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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

#811

Post by Reelin »

m463 wrote: post #762
TulliusCicero wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you're correct -- a phone call is one-to-one and the internet is a broadcast medium. I believe radio (as in ham radio) actually has FCC rules regarding identification and profanity.

It does, but as far as I understand that's only because EM spectrum is a very limited (as used in practice) public resource. The logic wasn't (many to one) -> (regulation), it was (limited resource) + (EM interference problems) -> (government controlled public space) -> (regulation). The US National Parks might be a good analogy here - very high traffic combined with limited space availability.

In particular, note that in the public resource analogy the regulation is quite neutral; legal censorship of profanity in the US is very narrow.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#812

Post by carapace »

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #92
legostormtroopr wrote: post #19

Good to see that the very non-controversial opinion of “be neutral at work and treat customers equally” is being used to compare GitHub to IBM during Nazi Germany. Why can’t GitHub just provide code version control systems without concerning itself with who is writing code? Given the recent implosion of StackOverflow, less politics in tech is probably a good thing.

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted but no comments addressing the points you raised. Can anyone provide an example of Nazi code being hosted on Gitlab? It might be nice to justify what otherwise looks like an absurd comparison made by this article. What would nazi code even look like? Or is "nazi" in this case just a catch-all for wrongthink?

Well, uh, it's not on GitLab I don't think, but Plankalkül... "a programming language designed for engineering purposes by Konrad Zuse between 1942 and 1945."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl

> While Zuse never became a member of the Nazi Party, he is not known to have expressed any doubts or qualms about working for the Nazi war effort. Much later, he suggested that in modern times, the best scientists and engineers usually have to choose between either doing their work for more or less questionable business and military interests in a Faustian bargain, or not pursuing their line of work at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#813

Post by LegitShady »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #800
LegitShady wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nobody is forcing you to do anything - You're free to find a new job at any time, unless you're indentured and you didn't tell anyone. If you want to decide what to build go into business for yourself. If you're working for someone else you have the choice to either work for them and do what they want or quit.

A job is negotiated. You don't just accept or quit, you have a thousand different ways to come to a compromise with your employer about all sorts of things. It's baffling that so many people insist that the only feedback you can give your employer is quitting on the spot.

If you have an ethical or Maral issue with your work chances are you're doing the wrong work. You can of course try other Ave us but why do you think the business should compromise with a replaceable employee about his personal ethics?

That's not the way this works. He's free to find work that agrees with him or make his own work. But this "I want to work for you and decide what I work on" is a non starter for most people

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#814

Post by skybrian »

eranimo wrote: post #754
skybrian wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is getting hooked on politics that doesn't actually affect you personally, other people on your team, or how you do your job. Just like we do on Hacker News, you can have employees reading about stuff happening elsewhere in the world, commenting on it, and getting upset over it. At large companies, this can include things going on in different parts of the company. You don't know them or how they work, bu…

No, you're just privileged enough to not have to worry about a divisive political issue because it doesn't directly impact you. There's nothing wrong with that, if you're aware of it.

But maybe this is true of most people and most political issues, other than the ones that do affect them? And even then, they might want to get away from politics when they go to work?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#815

Post by [deleted] »

z3phyr wrote: post #586
corndoge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to hear your political opinions at work. I want to work and make money for myself. Just because I have to be at work to make money for myself shouldn't mean I now have to listen to your views on politics. That is my view on it.

Democracy bestows upon you, certain responsibilities. Earlier, you did not have to worry about political stuff because someone else (the lord of the land, the king or an emperor by divine right) took care of the things for you. You just work the fields or smith around. Since the concept of democracy, the rule of the people, politics is also one of the unwritten (or written) responsibility of the people. If you do not…

[deleted]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#816

Post by aaomidi »

pdonis wrote: post #186
Smithalicious wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? You can not be fine with the status quo but still have a multitude of reasons to ban political speech in your workspace: - you think political speech isn't useful for changing the status quo - you think the political speech that will probably take place will lead to a world worse than the status quo, in the opposite direction of which you want it to go (this doesn't just mean "I think my coworkers are of the w…

> You can not be fine with the status quo but still have a multitude of reasons to ban political speech in your workspace You left out a reason: that the workplace is for getting work done, not for arguing about politics.

The workplace is an extension of the society it exists it.

It does not exist in a vacuum no matter how hard you try to put it there.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#817

Post by iamsb »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334
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 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…

This is where twitter screwing over third party developers comes in to play. I would have preferred if twitter main feed was sequential and then there were thriving third party alternatives to it. Twitter could have easily monetised by taking a slice of ad revenue from third party developers, or by charging API fees to them.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#818

Post by Reelin »

mike00632 wrote: post #744
testis321 wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be only once choice, either you're a platform or a publisher. A platform should be open, and only illegal stuff should be removed. No preferences, no nothing. A publisher can be closed, can be whatever they want it, can filter whatever, promote whatever and censor whatever. ...but! If you're a publisher, you've decided what to publish, and you should be responsible for all content published on your webpa…

The "illegal" criteria seems rational for countries that have rational laws but in many countries there are laws against political speech or criticism of people in power. By removing that 'illegal' speech in those countries the platform is in effect working as a government actor to police customers in those nations.

In such nations (ex China), this entire debate is irrelevant - you follow their rules or they kick you out.

In western societies, this debate is relevant and I strongly side with the poster you replied to. That being said, reasonably unbiased filtering should probably be allowed in some form. For example, while I don't want YouTube picking sides politically, I also wouldn't want to force them to host hardcore pornography against their will.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#820

Post by sanderjd »

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.…

The problem with the analogy to the phone system is that conversations via phone are transient and private. There is no place with the AT&T logo on it where you can go and see that awful thing that person said. The internet itself is a much better fit for the phone company analogy, and indeed internet service and backbone providers have pretty much entirely been able to stay out of this.

A better (though still imperfect) analogy really is media: TV stations, newspapers, magazines, radio stations. And indeed you see similar problems there as the online media companies are facing now. The biggest difference is that traditional media companies were forced to make editorial choices because of physical constraints - physical space for print, airtime and spectrum for TV and radio - so this question of whether you could just let anyone say anything in your publication or on your broadcast just never really came up.

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