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Google vs. The Alt-Right
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
In a prior thread, we discussed how one goose formerly employed by Google dropped a 10 page screed against the company's diversity policies, and how that created a hostile workplace for all those he attacked in it.
It seems that the issue has metastasized. In wake of said goose's droppings (and even more so after his lawsuit filing effectively doxxed a number of Googlers pushing for diversity), there has been a stream of personal information sent from right-leaning Google employees to alt-right groups, who have been using this to harass and intimidate those people. There has also been the use of the same strategy seen on Twitter of provoking outbursts to wield against them with HR. The result has been to chill discussions in Google about diversity, even while the company struggles with the matter in the courts.
Compounding the matter is that senior management seems to have little concern for the ticking time bomb in their midst. As one former Googler recounts about the pressure he felt from leadership to stop pushing back:
For a company that is continually growing in its power and presence over the internet, this is troubling that this isn't seen as the massive problem that it is.
It seems that the issue has metastasized. In wake of said goose's droppings (and even more so after his lawsuit filing effectively doxxed a number of Googlers pushing for diversity), there has been a stream of personal information sent from right-leaning Google employees to alt-right groups, who have been using this to harass and intimidate those people. There has also been the use of the same strategy seen on Twitter of provoking outbursts to wield against them with HR. The result has been to chill discussions in Google about diversity, even while the company struggles with the matter in the courts.
Compounding the matter is that senior management seems to have little concern for the ticking time bomb in their midst. As one former Googler recounts about the pressure he felt from leadership to stop pushing back:
After posting a handful of additional posts about diversity issues, Altheide was summoned to an urgent meeting with Hölzle. Hölzle is one of Google's most senior managers, with thousands of engineers reporting to him, directly or indirectly. There were several layers of management between the two men, and Altheide says those middle managers weren't involved in the meeting.
Hölzle asked Altheide to explain why he had been making these postings. "I don't think anything I will say right now will be a sufficient answer for you," Altheide said. When Hölzle insisted, Altheide said he wanted to "point out that blanket assumptions of good faith in diversity topics aren't data driven, given that the data shows not everyone is acting from a position of good faith."
Altheide says Hölzle told him that "if the majority of your coworkers are Nazis, it is better if you don't know about it." Altheide adds: "This I remembered verbatim because I thought it was a savagely tactless analogy for a Swiss man to be making."
For a company that is continually growing in its power and presence over the internet, this is troubling that this isn't seen as the massive problem that it is.
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I suspect he was trying to make an analogy about the role of political debate in the workforce, but lacks the social graces to see how sensitive the subject is and why introducing extreme hyperbole into the mix couldn't possibly be a good idea.
The hyperbole isn't so extreme in this political climate, unfortunately.
yes it is. The majority of Google employees are obviously not Nazis, or even militant right-wingers. the majority of people don't even operate "in this political climate" to any notable degree.
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I don't understand what this topic is supposed to be about. This guy Altheide was deep into an internal google thread when SVPs respectfully asked that the thread be shut down because it was way too contentious. So his response was to make the sort of response thread that would get you an infraction here, where he's totally not trying to continue the conversation management asked to cease because it was getting nowhere, for real. So then he gets a personal request to stop it, so his reaction was to cool off and find a new approach, right?
Nope, it was to start spamming diversity article posts, with no commentary, and an "I'm not touching you!" disclaimer at the bottom. So he got a second, even more serious talking to where he was again politely asked to stop fking trolling.
So he quit, saying he's afraid of the SVP and doesn't trust him? Please.
The SVPs put their heads in the sand about a major problem they had brewing (namely, they had a contingent of alt-right aligned employees who were beginning to set the stage for outing Google employees to trolls who would abuse them) and thought that the answer was to just tell everyone to stop. Fast forward a few years and...what do you know, the problem the SVPs studiously avoided dealing with has blown up in their faces, with Google employees now refraining from talking about diversity (at a time when the company could really use the boost) lest they become targets of coordinated harassment. And they're still sticking their heads in the sand, refusing to realize that this is a serious problem that is now affecting the health and safety of a good number of their employees.
The problem with the thread wasn't that it was contentious. It was that it showed there was a number of Google employees who thought a large number of their coworkers didn't belong there. Management should have nipped that thought in the bud, but didn't, and now they're dealing with the consequences.
Post-election Nazis have been vastly more prevalent in the national conversation (RE: Charlottesville, the Alt Right and the POTUS reaction to them), where in the past they stayed on the fringes. That's why they're not as hyperbole as before. You're right about Google likely not being override by Nazis, but they are on the rise as well as white supremacists and such like organizations. So much so, a few years back the FBI warned authorities about infiltrating their organizations.
Sure they operate in the political climate, life is affected by politics and mainstream culture whether they perceive it or not. They're just not used to examining their participating in these events, and see themselves as apolitical when they're anything but.
Google being sued by that misogynist douchebag was a clarion call for the far right wing, white supremacists and Nazis to pounce on the company.
While you're not wrong here, it's how the manager did this which raised eyebrows. It makes him look like he'd be ok if Google were up to their eyeballs in literal Nazis. Which, as I said, in this climate is a huge red flag.
Why women aren't represented in STEM fields, and neoreactionary politics are not the same thing. He made a thread on representation in STEM, that was asked to be shut down. Then he made a thread about Neoreactionary politics and how the method of "I'm just asking questions here" has become a defense for abuse and harassment. When HR got on him they said that not only was there not supposed to be discussion on representation in STEM, but that no topics of any kind on diversity were to be allowed. Considering that the two topics were separate, and that this was a forum about the industry, it's reasonable to assume that when they closed that topic, they meant that topic, and not every single topic under the broad umbrella.
Especially because if you're not talking about it, then you're not talking about a wide swath of information related to the industry.
Not only that, but you can be pretty sure that even though these topics weren't being posted there, they were certainly being talked about. From the sounds of it, the discussion was being dominated by the far right-wing side of the debate in the absence of left-wing posters being able to post information that refuted it. And the far right wingers were posting about it, we've had multiple cases of right-wing googlers going outside the system to attack Googlers they accused of being leftists, and others who attacked white papers by other Googlers, such as the case of Damore's co-plaintiff
To the first bolded - no they didn't! They said that the particular discussion he'd been involved in had passed beyond discussion and become the sort of thread the mods here close down, a contentious debate club fight lacking any benefit for a workplace environment.
To the second bolded, no it's not! Especially because this dude just started a "reaction thread" talking about why it's impossible to talk about the other thread, which is some shit I'm sure you've seen in your day and is trolllliiingggg and everyone knew. This is the point when HR got involved with him, not previously.
But even then he didn't cool off, he got even more troll and got a second, more personal conversation that was probably inadvisable on the SVP's part because he figured he could reason with the dude but you don't feed the trolls so of course it didn't work out and now we're talking about it because he managed to get Ars Technica to join in.
to the third bolded: idk what sounds you're hearing but the ars technica article says nothing of the sort. I think you're projecting hard.
Once we shutdown political conversation in the workplace, there is nothing left. There will be no real world political discourse left in the US, just a bunch of people keeping their heads down, shut up and getting through the motions each day, and ranting on the internet at the end of the day where no one really listens or cares, especially not people who disagree.
Democracy requires that the people actively engage each other in political debate. There is no where for that to happen anymore. We're just two lines of protestors screaming at each other, on the internet and on the streets.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Are you saying there was once a time that political debate between coworkers during the work day was commonplace? I'm not sure that's true. Most people's jobs have always been largely apolitical. Your coworkers are acquaintances and you don't ask most of them what their beliefs are if you don't want to risk creating drama, that's certainly how my jobs have always been.
Famously, there are two things you don't talk about at work: politics and religion.
Same as in family dinners.
However, one part of the article stands out to me:
I've never been comfortable with the idea of shared punishment, or holding people responsible for the actions of others. If someone is breaking policy, then that person should be dealt with. In context, this makes it sound like Holze is giving a free pass to white supremacists, while silencing their opponents.
Of course, this is one side of the story, and even his own perspective doesn't make Altheide sound very reasonable.
Another side to this, though, is, is Google doing anything about their employees distributing private information about employees to organize harassment and intimidation? Why isn't anyone talking about that? That is a far worse thing than simply asking people not to talk politics at work.
Yup, whether you're in the right or not. All it does is hurt company morale without changing any minds or doing any good in the world (which is very different from when the company itself is actively doing something bad with a political tinge to it, like promoting workplace discrimination or doing something morally wrong in their business practices. Just when your company's doing normal business stuff but one of your teammates spends their spare time picketing Planned Parenthood. She's wrong and you know it, but telling her that won't fix anything and will just strain the ability to operate together).
In an odd way, this sort of reinforces the point about fragmentation in society.
The underlying reason for why you don't bring up these topics at work is that it's a place you will encounter people who are unlike you. Earlier in America's history, you would also encounter people different from you at public meetings, through civic organizations, at communal social events, and the like. People have disengaged from society to such a degree that for many people, the only interaction they'll have with people outside the bubble is in the workplace. So it's not that you should have these conversations at work, just that it is rapidly becoming the only place you're likely to go of your own accord (more or less) where you the conditions exist that you could.
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Quite frankly, I find the opposite. Your idea that alt-right and nazi employees should be welcomed alongside the people they persecute, victimize, and harass in professionnal and personal speres to push them out of society is what I find troubling. These fanatics aren't politely arguing abstract political literature over cigars and brandy; they are taking direct personal (and in many cases illegal, in the case of doxxing) actions to persecute people they feel have no right to exist in order to make their lives unbearable until they break down and run away from them. This is a behaviour we should have zero tolerance for. Because even a 1% tolerance for it is lethally toxic to society in the long (and not so long, as you can see in the USA today) term.
As I just said, actual harassment and persecution should be punished. Employees who are doing that should be fired. And people like Damore who post rants that make other employees feel unsafe or unwelcome should be fired as well. But most of the people you'd call alt-right aren't doing anything of the sort, they just have political opinions we find objectionable.
It's against my organization's work policies to advocate the oppression or killing of others like the alt right does. I wouldn't say it's enforced effectively (lol military) but it exists and it's hardly resulted in the destruction of political speech at work. It still goes on, people just don't get to seriously call for others to be treated horribly based on their race, gender, religion, etc.
The alt right advocates views that are out and out racism. Not like, an economic view that would disproportionately harm racial minorities, but out and out racism. The sitting president is a prime example of this and a lot of things he's said would rightfully get me fired from my job.
Right, so good thing they're not harassing anyone. They're just feeding info about people they feel have no right to exist to like-minded people who harass them, or to people who feed it to other people who harass them. But these people are all outside the company, so what can you do...
Well, one thing you can do is remove the initiators from the company. But that's apparently a step to far, since our very right to exist is apparently an "objectionable opinion" that should be debated (but not too much to the point that it would make alt-right people feel uncomfortable) with fanatics while they take active actions to persecute us into living personal hells.
You're now advocating for firing people based on their political beliefs.
You're back to people who are committing harassment by proxy again, I'm not talking about them. Where do you draw the line? Should all Trump voters be fired? People who read Breitbart and watch Hannity?
If your political belief is "I'm a Nazi" you should be fired, yes. And the core of the alt right is essentially that.
From what i've seen it's mainly on people who believe that non-white people shouldn't exist or exist within this country.
Are you suggesting that "the core of the alt-right" and the staff at Google have significant overlap? It seems like a HUGE reach to even get close to that suggestion.
The genesis of this discussion is about if and how much a company should explicitly promote diversity (specifically gender not even race) in its workforce over the general hiring pool. I feel confident in saying that 99+% of the employees don't think non-whites should be exterminated
Nobody is saying that the majority of Google employees, or 99% of Google employees are Nazis. Those are strawmen.
What Altheide and others are saying is that there is an unknown, but significant, number of Nazis* at Google, who post articles like the one quoted below, and use internal Google resources to harass and dox Google employees.
* I am entirely disinterested in splitting hairs between "Nazi," "alt-right," and "explicit white supremacists." The internecine squabbles between different flavors of racist douchebag don't change the crux of the issue.
This goes beyond "firing people over political opinions." These people are creating a hostile workplace and using the cover of anonymity to do so.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Their political belief that they are justified in being complicit or active in persecuting other employees for their political beliefs.
I'm all for being inclusing and welcoming of all political beliefs. But if Person A has some set of political beliefs, and Person B has the political belief that Person A has no right to exist and must be persecuted because of their political beliefs, then you cannot have both Person A and Person B co-exist peacefully while respecting both their political beliefs. You need to make a choice. I for one choose to accept the one whose political beliefs do not include attacking others for their political beliefs, and removing the ones that do.
Alternatively, if firing people for holding the political belief that they are entitled to actively persectute their coworkers is unpalatable to you, you can fire them for deliberately harming the company. After all, diversity has been shown to be a net positive for a company, and Google's hiring practices in particular have been shown to attract highly-talented people. By attacking other employees and pushing them out of the company for being pro-diversity or diverse themselves, they are depriving Google both of the general workplace benefits of diversity and of the specific and valuable skillsets of these individuals. Both of these results are net negatives for Google, and their active pursuit of them is causing long-term harm to the company. If that's not reason to fire them, I don't know what is.
Absolutism is a mistake, and it will continue to be a mistake.
The idea that no one should be fired for expressing a political belief falls apart when you have people who express political beliefs that are out and out destructive. You shouldn't expect to keep your job if you express that you believe all muslims to be dangerous and violent (as Gudman did), and you shouldn't expect to keep your job if you express that you think that women are genetically inferior to men in the industry (as Damore did).
These are not abstract discussions, they have gone out of their way to promote these ideals in their workplaces and they have doxxed those who oppose them. Gudman harassed a Muslim employee because they'd gone to Pakistan on vacation, does he get a pass because he's expressing his political beliefs?
No! There's always a cutoff line where political beliefs aren't acceptable. That line has nothing to do with whether they cause an argument or heated discussion, and it has strongly to do with whether the political beliefs espouse actively discriminating against people based on race, color, sex, or gender.
Instead of absolutism on the subject, say that you should not discriminate against someone for their political beliefs unless those political beliefs present or perpetuate a danger to people based on something other than their political beliefs.
Whether Google is doing enough to stop harassment, or if their approach is to sweep it under rug and discourage people from complaining about it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
According to me, people are slow to do so.
It is possible people have widened the definition of racist/misogynist. It is also possible there are far more racists and misogynists these days.
If we've eaten any good flies lately and if we've heard this ridiculous rumor that the same people that once boiled and ate some of us are turning up the heat in this cozy, safe kettle.
I don't know what they're doing to stop the harassment. But I don't think closing a discussion thread on the subject that has become too heated is evidence that they intend to do nothing.
Did you miss the part with the SVP? There was a whole large part that went after that, and a growing body of evidence that Google hasn't been doing much to combat it until it becomes public.