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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

#591

Post by dragonwriter »

kelnos wrote: post #415
madrox wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 think these bakers suck, but I do agree with the Supreme Court. A private business should be allowed to refuse to serve customers for whatever reason they choose. The only exception should be legal monopolies; they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate, because there are otherwise no other options.

> I think these bakers suck, but I do agree with the Supreme Court. A private business should be allowed to refuse to serve customers for whatever reason they choose.

That's not what the Supreme Court found; it has not invalidated public accommodation anti-discrimination law in general, nor even the specific law the State relied on in the case. It did rule that the specific procedural history of the case indicated that State officials acted with specific targeted religious animus in the case, invalidating the state enforcement action even if the law was Constitutional and the enforcement factually warranted under it otherwise.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#592

Post by prepend »

positr0n wrote: post #474
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.…

> "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 is not possible to do that and make as much money as google, fb, etc. The end result of unmoderated public places on the internet is always this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread... Which is great! But not for making money…

> It is not possible to do that and make as much money as google, fb, etc.

Exactly. This is a choice that companies need to make. Or a regulation coming.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#593

Post by manfredo »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #409
galaxyLogic wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this (news not your comment) sounds like a very slippery slope. What happened to freedom of speech? And who is to decide what is "political" what is not? As long as speech is not offensive, I think it should be protected.

> As long as speech is not offensive, I think it should be protected. Speech that isn’t offensive usually doesn’t need protection.

What happens when people start taking offense at opposition to affirmative action? Or take offense at disapproving of putting biological males with male genitalia that self identity women in women's prisons? And conversely, plenty of conservatives take offense at gay marriage. Whose offence counts?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#594

Post by eplanit »

brandmeyer wrote: post #554
madrox wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> 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. That's not what the Supreme Court ruled. They ruled that the CO commissioners who decided against the baker in the first place were being blatantly flippant about the baker's religious beliefs. They should have at least c…

Suppose the custom cake bakery owner is black, and a customer asks for a cake with a confederate flag design? There's nothing illegal about the confederate flag, so the baker should be compelled to bake it, right? There isn't even a basis for refusal based on religious grounds.

I would want the black baker owner to be able to not only refuse to bake the cake, but to also tell the customer to take a hike and never return.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#595

Post by secretdark »

umvi wrote: post #70
secretdark wrote: post #38

What I find most amazing is less the politics aspect and more the moral/ethical issue. For a company to have an explicit stated policy of _actively_ never taking into account the moral/ethical impact of their work is just... astounding. It is difficult to imagine a more inhuman and bloodless statement.

I think that's a bad faith interpretation. It's more like a pressure cooker company saying "We build kitchen tools. We don't care who buys them. We will not spend any resources vetting customers to make sure they won't blow up a marathon with our product. Yes, even neo nazis are allowed to buy our product even though we executives disagree with them politically/morally/etc." That's an entirely reasonable stance.

That's definitely a position worth considering, but I don't think it relates to the reasons behind this change. For one, the straw-man argument you put forward relies on the seller not knowing the customer's intention with their product. Given the timing, I think it's absolute reasonable to assume why they put forward this change (though I'd be happy to be told otherwise). An appliance seller can reasonably deduce that their pressure cooker will reasonably be used for cooking if there's no evidence to the contrary. If a neo-nazi recently featured on the news for blowing up some people with a pressure cooker turns up at your pressure-cooker store asking to buy a pressure cooker and you knowingly sell them a pressure cooker, yes, you are absolutely complicit if they blow up some people. Similarly, if a government organisation, recently in the news for putting children in cages, wants to buy or license your software, it's reasonable to assume that they're going to use your software to directly or indirectly further their goals, which may or may not include caging children. Washing your hands of it, in a pull-request, is a moral and ethical choice, as much as they wish it wasn't.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#596

Post by cryptonector »

jyrkesh wrote: post #430
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…

Exactly. At face value, I'm firmly in favor of what Ravikant was saying, but even the simple example of a spam filter proves how it's impossible in practice: without basic spam filtering, something like Twitter would be absolutely unusable in the face of endless crypto and malware spam. At some level, Twitter/FB/et al have to do SOMETHING to shape/filter the volume of traffic they receive.

Anything can be spam because spam is in the eye of the beholder, but nonetheless, politics is generally not spam. You can have a politically-neutral policy against undesirable content that passes the smell test. It does require that you a) use reasonably objective terms in the definition of "spam", and b) that you resist the inevitable pressure to reinterpret those terms to cover that which others find undesirable political content.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#597

Post by awinder »

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…

I’ll take a shot at it, with the caveat that I too would like to not be downvoted into oblivion xD.

So discussion for the sake of discussion is not exactly what I would see as a high need for the workplace. If you are trying to address these types of issues in a way that has business impacts, I think you’re outside of what I would term as “discussing politics”. From that list — discussing inclusivity initiatives has clear workplace benefits. Discussing a highly charged political event involving lgbt issues is adjacent to that, and has a highly likelihood of being inflammatory, and isn’t directly correlated to anything actually going on with the business.

I think that framework would also help everyone stay on point. You don’t go to work to solve the worlds ills. But you can address some of the ills where it’s actually impacting your life at work. Further, it should prevent backlashes from other groups, and help humanize by getting out of ephemeral arguments and getting into discussions about building a collective environment where the business thrives and everyone is equally entitled to feel safe at work. Making work a better place — good. Making work look like Crossfire — bad.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#598

Post by sparrish »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #506
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.…

> "If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it" I think that works better on paper than in practice. If I get offended enough by something, can't I go try to sue under the premise of defamation?

Carriers can't be sued for the content they carry. It's been tried many times and so long as the carrier acts like a carrier (neutral channel), it fails.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#599

Post by manfredo »

mch82 wrote: post #403
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.…

Edit: I see the Naval quote is from the Joe Rogan podcast (which I often enjoy). I haven’t listened to the episode, so don’t have full context but Naval seems to have the timeline, “publisher”, and “platform” confused. Facebook, Google (YouTube), and Twitter have historically claimed to be “neutral tech platforms” like phone utilities or internet service providers. They maintained that claim so that responsibility fo…

The news feed does not editorialize. It doesn't edit the content itself. It's automated curation.

Furthermore this whole "publisher" vs "platform" argument is not nearly as relevant as people make it seem. Contrary to popular belief, tech companies describing themselves as publishers instead of platforms does not affect the fact that they are not held liable for user generated content (so long as they meet reasonable standards for taking it down when notified). The New York Times is afforded the same protection for user generated content that they host (e.g. their comments section).

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#600

Post by krick »

Don't be yourself at work. Don't live at work. Don't say what you think at work. You have been hired to do your job, not to enjoy your time.

I get it, it's totally normal, I'm honestly not judging anyone or saying it should be otherwise: it's most probably the matter of that it couldn't be otherwise. But I find it kind of sardonic, that you take the fact you don't really belong to yourself for most of your life much more naturally, than the fact you have been told you cannot discuss politics by one of your potential temporary owners. Because, yeah, politics is special, obviously.

Oh, and I'm totally fine with treating customers as "just customers" by the way.

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