Margaret Mitchell fired from Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#721

Post by ajb » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #672

ajb wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So,if you are being abused by your boss via email, you can't give the evidence to a lawyer, but first have to apply for a court order without showing any evidence in order to get the evidence? I think this is unlikely to be the law, and if it is, it shouldn't be.

Your word is evidence, then they can use that to look for more evidence including checking emails.

Well, that's true. But you're still having to give your employer notice that you are talking to a lawyer before the lawyer has seen anything. This seems seriously unfair, and I hope that NDAs are not enforceable under such circumstances.

[edited to add ] Also it seems like it would be a big waste of the courts time.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#722

Post by GavinMcG » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #693

GavinMcG wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you'd like to define racism narrowly. Not that I can get in your head, but doing so sure makes it easier to imagine ourselves as not complicit. But evil is all too often banal, and passive.

I refuse to be told I'm complicit in evil without a clear and definite example.

Here's one guess, off the top of my head: what actions have you taken to reduce the likelihood that police in your community will kill a black person unnecessarily?

Cause as much as I care about that issue, I never reached out to leaders in my community to encourage hiring more police and reducing overtime, for example. I didn't join any protest. I have been completely passive, standing by, waiting for someone else to solve the problem.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#723

Post by geofft » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

valdiorn wrote: post #656

prepend wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Peer review happens after it's submitted, in a blinded review process, by other researchers who don't have a conflict of interest - i.e., people who are at other institutions. It does not happen internally by people hand-picked by management. This is absolutely untrue. Your confusing peer review of journal with peer review prior to submitting to the journal. It’s super common to have papers reviewed prior to submis…

She's also not publishing this as just herself, she works for Google and is publishing on their behalf. Of course they have veto power over what she publishes. You take issue with that; quit. Which, I believe she did (she didn't get fired AFAIK)

Yes, there exist review processes by peers, and yes, your institution can choose to exercise veto power. The scientific process of "peer review" is a very specific thing. (My code is not "peer reviewed" in the scientific sense simply because a teammate, a peer, reviewed my pull request.) So saying the paper was not good enough for peer review is misleading.

And yes, Google can veto any paper. That's not the issue. The issue is they chose to use their veto power to block a paper that did not sufficiently praise Google. That means no paper coming out of Google can be trusted, because it's not the output of researchers but also management. Does Spanner work? Maybe there were some negative examples that were deemed too embarrassing to Google and removed.

I don't know, maybe you already acted as if no paper coming out of Google could be trusted, and you were smarter than the rest of is in that regard. But a lot of people act as if their papers are trustworthy and not propaganda (e.g., https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/01/08/spanner-googles-globally... takes the Spanner paper as if it were a legitimate scientific paper). Want to tell them they need to stop?

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#724

Post by Cacti » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #545

JamesBarney wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Lying about why an employee fired in an easily verified way is a huge unforced error. We can probably assume Google is not that incompetent. 2. She hasn't denied the accusations.

Exfiltration could just mean forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer. Any lawyer would tell her not to comment on the accusations. Especially before she was fired.

It doesn’t matter if it’s her lawyer. Any lawyer would have told her not to do this because it damages her case, and the emails are discoverable anyway in pretrial.

Also, I have to ask, why didn’t she just print them? Or take screen pics with her phone? Emailing things from work directly to external parties seems rather dumb for a computer expert.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#725

Post by civilized » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

For context:

1. Gebru is alleged to have terrorized a Google Brain manuscript discussion forum with unfounded accusations of racist disregard for her contributions https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...

There is some disagreement within this thread as to exactly what happened, but it seems to me that Gebru had a tendency of taking perceived slights and blowing them out of proportion, creating a more difficult work environment.

2. Mitchell was fired for stealing thousands of company emails

I wasn't impressed with the process Google used to rid themselves of Gebru, but let's not pretend that Google lost the ethics A-team here.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#726

Post by simonh » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #710

simonh wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand maybe showing an email or several perhaps to a lawyer, a court might well consider that reasonable even if it's a technical violation, or just give a warning. It's a matter of proportionality. Breaking a speed limit by a few mph won't get you banned from driving. This is completely different though, it was an automated query trawling and exfiltrating vast quantities of mail threads.

All of which she was already involved in. It’s not like she didn’t have the info already.

That's not the point. Exfiltrating the data means it's available to non-employees (and it appears she did send it to non-employees which is by itself a clear and prosecutable violation), is not protected by the company's security and privacy policies, and would still be available to her beyond her period of employment. She's not entitled to do any of those things, especially since as you say she had access to the info as an employee anyway so she had no legitimate excuse.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#727

Post by Cacti » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #485

Crash0v3rid3 wrote: post #387

“After conducting a review of this manager’s conduct, we confirmed that there were multiple violations of our code of conduct, as well as of our security policies, which included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. This feels pretty cut and dry to me. Meg exported business material from the company. That a fire-abl…

Meanwhile, Timrit is spinning up more choas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1362886704361791488 At this point, I am moving past all this drama. This corporate soap opera televised on Twitter needs to cease. If the person fired thinks that it was illegal, they should settle this in the court with Google. A company can fire anyone for any reason that's legal just the way you can leave the company for…

> To the VPs at Google, I pity you.

Wow, sounds like a real pleasant personality. Jesus what is this third grade.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#728

Post by room500 » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

Aeolos wrote: post #601

leetcrew wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be speaking from ignorance here, but I highly doubt their job description said anything about making accusations via tweet. > If your team of ethicists has repeatedly highlighted issues and you continue to not address them, what should they do then? In the case of a company whose self-image is of openness and directness and benevolence, it seems reasonable that publicly highlight the lack of change is within…

And how exactly is your suggestion going to play out in the long term? All the critical employees resign, until they are all eventually replaced yes-men who just care about the money or are too afraid to speak out. And if a company is doing something unethical, then why is it inherently _bad_ to damage that company until it changes direction? Acting in unethical ways has to hurt the bottomline, otherwise what incenti…

This is a false dichotomy. You can be critical and do so respectfully and within the company.

Damaging your employer should be the last resort.

Cutting off your limb to stop an infection isn't inherently _bad_. But it is if other treatments are not even considered.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#729

Post by tibbydudeza » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #725

For context: 1. Gebru is alleged to have terrorized a Google Brain manuscript discussion forum with unfounded accusations of racist disregard for her contributions https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t... There is some disagreement within this thread as to exactly what happened, but it seems to me that Gebru had a tendency of taking perceived slights and blowing them out of proportion, creating…

Mitchell ran a scripts to scrape emails (wonder if it was her company ones or mailing lists for the AI group) for signs of racism (heck how on earth does that work) against Gebru.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#730

Post by room500 » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

Aeolos wrote: post #606

johncena33 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or speak out publicly. Always an option. Or speak out publicly. Always an option without making any drama and being professional. [FTFY] It scares me that so many people in this thread can't (or unwilling to) differentiate between creating drama and being proferssional.

Who decides what is “drama” and what is “professional”? You? Google?

Google decides for your behavior. And you decide for Google.

The person giving you money is allowed to decide whether they want to continue giving you money. Similarly, you are allowed to decide whether you want to continue taking the money.