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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

#621

Post by nostrademons »

neonate wrote: post #611
nostrademons wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did this for many years - when I moved to Silicon Valley in 2009 tech's attitude was "We just provide the mechanism, we let our users determine policy". My first couple years at Google (09-10), management was very insistent that "We don't take sides - we show the user the best result for their query regardless of how much we dislike it." There were examples like literal searches for Nazis where the top result wa…

> Public discourse shifted into "silence is complicitness - if you allow this speech on your platform, that means that you endorse it." Public discourse? Or the loudest segment of the discourse most influential on Googlers?

The loudest segment of the discourse most influential on Googlers, but this caveat is usually inherent when we talk about "public discourse". (If you've studied Foucault, you'll recognize that power and influence are inherently tied in with the concept of discourse. Public speech happens all the time, but it only gets labeled "discourse" when it influences or is intended to influence society in some way.)

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#622

Post by busterarm »

falcolas wrote: post #4
dang wrote: post #2

This is a divisive topic, but the story seems to pass the interesting-new-phenomenon test ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ). If you comment, note this guideline: " Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. " We've changed the title in accordance with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , but if anyone can suggest a better (i.e. more a…

I don't normally agree with such editorial changes, but this one is really bad. Thanks.

The article has an intentionally inflammatory title and is more opinion than journalism. It's not a good faith exploration of the topic.

Dang's editorialized title is.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#623

Post by MrRadar »

yodsanklai wrote: post #372
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…

Why do you think LGBT rights (first item on your list) is something that should be discussed at work ? There are laws against discrimination and companies have to comply, but I don't see a good reason why this kind of topic should be addressed at the workplace. Some employees are uncomfortable with discussing politics at work as it may create unnecessary tensions. Those who like debating about politics can always gat…

> Why do you think LGBT rights (first item on your list) is something that should be discussed at work?

Because what if you are an LGBT person and such things materially affect you? What happens when you bring your same-sex spouse to a company party? What happens if you realize you were born the wrong gender and decide to (publicly) transition? Suddenly you are not just "discussing" politics, your very identity is political (and that distinction is something imposed by society on you).

Also note that in the US not every state has laws against LGBT discrimination. There's currently a lawsuit before the SCOTUS to decide if the existing federal ban on "sex discrimination" also applies to sexuality and gender identity but with the current composition of the court it's likely to be decided that those categories are not protected under the law.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#624

Post by codeafin »

amoitnga wrote: post #605
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…

Here's my 2c. Why do you need to discuss anything at all? Work is where I work. I'm being paid for my time and professional expertise, not my opinion on anything else. I don't get why would I be allowed to spend that time on conversations not related to work. Being allowed to have some short talk, maybe discuss something quickly, like a game last night or something, is and should be more of a nicety. Nobody gonna sto…

>So banning conversations is reasonable imo

I think that's a very sad thing to say. Say conversation is banned but "small talk" is allowed, where's the line between that? And like the guy above said, there's also no line on what's political - even talking about a video game like you said can be political.

So in the end, I believe that would end up with people just avoiding talking to each other at all, to avoid any complications.

And that "Why discuss anything at all?" could be applied to other places - "Why discuss anything political at a school/dance class/supermarket/bar? You're just here to learn/dance/shop/drink-and-relax. Those conversations are _banned_ here".

It seems like a slippery slope to ban this natural social interaction.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#625

Post by slg »

yodsanklai wrote: post #372
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…

Why do you think LGBT rights (first item on your list) is something that should be discussed at work ? There are laws against discrimination and companies have to comply, but I don't see a good reason why this kind of topic should be addressed at the workplace. Some employees are uncomfortable with discussing politics at work as it may create unnecessary tensions. Those who like debating about politics can always gat…

>Why do you think LGBT rights (first item on your list) is something that should be discussed at work? There are laws against discrimination and companies have to comply, but I don't see a good reason why this kind of topic should be addressed at the workplace.

Because the discrimination laws as they are currently setup in the US do not protect LGBTQ folks in the way they protect others. For example, in many states people can still be fired based off their gender or sexual identity [1].

I don't have to give a second thought to bringing my significant other to an office holiday party. If my coworker needs skip that same party out of fear of being fired for bringing their significant other, that is a workplace problem.

[1] - https://www.fastcompany.com/90369004/lgbt-employee-protectio...

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#626

Post by kelnos »

repolfx wrote: post #147
vowelless wrote: post #18

I am glad Dang changed the title as the original one was unnecessarily inflammatory. I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? > Such a declaration could run afoul of legal boundaries in some circumstances. Whi…

I don't think even Google actually encouraged people to discuss politics at work. They never did when I was there. It was more a side-effect of decentralising the power to create forums. Anyone could create discussion lists there without asking permission, this was highly useful for coordination, making it easy to spin up new projects and avoiding siloing of information into people's private mail accounts. The flip s…

> Combined with leftists generally understanding conservatives much worse than the other way around (this has been shown by large scale ITTs)

This seems the opposite of true, but I'd be interested to see some sources to back that up. One of the few reasons I still use Google News is because it oddly links me to conservative news sites more often than I'd expect. I'll click on some of those links just to see what the "other side" is talking about, and I find their characterizations of liberal viewpoints to be pretty bizarre most of the time.

On the flip side, what I read (as a liberal) from conservative sources tends to be what I expect.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#627

Post by flukus »

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.

It's also a great way to whitewash history. Want to educate the next generation about Hitlers atrocities? No money for you.

Basically anything war seems to be getting demonetized these days. Advertisers only want to appear next to cats on roombas.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#628

Post by dragonwriter »

prepend wrote: post #592
positr0n wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

A regulation is coming anyway; the CDA safe harbor, which is what both those complaining about what the big tech firms are censoring and those complaining about what they are not censoring are targeting, has been under broad, bipartisan attack for some time, under a variety of different pretexts. Pm

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#630

Post by Nimitz14 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #545
legostormtroopr wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can’t improve without discussion, and it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive. Except Cancel Culture is making it that these can't be discussed without complete agreement. Take for example, "Women in Tech", personally I don't see underrepresentation of women in tech as a problem that can be or should be 'solved'. For the better part of 15 years, there has been a massive movement to encourage w…

When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc. Too many women choose to leave not because they didn't like the work, but because they didn't like all the bullshit they were implicitly asked to put up with, in order to do the work. If ver…

> When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc.

That "many" sounds anecdotal. Since we're doing that: In my experience woman don't go into tech because they enjoy other, more social, jobs more.

> One reason 50/50 makes a fine straw goal is that there is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry. It's not like the NFL, where well-understood human sexual dimorphism is relevant. Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler.

There is an obvious reason. Autism-like traits are more prevalent in men.

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