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

FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 527 posts

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#401

Post by onion2k »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #369
wmichelin wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is not your average workplace. If your platform is profiting off of active political misinformation, you have an obligation to not only discuss these issues, but solve them. If you determine that you can't solve them, it's time to stop accepting the money.

Most employees at Facebook are doing nothing of the sort. They are working on databases and internal tools and changing the color of buttons. If you work on an integrity team then yes, you'll have to discuss such issues, but most employees don't.

One of the things I love about startups is feeling like my input is partially responsible for the mission, culture, and direction of the company. I can't imagine doing work for a company that was doing something and not feeling like I'm making a contribution to that goal.

Maybe you're right and developers at FB don't see that they have any responsibility or input towards what FB does with the tech they build, but I hope not. It would be horrible to be that detached from the outcome of your work.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#402

Post by greencabs »

sidlls wrote: post #365
dahart wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these initiatives are not about what the law requires. Except they are. Your word list is an exceedingly literal straw-man interpretation of a law that is purposefully vague, and doesn’t prescribe which words you can use. You can’t assume that specific policies of a company aren’t there for legal reasons just because the law doesn’t state the exact same policy in the exact same words. The spirit and the letter of t…

> Except they are. They aren't. In fact, the discussions I've seen at companies in the bay area go far beyond the minimum requirements of the law. They aren't about preventing discrimination, they're about actively increasing diversity (in some areas, but not all).

They are about protecting the company.

https://classunity.org/racism-and-responsibilization-in-whit...

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#403

Post by greencabs »

stateofnounion wrote: post #132
dahart wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has to discuss diversity at work because there are laws prohibiting discrimination, that's a good thing. Not everyone has to discuss politics at work.

> Everyone has to discuss diversity at work because there are laws prohibiting discrimination How are these two things causally connected in your mind?

This article will answer your question:

https://classunity.org/racism-and-responsibilization-in-whit...

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#404

Post by greencabs »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #334
dahart wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is that happening? And are you sure we're not actually talking about people who misunderstand the purpose and legal requirements of diversity training programs? As far as I can tell, this is the first comment in the thread to suggest we're talking about widespread mandatory "social justice" meetings that are political in nature and unrelated to the workplace's legal obligations. That's not what I got from @daok…

I have had department meetings at my workplace in California in the wake of the BLM movement, which also happens to be a multinational with 10s of thousands of employees. Groups of 20 or so employees were put together and encouraged to share stories of how social and racial injustice has impacted their personal lives and ideas for what can be done. I have a peer who had similar meetings at their firm and the VP of Di…

Yeah this is happening everywhere. See: https://classunity.org/racism-and-responsibilization-in-whit...

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#405

Post by onion2k »

hnreader998 wrote: post #265
patorjk wrote: post #5

At 3 paragraphs (131 words), that was a really short article. However, I agree with the subheading: "Mark Zuckerberg says employees shouldn’t have to confront social issues in their day-to-day work unless they want to" That sounds good to me. I've never had to talk about these kind of things at work. Are there work places where this is unavoidable?

It's even worse than unavoidable. My company has removed any kind of anonymous discussion/Q&A, which just fuels a mono culture. You only get one-sided discussions because going against the grain will be career suicide.

All this means is that you value your career over the political statement you want to make. The point you want to contribute isn't all that important to you. This is why it's worthwhile listening to people who speak out when there is a cost to themselves - they believe in what they're saying enough to sacrific something for it.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#406

Post by dangus »

greencabs wrote: post #397
jyrkesh wrote: post #382

> Ctrl+F -> "quit.", "quit " I see so much debate about what's right to do within FB, "how will people change the structure from the inside with this rule?", etc. QUIT. Just quit. Seriously. Make it public why you quit. Quit en masse. FB is not a good company. Your talents are useful in many other places. Yes, I'm privileged in saying this. No, I wouldn't feel comfortable quitting my job right now. But if you believe…

They will, in fact, just hire somebody else. American companies have access to an unlimited supply of labor. Better to stick around and try to unionize. It may not happen in your lifetime, but the other fact is the United States is a corporate hellworld. Workers have no say in anything. Until that changes, the corporations won’t.

I don’t know that this level of defeatism is justified. Quitting does help.

Why does quitting help?

Consider IBM. Their revenue is about 20% of its peak. It used to be seen as a monopoly power. Now we barely think about them.

I think that IBM has made itself an unattractive place for employees where it used to be seen as an extremely prestigious place to work. And I think poor quality employees, along with average to mediocre management has squandered an incredible, dominant company over the past 20 years.

Facebook will decline if all the most desirable employees just quit. It’s basically just math - those who know the most, interview best, and have the most accomplishments will be able to leave the fastest. Facebook will be left with the D team and they’ll get taken to the cleaners by competitors (as they already are with TikTok - and what’s the average age of the most engaged users of Facebook again?)

Anyway, the point is, you quitting hits a company in precisely the right place - their wallet. Employee turnover is tracked and costs companies money. Higher turnover does bring about changes.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#407

Post by monadgonad »

xapata wrote: post #361
Consultant32452 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a copy/pasta of a previous post of mine, but I feel it's very fitting here. Why would they give up control of the world by doing something silly like that? Think about how much political influence Twitter has based solely on which tweets they show the President and corporate press. Consider how much untraced in-kind donations these companies can make by tweaking which news stories you see. The crazy thing abo…

I believe the word is "paste" and you can link instead.

Someone's addressed the "paste" part so I'll address the rest: the vast majority of people are not going to want to click on a link to a short post in the middle of an HN discussion. The content belongs here, not behind a link, and mentioning that it's a copy of what the user has said elsewhere is a courtesy to us.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#408

Post by luckylion »

fivre wrote: post #28
cltby wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How terrifying that sneaky Russians are able to effect arbitrary social change by just throwing $100k of FB ads at the problem! I thought I was a moderately intelligent and well-informed person, but after reading your comment, I now understand that no amount of reason or self-awareness can protect me from miniscule amounts of ad spend by foreign spies.

The point is that they're well-educated themselves, persistent, and capable of learning from their mistakes. Earlier attempts were childishly bad. The contemporary ones are better-crafted, and may not be reaching you--I don't know you and can't speak to that--but they are reaching people I know and care about.

Can you rule out that those people they are supposedly reaching don't simply have different values than you and you're currently seeing circumstances that make them alter their stance because it hits a fault line between your values and theirs?

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#409

Post by praptak »

jyrkesh wrote: post #382

> Ctrl+F -> "quit.", "quit " I see so much debate about what's right to do within FB, "how will people change the structure from the inside with this rule?", etc. QUIT. Just quit. Seriously. Make it public why you quit. Quit en masse. FB is not a good company. Your talents are useful in many other places. Yes, I'm privileged in saying this. No, I wouldn't feel comfortable quitting my job right now. But if you believe…

Quitting may make you feel better but it doesn't fix social problems. There's just too many people who can't afford to take a lower paying ethical job.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#410

Post by daveFNbuck »

greencabs wrote: post #397
jyrkesh wrote: post #382

> Ctrl+F -> "quit.", "quit " I see so much debate about what's right to do within FB, "how will people change the structure from the inside with this rule?", etc. QUIT. Just quit. Seriously. Make it public why you quit. Quit en masse. FB is not a good company. Your talents are useful in many other places. Yes, I'm privileged in saying this. No, I wouldn't feel comfortable quitting my job right now. But if you believe…

They will, in fact, just hire somebody else. American companies have access to an unlimited supply of labor. Better to stick around and try to unionize. It may not happen in your lifetime, but the other fact is the United States is a corporate hellworld. Workers have no say in anything. Until that changes, the corporations won’t.

If they have an unlimited supply of labor and we're living in a corporate hellworld, why do they pay so well and include so many perks? They sure seem to be acting like a company that's competing for a limited talent pool.
Post reply on HN