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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

#71

Post by drewcoo »

andrew_ wrote: post #31
hestefisk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to segregate politics from other things in life. Politics influences most things in life - our work, our school, what we can and can’t do. If I follow your claim, then corporations shouldn’t take a stance on climate change either. Is that really right?

Only for people who accept that as fact, or who openly invite into every aspect of their lives. Before the internet it was not so common to air one's bullshit, if you will.

Were you alive before the Internet?

Life used to be, if anything, more political.

Earlier in the 20th century, there were a lot more (local) newspapers and they all had very pointed points of view. Radio stations tended to be independent and if they had news broadcasts, it would be hyper-local and often political. Hell, thriving union membership gave us the greatest prosperity this country has seen and unions are very political.

In the first half of the 20th century we even had such a healthy, political society that more than two parties were often deemed viable.

In the 19th century the arguments for papers still hold. And voter turnout was much higher[1], albeit more male and more white.

[1] https://historyincharts.com/the-history-of-voter-turnout-in-...

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

#72

Post by _8j50 »

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…

It's not the place. Don't shit where you eat. When you have these discussions at work people are forced to listen to your view, not only are they not getting paid for that, their response will have consequences. Are you looking for coworkers to reaffirm your belief or an actual discussion? Because if it is the latter the Janet from accounting might feel strongly about capital punishment for women who abort, now should Janet get fired for her political views then (which are protected)? Would this affect your ability to work with Janet reducing her value to the business? Is it fair to forcibly shove your views on others with the threat of harming their career and livelihood otherwise?

The workplace is not a social club. You can still socialize with willing coworkers after work where everyone is free to leave with no repurcursions.

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

#73

Post by drewcoo »

CalChris wrote: post #19
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…

> However, companies are a place for work. That is a fine rule if work expects nothing of you when you clock out at 5 pm.

Actually, it's not fine then either.

People have rights. And they have needs and desires. And companies that are driven primarily to make profit will ignore those things.

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

#74

Post by collegeburner »

woodruffw wrote: post #66
collegeburner wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ne…

You shouldn’t “agitate” for anything political at work, unless you mean that in a humorous way (I sometimes do!) Instead, you should put your best self forward and treat your political positions as a humanizing element. It’s been my experience that extremely healthy workplace discussions can occur when people start from a place of human respect, not agreement (indeed, it seems like agreeing parties eventually find so…

I meant more in the political sense but yes, maybe not the best word choice. I agree with your position a lot more. I have had political discussions with my coworkers, just like I have had discussions on sports even though work is not a place for sports. And sometimes I have changed my mind based on what they said.

The concerning part is more that some workplaces have people or cultures that push politics very hard. Where you either agree with prevailing sentiment or are penalized in your career. In O&G you can not easily be a Democrat (or you had better be a Manchin Democrat). In tech you can not easily be a Republican (or you had better be a Romney Republican). I have seen people's careers fucked up by somebody who hated their politics. In other words it sounds like you are approaching this in good faith. But not everybody does. Or sometimes people do but they get mad and stop thinking so much. And that is hard to manage, and can make workplaces bad and hostile.

And of course there is always the problem that it is harder to maintain civility at scale like Facebook.

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

#75

Post by Syonyk »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #60
endurance789xx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all?

Yes. Just not at scale, and not in a way that prioritizes ad revenue via "engagement" at all cost.

Prioritizing longer form, in depth content, and discouraging "rapid reaction hot takes" helps a lot. The social media companies could optimize for this, and you see it on HN with the "Sorry, this particular thread is getting short, snippy, and too rapid, you can't reply to it for a while" mechanism.

But short, snippy, and angry is good for engagement. So it remains.

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

#76

Post by ungamedplayer »

collegeburner wrote: post #69
in_cahoots wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just as importantly they are very toxic to a set of political viewpoints. In some industries (O&G) that is liberal ones. In some industries (tech) that is conservative ones. In some industries (finance) that is most things outside centrist (Romney Republican, Manchin Democrat). When the "activist" types push politics into workplaces they are not doing it so they can talk about what they feel. They are doing it so the…

> They are doing it so they can find the people who disagree and damage their careers.

This leads to some people actively avoiding working with and for any kind of activist, or anyone related to activists. If you can see middle ground in any non extreme argument, one must be a bigot.

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

#78

Post by _8j50 »

I dislike meta but as a principle, you should not discuss politics or other conteoversial topics when your audience is forced to listen to you and disagreeing would cause them harm. It isn't just unkind but harmful to the stability and wellbeing of a free society. If you want to discuss it with them, hang out with them after work and have a chat. It is common to have a text/signal/whatsapp group chat among friendly colleagues these days where it is safe to discuss these things.

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

#79

Post by xbar »

fzeroracer wrote: post #59
jjulius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

You could argue all those things. The pre-existing policy that they are enforcing suggests that they came up with this ban at some point in the past. Perhaps during Trump-era nonsense. Which side were the execs on?

I don't actually think it matters--if you have100,000 Facebookers, you keep them from squabbling over politics in groups larger than 20 because it's good for productivity and retention. You don't fret about which employee side is winning.

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

#80

Post by drewcoo »

z3phyr wrote: post #28
gruez wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can't have the productivity police issuing me a conversation penalty or i might end up in the stop-being-human prison Alright, it's clear that you're against this, but what's the argument for allowing this? In other words, why should the company tolerate using its channels as a soapbox to advance your political agendas, especially if it's a drain on productivity? I want to shitpost on company time/equipment/networks…

In the past, the power to set policy was in the hands of the few aristocrats, whose full time job was to discuss and fight over policy, while the lay people worked their fields. We fought hard to take that power from them. Now a company asks its employees to forgo that power and liberty. Why did we take the power of policy from the aristocrats in the first place? We can of course go back to shut up, work the field pe…

> In the past, the power to set policy was in the hands of the few aristocrats, whose full time job was to discuss and fight over policy, while the lay people worked their fields.

I don't think the French, for example, applied guillotines to solve the problem of "aristocrats talking too much policy."

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