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Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#511

Post by davidw »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334
neonate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is such a clear analysis that someone should transcribe it. Here's the main part of what Naval says: "If Google, Facebook, and Twitter had been smart about this, they would not have picked sides. They would have said "We're publishers. Whatever goes through our pipes goes through our pipes. If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it." It's like the phone company.…

The problem with at least Facebook and Twitter (and possibly Google) in this analysis is that their attention-grabbing model requires them to analyse and interfere with the data which is coming through their systems. The only way not to do that would be for FB timelines and Twitter feeds to be strictly sequential feeds which at some point in the past they may have been but they are not now. Once you start basing your…

The problem is also that they are advertisers, and I'll be damned if I want ads for my company appearing next to "Illinois Nazis" or ISIS or whatever other garbage.

There's another problem: it becomes a race to the bottom if it's nothing but trolls and garbage content.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#512

Post by Gunax »

anarchodev wrote: post #331
anm89 wrote: post #129

I personally think this is awesome. I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product. If these users are breaking laws, then put them out of business via the courts and sieze the assets (the repos in this case) via legal mea…

> I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use othe…

> Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use other services (or roll their own) and gitlab can't do anything about that. Neither would it be overreaching for the workers building that product to request a say in how it's used.

I think this is the crux of the issue. Anyone is of course free to roll their own GitLab (or facebook, or news channel). But this ignores reality.

Facebook control ~90% of social media. There's a very high chance that Facebook could sway every election in America (and lots of other countries also) if they truly wanted to.

I think we are entering a new era. Just as it required a paradigm shift to outlaw anti-competitive practices, I think we need to re-consider what rights these platforms have around speech.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#514

Post by DuskStar »

pjc50 wrote: post #381
big_chungus wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please clarify what you mean by, "Because if you genuinely belief people want try to identify who is and isn't racist in a "conforming" way then you're delusional?" Here's the problem: at least in SV, you're going to be restricted to a sub-set of very narrow beliefs which are acceptable to express. I may hold a personal belief that, say, trans-sexuality is not a "real thing" or ought not to be treated with…

> Do you honestly believe I'd be able to express that in such an environment, as much as someone who believes it is "a thing"? Should you be able to comfortably express that to your trans co-worker, no matter how uncomfortable that makes them? That's why this is not a symmetrical issue.

If you can have political discussion as long as you have the right opinions, that's not really a discussion is it? It's "affirm you agree with my political beliefs or be fired".

And a few parallels - what do you do about the person who's afraid of being shot if the government comes to take their guns (and thus is going to be uncomfortable with opinions leaning that way), or the person who's afraid of their kids being shot at school (and thus is going to be uncomfortable with opinions leaning towards fewer restrictions on guns)? You can't satisfy both of them without banning discussion, and a lot of issues are like that.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#515

Post by wmf »

ahnick wrote: post #453
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with at least Facebook and Twitter (and possibly Google) in this analysis is that their attention-grabbing model requires them to analyse and interfere with the data which is coming through their systems. The only way not to do that would be for FB timelines and Twitter feeds to be strictly sequential feeds which at some point in the past they may have been but they are not now. Once you start basing your…

I think it depends on how the recommendation algorithms are implemented. (I have no idea about how Facebook and Twitter recommendation algorithms work) Let's say for example you have a community contributed labeling system that allows users to label content. A recommendation algorithm might then be written that simply pulls the top 10 highest number of viewed pieces content that have the same labels as a piece of con…

Simple "neutral" algorithms are generally easy to game. If you choose an algorithm that you already know will be gamed for harassment or whatever then you're essentially choosing that outcome.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#516

Post by golergka »

madrox wrote: post #385
anarchodev wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use othe…

> Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." This sounds really good until someone refuses to bake a wedding cake for a couple because they're gay. The supreme court ruled in favor of the baker. You're advocating for a world where that's ok. Is that the world you want to live in?

I'm completely on supreme court's side in the case of the baker (who are assholes but should have their legal right to be assholes). However, this analogy doesn't work with Facebook or Twitter as they have oligopoly status in terms of access to mass audience: there are hundreds of different bakeries that you can choose from, but there's just a couple of SV companies can very effectively silence you.

I still don't know what would be an effective solution to this problem, but giving these giants the same freedom to do whatever as a small business enjoys just feels wrong.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#517

Post by hnuser54 »

johnzhou wrote: post #427
neonate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is such a clear analysis that someone should transcribe it. Here's the main part of what Naval says: "If Google, Facebook, and Twitter had been smart about this, they would not have picked sides. They would have said "We're publishers. Whatever goes through our pipes goes through our pipes. If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it." It's like the phone company.…

That's a great way to lose advertisers. Case in point: Youtube's demonetization policy.

Any particular advertiser needs Youtube more than Youtube needs the advertiser. Youtube has a critical hold on the young adult market in particular. If Youtube just said, "if you don't like it, Pepsi, someone else can enjoy this ad space instead", what recourse would they have? In conclusion Youtube demonetizes because they want to and need an excuse.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#518

Post by manfredo »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

— lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality because it’s too political.

— Women in tech: Nope, let’s not go there, too political.

— Underrepresented minorities in tech: Sorry it’s a pipeline problem, don’t bring politics into this.

In my experience in tech (though only Silicon Valley tech companies, so that's a narrow sample) this the opposite of what is true. Companies are very eager to display how much they support LGBT movements and announce how they'll increase diversity by offering larger hiring bonuses for diverse hires and institute systems of reservations for women and non-Asian PoC. Both the private and public companies I've worked with have been very active in pursuing these goals. And we're not alone Microsoft offers larger bonuses for hiring managers that hire diverse candidates [1], and Intel withholds portions of bonuses unless diversity quotas are not met [2].

1. https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508013/microsoft-pro-di...

2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/intel-hits-a-novel-diversity-ta...

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#519

Post by rubbingalcohol »

Hamuko wrote: post #208
rubbingalcohol wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted but no comments addressing the points you raised. Can anyone provide an example of Nazi code being hosted on Gitlab? It might be nice to justify what otherwise looks like an absurd comparison made by this article. What would nazi code even look like? Or is "nazi" in this case just a catch-all for wrongthink?

What if for example the People's Republic of China was hosting its code on Gitlab? This is a state that has "re-education camps" (interment camps) for a specific group of people and it reported to be engaging in organ harvesting. I don't find it too hard to draw parallels between Nazi Germany and China at the moment.

I asked for an example and you're still arguing hypotheticals. And the PRC would not host its code on Gitlab, that's not even a realistic comparison.

So far the only pattern I see is people making up hypothetical situations and using them to claim Gitlab is complicit in enabling human rights violations. But last I checked free speech is a human right!

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#520

Post by ericdykstra »

kelnos wrote: post #393
neonate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is such a clear analysis that someone should transcribe it. Here's the main part of what Naval says: "If Google, Facebook, and Twitter had been smart about this, they would not have picked sides. They would have said "We're publishers. Whatever goes through our pipes goes through our pipes. If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it." It's like the phone company.…

The telephone analogy is terrible. Phone calls are usually between two people, or a small number of people. At the very least, they're bounded to some relatively small number. When you post something on Twitter, unless your account is private, you've broadcasted your speech to anyone in the world who cares to see it. Not moderating any speech at all is a quick way to allow a community to turn into a cesspit of spam a…

Twitter isn’t a phone call, but it also isn’t a message board. You only see the tweets of the people you personally choose to follow; it doesn’t matter if there are 100 billion spam accounts posting ads to nobody.

There are millions of Twitter accounts in Japanese, but if you don’t follow any of them, and nobody you follow retweets them, you’d never know they exist. You can also block or mute specific accounts, mute keywords, etc for even finer control.

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