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Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

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

#441

Post by aerostable_slug »

thefaux wrote: post #269

The really troubling news buried in this to me was the appointment of Dana White to the meta board of directors. Like seriously what purpose does he serve but to appease the new administration?

I was thinking about this as well, and it makes sense if Meta is planning a big sports push. Using a Quest 3, the sports "coverage" I've seen has been compelling (virtual NBA courtside seats are pretty nifty), especially MMA. Zuck's an MMA enthusiast so it fits.

It would be silly to pretend politics plays no role in this, but it's not like they're putting Don Jr. on the board.

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

#442

Post by nomel »

afavour wrote: post #128
ericmcer wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Costco ever have a diversity issue? I don't think people are worried about getting more representation among grocery store cashiers.

I don't see them as different to any other company, really. I could imagine diversity in their staff of buyers would be useful, for example, to ensure they're stocking products that represent the different desires of different groups.

> I don't see them as different to any other company, really.

The pool of qualified people, for a cashier, is basically everyone.

The pool of qualified people for, say, working at a tech company, is not as diverse [1], and don't match the general population.

[1] https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/people/talent-flows...

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

#443

Post by andrepd »

eapressoandcats wrote: post #310
swatcoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> acknowledging that such DEI program was performative in the first place. That's exactly what they're doing and I don't think that's a secret. > This kind of announcement seems extremely self defeating and unlikely to please anyone and piss off just about anyone that cares about this in any way shape or form, on either side. It's not about making users or bloggers happy. They don't care whether those people are "pis…

To be clear, the thing that’s keeping them from being disadvantaged against Musk/X is cozying up to the Trump and the government. That’s going to make a much bigger difference in stock performance than any personnel impact of these changes.

Surely nothing can go wrong with authoritarians backed by trillionaires with social media in their hands, rapidly talking over power. I doubt Orwell could have predicted how the 2020s are turning out.

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

#445

Post by getnormality »

antics wrote: post #311

I am Wasq'u (a tribe in the PNW), I am connected to my tribe, and I am one of a handful of remaining speakers of the language. I am really tired of being caught in the maw of people fighting about my identity, what I am owed, and to some extent what place my identity has in society. To the pro-DEI crowd: I have some hard truths for you. Actual change requires commitment and focus over an extremely long period of time…

Thank you for this wonderful message. As a fellow American, I can see you have our common interests at heart, as well as those of your tribe. That is a model for all of us.

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

#446

Post by lolinder »

seadan83 wrote: post #413
lolinder wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing. So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has c…

I agree with most of your points. Though with respect lasting change, where is your impression coming from that the gains are in the last 10 to 15 years? Or even that is a widespread belief? According to reporting at the guardian [1], FBs DEI program increased black and brown employees from 8% to 12%. Seems abysmal. My perspective, US society is still fighting for gains that _started_ 160 years ago. Still painstaking…

> I disagree that there is a wide held belief that everything was done in the last decade.

I think I may have miscommunicated there—I'm not saying that anyone believes that we made all of the progress of the last 150+ years in this past decade. I'm saying that in this past decade progressives have forgotten that it takes generations to make even small changes. You can't hold the national government for a few years and push a bunch of bills through and coerce a bunch of companies into going through the motions of equity and then expect anything you did to stick.

I think where we do disagree is that I do believe real progress has been made over the last 160 years. Yes, we're still working towards the goals that were defined 160 years ago, but we're nowhere near where we started.

Change like this has to happen on the scale of generations because people ossify and you frankly have to wait for them to pass on. Your only choices are to gradually change the culture as generations roll over or to undo democracy itself. You can't have both a democracy and rapid social change to your preferred specs.

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

#447

Post by xvector »

ncr100 wrote: post #234
swatcoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> acknowledging that such DEI program was performative in the first place. That's exactly what they're doing and I don't think that's a secret. > This kind of announcement seems extremely self defeating and unlikely to please anyone and piss off just about anyone that cares about this in any way shape or form, on either side. It's not about making users or bloggers happy. They don't care whether those people are "pis…

Aside: It appears the modern world is inflecting to OVERT (subversive) insular, erosion of fundamental values, with recent leveraging of power-structures to facilitate authoritarian thinking.

Not many people supported those "fundamental values" to begin with. The only people that wanted DEI policies were extremely loud liberals (that temporarily gained power by steamrolling the apathetic majority)

Now we are just seeing a return to reality.

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

#448

Post by pixxel »

bko wrote: post #246
firefoxd wrote: post #184

I wrote about my experience working as a software developer and being black in the industry and I was lucky to have it published on BBC [1]. What immediately followed, every large company reached out to have me work as a consultant for their diversity program. I found it fascinating that they had a team of DEI experts in place already. Like what makes one an expert? In addition to my job, I spent nights developing pr…

A lot of people say DEI programs were purely performative and just for political points. But these policies did change the corporate landscape and affect hiring decisions. Of 323,092 new jobs added in 2021 by S&P 100 companies, 302,570 (94%) went to people of color This data came from workforce demographic reports submitted to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by 88 S&P 100 companies Hispanic individua…

Are you presenting this as a positive?

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

#449

Post by bcrosby95 »

specialp wrote: post #385
gorgoiler wrote: post #124

Diversity in tech hiring never felt like the right end of the funnel. It’s why I went into teaching and I’m proud to say after what seems like a ridiculously short amount of time (“they grow up so fast” etc.) the girls from my classes are now entering the work force as SWE and ML interns. Not many, but more than none. When we focus diversity efforts on high school kids then we get a turnaround at the funnel entrypoin…

The start of the funnel is also the most racist and class discriminatory. Almost every school in the USA takes pupils from districts where the property owners pay the taxes for the schools. Rich areas get much more resources and support. Poor students get put into less funded schools and suffer from not having mentorship or peers to look up to. I live on Long Island and we have a majority white population. Despite th…

In California funding is based upon attendance. The main place wealthy neighborhoods get extra money here is through PTAs rather than property taxes.

This is in addition to what the other commenter said. I'm not very well informed about how other states fund their schools, but even if this blanket generalization is true in some places, there's enough evidence out there that funding isn't the only or maybe even the main problem.

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

#450

Post by dang »

mempko wrote: post #73

I started a new account on Twitter just to see what it's like. It's completely unusable. The place is filled with shit content that a I don't want to see and bots. Not sure what competitive advantage you are talking about.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42658074.
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