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Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

businessinsider.com

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Re: Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

#51

Post by in_cahoots »

pacarvalho wrote: post #2

Tricky. Politics/societal/economic/etc issues such as this one are very important to be discussed. However, companies are a place for work. Talking to co-workers can be quite fulfilling and exciting when conversing about engineering, marketing, or other work related subjects you are passionate about. However, anytime politics, etc are brought up I (for one) leave the conversation feeling in a worse state of mind than…

Companies proudly proclaim that employees should bring their ‘whole selves’ to work. They sponsor resource groups for parents, women, minorities, gay/lesbian/trans, Christian/Muslim/Jewish, and vet employees. But when employees want to actually talk about the issues rather than watch ‘empowering’ motivational speakers, then bringing your whole self to work is suddenly a distraction.

They can’t have it both ways.

Re: Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

#52

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

woodruffw wrote: post #44

The learned oblivion in this discussion is very disheartening: every person saying to “leave politics at home” should understand that our basic boundaries around personal and working time came from long and protracted political battles over the powers of our employers. Those battles were fought because people complained, loudly at their workplaces, and won their colleagues over. Abortion is not the labor movement, bu…

I agree. At the same time, I think we're sadly coming to terms with the reality that our voices don't matter in the political arena anymore. If anything, I think social media has created the illusion that being loud and angry online is an effective replacement for actual strikes, protests, etc.

We can tweet angrily all day long, but those in power are going to continue doing what they do because they know we're just going to tweet about it and that just doesn't matter.

Re: Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

#53

Post by bogantech »

Volundr wrote: post #50
bogantech wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We the executives" are allowed to talk about it, and pay for what we believe is right, but "you the line workers", shut up, if you don't like it go work somewhere else. Yes because the line workers don't just discuss it they fight over it and make everyone angry / depressed and destroy productivity

And the executives don't make people depressed and angry and destroy productivity?

Not as much as people who don't stop screaming about in slack all day every day. There's always something and it never stops

Re: Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

#56

Post by collegeburner »

woodruffw wrote: post #44

The learned oblivion in this discussion is very disheartening: every person saying to “leave politics at home” should understand that our basic boundaries around personal and working time came from long and protracted political battles over the powers of our employers. Those battles were fought because people complained, loudly at their workplaces, and won their colleagues over. Abortion is not the labor movement, bu…

You're right, I should be using my work environment to agitate for repealing all the ridiculous and unjust gun laws we have and the shitty bill congress just passed. It's more important that we win colleagues over to protecting our rights.

Not that I will do this, but when I see people talk about things like this, they usually do not feel the same if I suggest what I might do. I think the abortion laws in my state need a little loosening (though not a lot) but there are other people who want them even tighter. Are you just as okay with them agitating at work? Or will you want them to be censored by HR or fired or passed over for promotion/bonus?

Re: Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

#57

Post by woodruffw »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #52
woodruffw wrote: post #44

The learned oblivion in this discussion is very disheartening: every person saying to “leave politics at home” should understand that our basic boundaries around personal and working time came from long and protracted political battles over the powers of our employers. Those battles were fought because people complained, loudly at their workplaces, and won their colleagues over. Abortion is not the labor movement, bu…

I agree. At the same time, I think we're sadly coming to terms with the reality that our voices don't matter in the political arena anymore. If anything, I think social media has created the illusion that being loud and angry online is an effective replacement for actual strikes, protests, etc. We can tweet angrily all day long, but those in power are going to continue doing what they do because they know we're just…

I absolutely agree, and I think this nicely summarizes why political discussion at work is more important than ever: it amounts to real discussions between human beings with emotional and professional ties, not flame wars between angry Tweeters.

I don’t agree with my coworkers on everything. But when they talk about politics I listen, and try my best to engage in a cogent discussion.

Maintaining a culture of political discussion at work is critical to both healthy corporate cultures and healthy civic processes, which might provide a hint as to why Meta is opposed to it (outrage is their business model.)

Re: Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

#59

Post by fzeroracer »

jjulius wrote: post #45
numair wrote: post #16

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-joel-kaplan-rallie... Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and the Facebook/Meta executive team are partly responsible for the reversal. No surprise that they don’t want their staff thinking a bit too much about this.

I'm as militantly "Fuck Facebook" as the next guy, but neither Zuckerberg nor Sandberg are named in that article at all . Do you have any actually citable evidence that shows that either of them were involved in the push for Kavanaugh's nomination and/or confirmation?

Why do they have to be directly named? One of the highest held positions in FB pushed for and advocated for political positions that directly impact workers.

You could argue that his personal political beliefs have nothing to do with the company, but he serves as an advocate for conservative voices within FB. For better or worse, his political beliefs are a large part of Facebook and the other executives enable that. The executive team directly represents the company in a way that your average worker does not and for workers to not discuss things executives do that directly impact them is wrong.

Re: Meta bans staff from open discussion of Roe vs. Wade

#60

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

endurance789xx wrote: post #29
Mezzie wrote: post #23

Probably a wise decision, and not just because of conflicts between the different sides (I can't imagine there's a large pro-life contingent at Meta), but because of the dumpster fire that intra-political discussions have turned into. Some people feel like discussing this in anything other than emotional terms is inappropriate, some people feel like we need to discuss the legal theory and history behind what happened…

Totally agree! I feel helpless and afraid of the Supreme court ruling. At the same time, I have seen firsthand how ridiculous such internal discussions have become at Twitter, and they silently take away so much of my work time and put me on the path of depression!

> At the same time, I have seen firsthand how ridiculous such internal discussions have become at Twitter, and they silently take away so much of my work time and put me on the path of depression

To be frank, this is Twitter in a nutshell to an outsider like me: a major personal time-waster that typically ends in anger and depression.

I guess it's not surprising that internal conversations for the platform that owns a significant share of the public discourse can't figure out how to discuss topics like this, but that sure makes me sad. Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all? If Twitter can't figure out how to do it, then who can?

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