggested that there was favo…

At minimum Google could have investigated the odd clustering of employees that indicated some sort of nepotistic hiring practice. Of course they might be doing exactly that, but it's not the sort of thing they can really comment on. Edit: also the self-dealing on hundreds of thousands of dollars in wine.

No, at a minimum they should have fired all these people for funding a pedophile with their salaries. Absolutely disgusting.

> I found support groups where ex-members talk about their time in the group, including discussions of sexual abuse and grooming.

> Members have described him grooming and sexually assaulting male followers, including minors

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#363

Post by baryphonic »

blip54321 wrote: post #316

Just to clarify: Federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion. Google cannot take action against religions (even cults) it disagrees with (even for valid reasons for disagreeing with them), unless it gets over a very high bar of impacting business behavior. The other path leads to far worse outcomes. Morally, we cannot judge what happened here without hearing from both sides. But if action is to be t…

He alleges a few specific problems: nepotism, self-dealing and retaliation. Those are things that Google should take seriously, particularly the self-dealing with selling wine (which seems like money laundering).

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#364

Post by rendall »

glenstein wrote: post #353
rendall wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, questioning whether someone read the article is against the guidelines. Please don't do that. Secondly, according to the article, "everyone" at Google knew, and he was a contractor. Once he raised his concerns, he did his duty. At that point, it's Google's business, and it's up to them to do something about it. Or not, if they'd rather. Maybe management liked their work and so looked past the "embezzlement", b…

>First, questioning whether someone read the article is against the guidelines. Please don't do that. This thread is an excellent illustration of what's likely an unintended consequence of that guideline, and of all the places to raise it, this is probably the least constructive and least in conformance with any possible intention of the guideline. If someone doesn't RTFA but contributes really interesting thoughts o…

> But here, you're using it in response to a constructive comment expressing a legitimate point over...

Not at all. It's unnecessarily rude. The point could as well have been made without it.

"How can you say that? They were embezzling!"

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#365

Post by madrox »

dubswithus wrote: post #357
jonas21 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also an odd clustering among early Google employees who all came from a place called "Stanford." It may be difficult to distinguish between these two hiring patterns without asking the sorts of questions that are illegal for employers to ask.

I don’t understand your point. The cult we are discussing here is accused of engaging in grooming and pedophilia. That’s comparable to a bunch of people that went to Stanford?

I think the point was that you can't really go after nepotistic hiring practices alone without also throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Nepotism happens all the time, and it's usually benign, like Stanford grads hiring Stanford grads. We want to work with our friends, people we've worked with before, and people with similar backgrounds as ours.

This comment thread is about what policy, if any, can these people really be investigated or fired for. If association with an organization whose leadership engages in grooming and pedophilia, while distasteful, is a firing offense, then should we be firing all catholics? There seems to be no way to articulate a policy here that a lot of well-meaning people wouldn't run afoul of, and you can't selectively implement policy without then running afoul of discriminatory business practices.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#366

Post by jollybean »

aerovistae wrote: post #231
jancsika wrote: post #226

Just to clarify-- this article is about a modern religious cult. Modern religious cults are groups that use a whole host of well-known manipulative techniques to trap victims in insular groups which are then difficult to escape after the fact. Leaders of those groups directly abuse those victims physically and/or emotionally (and often drain their bank accounts as well). This isn't, "My parents are worried about my w…

I'm not sure what this comment was meant to clarify - the article already made this clear. If anything, your comment's reference to parents adds confusion rather than clarification.

The article presents the slightly paranoid perspective of one person.

I don't think anyone should come to understand the nature of an organization by arbitrary outsiders.

A lot of it is going to be hearsay.

That said, I'm inclined to believe most of it, and least the 'gist' of it.

I wouldn't be so fully quick to judge either the cult and certainly not it's members either.

There are a lot of reasons people can be involved.

And many of those reasons can be positive, even if the system or it's leaders are corrupt.

I think it's mostly safe to assume the group is probably a cult in the 'bad sense', but not without accepting that there is going to be a lot of grey there.

Also, man, Cali.

It's like Florida but with more education and money so the 'funny business' is just like a different form.

Maybe Google has too much money, and possibly not a strong a cultural foundation as it needs.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#367

Post by tomrod »

permo-w wrote: post #330
tomrod wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having recovered from a high demand religion (which can be considered a modern cult depending on the definition), cults are very different from corporations. I feel like the best definition of a cult is any group that won't let you dissociate with your dignity intact. Most corporations are fine with that. Some aren't. So this suggests substantial differences.

I don't see that as a good definition of a cult

To be fair, it's a lived experience that I have found among other cult and high demand religion recoverers.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#368

Post by 24rf24r2f »

dubswithus wrote: post #362
ineedasername wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At minimum Google could have investigated the odd clustering of employees that indicated some sort of nepotistic hiring practice. Of course they might be doing exactly that, but it's not the sort of thing they can really comment on. Edit: also the self-dealing on hundreds of thousands of dollars in wine.

No, at a minimum they should have fired all these people for funding a pedophile with their salaries. Absolutely disgusting. > I found support groups where ex-members talk about their time in the group, including discussions of sexual abuse and grooming. > Members have described him grooming and sexually assaulting male followers, including minors

No post body was provided.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#369

Post by rendall »

ineedasername wrote: post #312
rendall wrote: post #210

Not really sure what the big deal is. Did the cult hurt this fellow? Abuse him? Discriminate against him? Mob him? No. The article really just talks about his own disapproval of the cult. It wasn't his business what these people got up to, frankly.

Seriously? Sex trafficking & abuse especially of underage people isn't a "live and let live" thing. Neither are co-workers assigning hundreds of thousands of dollars in vendor contracts to themselves or their organization. If you think the author was too far removed from sex trafficking allegations to make an issue of it then this one is still very much appropriate to raise a red flag over.

> Sex trafficking & abuse...

Did he observe sex trafficking? He did not. He read about 25 year old allegations.

What he actually observed was ... wine. That Google managers already knew about.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#370

Post by dubswithus »

abeppu wrote: post #274

So, if the author was fired for the reasons they believe, that's pretty bad behavior. But if he had not been fired, what was management supposed to have done about the cult members working for this department? Yes, the cult's leader sounds like a pretty awful person, but he wasn't working there. What were the cult members doing in their work in the department that was clearly wrong? It's suggested that there was favo…

The leader of the cult is accused of grooming minors. That means Google is funding the next Jeffrey Esptein.

> Are you supposed to then ask everyone in the department about their religious affiliations, or whether they've given money to a fringe religious organization? That also seems like a really unhealthy road for a company to go down.

I’d suggest a question like this:

1) Are you affiliated with an organization that molests children?

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