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

361–370 of 615 posts

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

#361

Post by cmiles74 »

SauntSolaire wrote: post #213
cmiles74 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure we can hold individuals responsible for signing these non-disparagement clauses. They often don't have a lawyer to review the paperwork and, I am sure, employers like Facebook aren't going to wait for a new hire to have a lawyer review that paperwork. There's a real pressure to sign everything with HR and get on to starting your new role. Plus the power imbalance.

If you can't hold individuals responsible for signing contracts on the premise that they might not read them, you've simultaneously invalidated most contracts, increased the cost to enter a contract (essentially subsidizing the law industry), and severely limited the ability for individuals to enter into contracts — not to mention infantilizing adults who are fully capable of reading a document before signing it. Fur…

Oh no, I wasn't clear: I am sure people read these agreements. I think most of the time, they don't understand them. Also, we can't always understand how these agreements might be applied even if we do think that we understand them.

I don't think we can hold people responsible for these types of contracts if they are under duress, for instance, under threat of the loss of their job. In this case the person signed in order to get the promised severance package, without which they wouldn't be able to continue with life-saving medical coverage, in my opinion that would also be under duress.

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

#363

Post by bostik »

gortok wrote: post #23

Having listened to the book on Audible, I'm both shocked at the behavior of the executive team, and not surprised all at the same time. What bothers me about all of this is what it says about us. It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about. We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way,…

> Cheryl Sandberg inviting the author of the book to sleep in her bed next to her on the company jet, and the petulent and vindictive behavior when the author said 'no'.

Considering the timing... does that mean MeToo doesn't apply if the predator is also a woman?

Sexual advances from a position of power are simply not okay. (Weirdly as a society we appear to have accepted that an older woman predating younger men is somehow a cool thing: we call them cougars.)

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

#365

Post by SoftTalker »

prepend wrote: post #344
SoftTalker wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I basically agree but as a civil instrument, a contract is not a law. The only consequence of violating a contract should be having to pay back whatever damages were caused. Not prohibitions on behavior or other freedoms. Enforced by whom? Corporations will violate contracts all the time as a cost of business if the cost of the violation is less than the benefit gained.

In the US, a contract is considered law. It’s just only between the parties.

You will not go to jail for breaking a contract. The only remedies are civil.

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

#366

Post by AlienRobot »

avidiax wrote: post #273
ethin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I would be all for outright abolishing arbitration. I have yet to see anything actually good come out of arbitration other than a ruling that protects the entity that forced arbitration in the first place.

Arbitration does help with the problem of overwhelmed and expensive courts. What is needed is fair arbitration. The outcome should approximate the outcome of the full court proceeding. Make the arbitration rulings appealable in court on the basis of factual errors, errors of law, corruption, and potential errors by omission (i.e. failure of discovery). And make the company responsible for the full costs of the litiga…

>Arbitration does help with the problem of overwhelmed and expensive courts. What is needed is fair arbitration.

That sounds like you want all the benefits of an actual court without all the costs of an actual court?

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

#368

Post by ashdksnndck »

jmull wrote: post #231
Nifty3929 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because recognizing the author as conflicted and an unreliable narrator changes how you should weight and consider the information they are providing. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is untrue - but it does add extra, valuable information to how much you trust it. If someone tells me something, I'm mostly likely to believe it without further investigation. But not always.

Another one. Deflecting the criticism of Meta with a “whaddabout the author!” Formed as an answer to a question, but not one that was asked . A different account than last time, though, so I’ll ask you too: Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of Meta (lol)?

Many of the juicy stories from the book have no supporting evidence other than the claims of the author. Their credibility is all we have to go on here. If someone wrote a message here saying that they were a fly on the wall at the publisher’s office where they had a workshop inventing these stories to sell more books, you’d be right to question their motives.

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

#369

Post by andy_ppp »

prepend wrote: post #317
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…

I think the author was complicit and only complained once FB stopped paying her. It was weird how the author claimed not to know how facebook targeted ads worked until 2016/2017 after she had made millions.

So you should never be allowed to comment on the behaviour of companies you worked for?

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

#370

Post by ben_w »

Noaidi wrote: post #256
ryandrake wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "Not voting with your wallet" essentially means becoming a hermit and living isolated in the woods. This is a total exaggeration and just gives power to these companies. You can start here: https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/ YOU voted for Facebook when you use it, by not installing a hosts file that blocks it and all advertisements. We do not need to use these platforms, and the less people that use them the les…

Unfortunately, no hosts file on iOS, and it isn't reliably listened to on macOS.

But with all the other stuff Apple's doing, I suspect my next machines won't be Apple…

Post reply on HN