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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

#781

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

nostrademons wrote: post #578
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.…

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…

There was a time when Jewish founders of Google strongly defended conspiracy websites coming as top results for the query 'jew'.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#782

Post by aianus »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #326
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 phone company analogy doesn't really work, because phone calls are by default private, between exactly two parties, usually just two people. If you look at the tech company equivalent of that, like FB messenger, or Hangouts, or other messaging systems, they behave more similarly to the phone company. It'd be difficult to get in trouble for something you said in a private message. If you want the analogy to make s…

> If you look at the tech company equivalent of that, like FB messenger, or Hangouts, or other messaging systems, they behave more similarly to the phone company.

FB Messenger censors pornhub links or at least it did a few years ago.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#783

Post by cloverich »

wolco wrote: post #680
gbanfalvi wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. They built these services. They are, ate least in part, responsible for how they work and the consequences of what they built. The content they’re serving and data has a meaning to us. You can’t pretend that a social network doesn’t have a role in bringi…

Social networks bring people together. Advertising sends a message to groups of people. Roads allow people to travel by car. Roads are being uses to bring people to places where murders happen. You can't pretend that roads have no role. So many things had a role.. power, internet, the company who made the computer they used, teachers, friends (or lack of), parents.. why decidd that social media or ads is the problem.…

A better analogy would be if you could pay the construction crews to organize all right-leaning but non-trump supporters down new, secret roads that only they see, and then to let you line it with propaganda that, again, only they see. (Replace right leaning and trump with whatever).

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#784

Post by [deleted] »

neonate wrote: post #280
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…

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.…

[deleted]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#785

Post by Alex3917 »

neonate wrote: post #280
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…

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.…

I mean you can say it's a clear analysis in the abstract, but if you look at the HN comments on the thread about CloudFlare cutting off 8chan it's clear that most people no longer agree with the principle as soon as they're presented with a real world example.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20610395

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#786

Post by flukus »

jka wrote: post #463
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…

The trouble with libertarianism is, ultimately, that libertarians only care about themselves. The kind of policy that GitLab is proposing here is fine - or even aspirational, under a certain lens - until one day you wake up and find that the same software is being used to destroy your community and compatriots. How could that happen? Isn't this free speech to max utility? Isn't that flawless? No, it's free utility to…

I always thought relying on companies to enforce morality was far more libertarian, their ability to do so relies solely on companies having freedom of association. The result is it limits free speech to anyone not causing bad publicity for the company, the only care about themselves as you said. Last year it was neo nazis, this year it's anyone speaking ill of the CCP.

As a definitely not libertarian I think we should be placing much greater restrictions on companies ability to discriminate against their employees and customers.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#787

Post by wumpus »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #454
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?

Same sex marriage wasn't even recognized in Colorado at the time. Your ire would be better directed elsewhere, such as the state where the action they wanted to celebrate wasn't legal. Especially a state where you can penalize someone for not baking a cake for an event that isn't legal in the first place. The whole case was a ridiculous hit job.

People buy wedding cakes for handfastings, renewals of wedding vows, and many other kinds of ceremonies somewhat like a wedding but not legally a wedding, such as the sham weddings that people hold after being married by a justice of the peace at a courthouse. People even buy them to use on stage during theater productions.

That's not actually at issue in the Colorado case. "I will not sell you that cake because you're gay" is the issue, not the type of cake.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#788

Post by [deleted] »

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #207
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 must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a po…

[deleted]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#789

Post by re »

couchand wrote: post #340
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technical professions are generally hold responsible for what they enable. Not really. Doctors are expected to do the best for their patient without worrying about societal consequences. If Hitler came to a doctor in need of medical help, the doctor would be ethically required to do their best for him, desolate the negative consequences of Hitler to society. Same with lawyers. Even if their client is a serial murde…

> Even if their client is a serial murderer and has co fessed their guilt to them, they still have to do their best in representing them. IANAL but I believe this is untrue. It would not be acceptable for a lawyer to represent to the court something that they have reason to believe is false.

"Do their best" does not mean "lie to the court." The defense does not have to turn over incriminating evidence that it does not intend to use, and lawyers can ethically and accurately enter a "not guilty" plea and argue that the prosecution has insufficient evidence available to prove guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#790

Post by sterileopinions »

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…

You literally are being dishonest.
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