Why Facebook Staffers Won't Quit Over Trump's Posts (theatlantic.com) 131
Even fed-up tech workers are paralyzed by Silicon Valley's culture. From a column: It's easier for tech workers to talk about taking a stand than to do so. For one, big technology companies such as Facebook and Google are viciously competitive about acquiring talent. They hire or poach the best people, sometimes just to prevent a competitor from having access to them instead. Some workers don't want to rock the boat for fear they might get blacklisted, Ian McCarthy, a vice president of product at Yahoo, said. And ironically, the brokenness at companies such as Facebook and Uber can also make their jobs enticing. Disruption is appealing, and the promise to move fast and break things (even priceless and irrecoverable ones, such as democracy) can be a recruiting tool.
Others already in a company's employ may see an opportunity to fix some of its ills. One product manager at a large tech firm, who also advises many early-career professionals, spoke with me on the condition of anonymity because she fears reprisal from within the industry. She told me about her "activist" friends who refuse to leave jobs at Facebook, even if they disagree with the company's practices. "They came to change the world," she said, "and stayed to work within the system on issues they cared about." The same drive that makes these workers care about the consequences of Facebook's impact on democracy also makes them want to stick it out in an effort to improve the service.
Even so, Facebook seems to have crossed the line of tolerable abhorrence for some tech workers. Inside the business, nextplayism may offer the best, and maybe the only, way for them to show their distaste. "The vast majority of people I know at the director-and-up level, when they are leaving a company and looking for a new gig, they're Never Facebookers," McCarthy, who is also an occasional collaborator of mine, said, referring to senior-level roles. "They're offended if you even offer to do introductions to someone at Facebook." But that is a privileged attitude. Much of the magical operation of online services is driven by rote laborers, such as moderators, AI-training wranglers, and gig workers. They aren't counted as members of the industry, except perhaps as its casualties.
Others already in a company's employ may see an opportunity to fix some of its ills. One product manager at a large tech firm, who also advises many early-career professionals, spoke with me on the condition of anonymity because she fears reprisal from within the industry. She told me about her "activist" friends who refuse to leave jobs at Facebook, even if they disagree with the company's practices. "They came to change the world," she said, "and stayed to work within the system on issues they cared about." The same drive that makes these workers care about the consequences of Facebook's impact on democracy also makes them want to stick it out in an effort to improve the service.
Even so, Facebook seems to have crossed the line of tolerable abhorrence for some tech workers. Inside the business, nextplayism may offer the best, and maybe the only, way for them to show their distaste. "The vast majority of people I know at the director-and-up level, when they are leaving a company and looking for a new gig, they're Never Facebookers," McCarthy, who is also an occasional collaborator of mine, said, referring to senior-level roles. "They're offended if you even offer to do introductions to someone at Facebook." But that is a privileged attitude. Much of the magical operation of online services is driven by rote laborers, such as moderators, AI-training wranglers, and gig workers. They aren't counted as members of the industry, except perhaps as its casualties.
A few reasons why today's Internet is a nightmare: (Score:1, Informative)
(TrueScore: 4, Thought-provoking)
Does any of this seem reasonable to you?
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And yet, here you are, posting anonymously...
Holy Cow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a job. You do work and they pay you for it. It's not a way of life. It's not a family. It doesn't give your life meaning. You aren't changing the world, especially at Facebook. If you want to do something meaningful for you, start your own company.
Re:Holy Cow (Score:4, Interesting)
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I will counterpoint: My job is my life, entertainment, and family wrapped up in one neat bow. Any thing that shakes that dynamic is by definition a life altering event.
Good. Shake the shit out of that slave lifestyle until your balls drop.
Re: Holy Cow (Score:1)
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Re:Holy Cow (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider yourself lucky. 99% of us are just here for the paycheck. Makes me chuckle to think these young idealists believe they can (or should even be able to) change their employer's viewpoint or priorities. Either start your own company or do a lot more work and earn a C-suite job, folks. Get real.
- Necron69
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That's pathetic
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yes, sanitation works and factory workers often times get paid more then those groups you just listed.
Re:Holy Cow (Score:5, Interesting)
The owners of the company get to set the company's policies. So either live with it, or go start your own company. When you are in charge of your own company you can set policies of your choice. Fighting with the owner of a company over company policy is a very fast route to discovering who's signature is on your paycheck. Fight with them enough and they'll stop signing it.
If a couple of Trump tweets upsets you enough to quit your Facebook job, then you should get a new career working for the political campaigns. Quit and do it, you'll be happier. You'll be a lot poorer, but you'll be happy.
Re:Holy Cow (Score:5, Insightful)
"I work at facebook and am angry and I'm concerned about democracy!"
"Right, so you want to uphold freedom of spee..."
"NO! I want to silence people I disagree with, with the self-righteous attitude they're dangerously wrong! That's this week's euphemism."
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I was having the same thought. I approve that they use their moral judgement at their job but their judgement doesn't seem to work very well. Lack of practice maybe.
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No, lack of actual morals.
Their relig-ideology doesn't see a need for them, since they need to be told how to live, right from wrong, etc.
So they talk a good game of tolerance, peace, understanding...
But if someone violates their precepts, even a little?
GLOBAL FUCKING THERMONUCLEAR WAR!
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Re:Holy Cow (Score:5, Interesting)
"NO! I want to silence people I disagree with"
Mod parent up. This is exactly the problem.
Everything that they don't agree with becomes "hate speech", in the minds of some people that are part of the younger generation and in the early stages of their careers.
I guess part of growing up is understanding that you can quit your job, but the world really isn't going to change because of it. You're only making your own life more difficult.
Here [linkedin.com] is the perfect example. The dude's first real job, straight out of college. "Oh, let me quit Facebook because Trump sucks".
If you don't like Trump, then vote him out of office.
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I expect that the "moderators" at Facebook take as much delight, and practice with just as much viciousness when moderating posts as the moderators at Slashdot do.
It's not about Insightful, funny, informative, etc. It's about Not On My team, Challenges My World View, and eww, White Guy!
I suspect that you're correct. It's happened in the past that mysteriously even when some comments get +3,+4, or even +5 I get no moderation points. I emailed asking about it and they essentially said I'd been shadowbanned but didn't see why and they 'fixed' it. I've noticed that it's happened again. I get that I'm not the most PC person but I am generally polite and make my points. Far more citations than the average poster. I can take a hint though, it's time to take a break and move on. Any simila
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These aren't the kind of employees (Score:2)
The downside to that is those 100 programmers have way, way more power over you as a business. They're intensely in demand and can easily go off and do whatever the hell they want because, well, they're a very limited resource.
You see this in the Graphics card market, wher
Re: These aren't the kind of employees (Score:2)
Maybe, but these super productive employees are not the ones playing the politics.
Stop phantasizing about woke super employees that bring corporations richer than states to their knees. Never gonna happen. Ever.
Politicking is for the less competent and usually aims to displace/destroy the competent.
Today, you people (westerners) have gone down the same path from which we come from. Once you install a life/career cancellation system (the hammer crushes your head and the sickle cuts it off) with deliberately
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Tech companies rely on a small pool of incredibly talented people to make them work. That's what makes them so insanely profitable. You don't need 10,000 factory workers building cars, you need 100 programmers.
Noting the number of employees (from Google):
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Noting the number of employees (from Google):
Facebook: 48,268
Google (Alphabet): 118,899
It's well-understood in software development that there are vast, VAST differences in productivity between employees... it's not unusual for employee A to be 10x or more productive than employee B (even though they are peers, and their salaries are roughly equivalent).
When software companies grow they can't keep hiring the ultra-productive employees because there just isn't enough of them. So they fill up with what they can get because it's the only way to expand beyond some certain threshold. It's still tr
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Ya, I get what you're saying, but, as one of the "A" employees who is usually 10x more productive than the "Bs", I can also attest that no one is sacred and/or irreplaceable, either 1-to-1 or 1-to-several. Employers are often willing to forgo one super experienced -- and often more expensive -- employee for one or more less experienced -- and less expensive -- ones. That may or may not always make sense, but it happens. Sometime it a case of (illegally) "greening the workforce" sometimes it's just a desir
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Employers are often willing to forgo one super experienced -- and often more expensive -- employee for one or more less experienced -- and less expensive -- ones.
True. But I feel that's what separates the high-performing companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Nvidia, etc. from the pack; interest in, and ability to keep high-performing employees.
I've seen high-performing employees come and go. The impact is hard to quantify but anecdotally, I certainly feel the impact.
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Tech companies rely on a small pool of incredibly talented people to make them work
Let's be honest, Facebook doesn't need incredibly talented programmers. The only hard part of what they are doing is the scale of it, but handling scale has been solved so many times by now that it doesn't require rare talent.
Re:Holy Cow (Score:4, Interesting)
“If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected
I think the tweets are a tactic for "If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him"
Re:Holy Cow (Score:5, Interesting)
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Twitter threw out all of their principles, and stepped over a very real and scary line, just because Trump said a few abrasive words. Amazing how he can expose the dark side of an entire organization with a few laughable words.
This is why we can't have nice things. See tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org].
We want to have a system where we don't need to monitor everyone because we're all adults capable of self-restraint and self-regulation. When some people act like children and break things on purpose, then we need rules for everyone.
Twitter really, really doesn't want to moderate content. Finding the line of what's acceptable and then repeatedly and intentionally jumping across it until they're forced to respond does not prove that they never
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I think the tweets are a tactic for "If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him"
Yeah, great. That's what you value in your leaders? The ability to irritate the people?
The problem is that the POTUS sees 1/2 the population of his country as the enemy. Of course other presidents were dividing because of their policies, but there's a huge difference between making hard choices where whatever you do *someone* is going to be upset, and going out of your way to tweak the population.
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The employer isn't a God. If the employer stops signing too many paychecks, He/She/It soon finds that there's not enough getting done to keep the lights on.
If you're ready/willing to quit over it, why not give pushback a shot and potentially save everyone a lot of trouble.
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This. Yea, verily, thou art not paid for thy methods but for thy results. Wanna change the world, go join the peace corp or something. Facebook is not the place to do that. You do what they tell you to do. You start becoming an activist as a low-level employee and don't be surprised if you're shown the door and never get a good reference.
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This. Yea, verily, thou art not paid for thy methods but for thy results. Wanna change the world, go join the peace corp or something. Facebook is not the place to do that. You do what they tell you to do. You start becoming an activist as a low-level employee and don't be surprised if you're shown the door and never get a good reference.
These companies ask for it. They present a culture that makes employees, especially new college grads that are used to university lifestyle, feel like the company is a democratically governed entity where they have a say in how it conducts business.
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It's a free country, people have constitutional right to express their opinions and to demonstrate, it includes workers for any corporation. The said corporation has the right to react of course, but it does not take away the right to disobedience in anyway - just face the consequences.
Last time I checked it has never been about censoring (aka suppressing, altering, removing in part or in whole) - it has always been about marking obvious and verifiable lies, because seems like people stopped doing it thems
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It's a free country, people have constitutional right to express their opinions and to demonstrate, it includes workers for any corporation. The said corporation has the right to react of course, but it does not take away the right to disobedience in anyway - just face the consequences.
Clarifying... The 1st Amendment says the Government cannot impede your right to speech and says nothing about non-governmental entities. There is no "right to disobedience". Also, the right to free speech is not absolute, there are exceptions for things like libel and slander as well as public safety (yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater w/o any fire), etc ...
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It's a job. You do work and they pay you for it. It's not a way of life. [...] It doesn't give your life meaning.
You've swung the pendulum too far to the other side. Everyone bears some degree of personal responsibility for the actions they take at work, and that personal responsibility, by its very nature of being personal, speaks to your values, your life choices, and the meaning of your life as a whole. If you claim to be a pacifist while helping to develop and manufacture bombs, you're actually a hypocrite and a liar, because your actions are speaking louder than your words. You are choosing through your personal
True, both sides have a point. Be a good cop (Score:2)
That's true. I'm not going to totally change how my company does business. Not anymore, since I no longer own the company I work for. No company is ever going to 100% match up with everything I believe I a given week (my viewpoints do change as I learn).
ALSO, a company is made up of people, and I'm one of the people. If I'm one of the 5,000 at the company, I have some small degree of influence, particularly in how I do my job.
At one organization I worked for, there was a monthly meeting of about 5 people
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Which is a shame, because it shouldn't. You hear about the sorts of people who have the "reality distortion field" effect like what Jobs used to have, and what you find out that they almost all share is an ability to change their minds all the time. There is story after story of people telling Steve Jobs that X needs to be done instead of his preference of Y as they walk into a room, only to leave the room a few minutes later with Jobs arguing in favor of X while the person's head is spinning because they'v
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Oops, I misspoke earlier in a minor but important way. Please see the bolded correction below:
We can quibble about how working at a particular organization actually reflects on you as a person.
I was trying to get at the notion that different people will have different ideas about what it means to work at a particular organization. Saying "whether" made is sound like working at some companies wouldn't reflect on you, but that is NOT the case. Whether you're working at McDonald's, Facebook, Boeing, Bank of America, or a mom-and-pop shop, your choice of employer always reflects in some way on you and your v
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It is a job where you spend 8 hours (sometimes more) out of a 24 hour day at. Then you add 1 or 2 hours traveling and preparing for that job. then 8 hour a day sleeping. leaving 5 or 6 hours a day doing something else.
Your job is a significant part of your life. If you are going to spend that amount of your life doing something that makes you feel bad, then it probably isn't worth it.
Yes it is a Job, don't expect every day to be a happy place. You are going to have to do things you don't like, and som
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More to the point. That is what YOUR employer generally believes. At least in the US. Employees are resources, valuable resources that need tending to be sure, but if you REALLY believe your employer is not willing to find someone else to do work you are unwilling to do, i suspect you need to "take the red pill".
You may be good at what you do , but if your unwilling to do the work that you are being paid to do , you are no longer of any use to the person paying you.
Re: Holy Cow (Score:2)
Money before ideology (Score:1)
Actually standing up for what they claim to believe in and stop supporting the companies they claim are doing evil with their own work?
No way! Then how can they afford to drive nice cars, always own the latest phones, and drink the most expensive drinks when they're out partying on the latest international travel vacation?
Anyway.... They believe words = actions so have convinced themselves
Re: Money before ideology (Score:3)
Hopefully there is a happy medium between whining on Twitter and taking up arms.
Re: Money before ideology (Score:1)
"Yes, I'll have a double espresso mocha latte with extra cream and half sugar, please! My usual, thank you!" was never said by any revolutionary.
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Anyway.... They believe words = actions so have convinced themselves whining on twitter IS action.
Every revolution in history started with words. Jesus. Muhammad. Luther. Jefferson.
It is fair to say words are not enough, and expect more to follow. But it always starts with words to rally more people beyond the immediate circle.
Revolutions that start with just actions of a small circle, without preparing the moral ground with a bigger/better perspective, those are always just quashed to no useful end.
No, I am not expecting any action. But I am not going to getting excited about words, one way or an
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Well put.
Words are necessary but not sufficient for leadership. A leader makes plans. A leader identifies achievable goals. And even if some or most efforts fail, if some efforts succeed in changing the culture, I would count that leader a success.
MLK I count as a success, even if most of what he set out to do was not achieved. Changing the world even a little bit is an achievement.
Or maybe they have intellectual integrity? (Score:5, Insightful)
And believe in the Voltarian principle of "I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it"?
Demanding ideological purity, and silencing your political opposition is the foundation of fascism and totalitarianism. This, at least, gives me a little hope that even though many will bleat and moan, they are not completely gone into the extreme beyond as their actions - seemingly - do not back up some of their words.
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And regarding the criticism of allowing Trump's speech? They can fully well agree with the 1st amendment / Voltaire's exposition and advocate the takedown of the speech of a racist, violence provoking demagogue. No one is forcing anyone to use or consume* Facebook and Ol' Zuck has unilate
Re:Or maybe they have intellectual integrity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Or maybe they have intellectual integrity? (Score:2)
No, it's about little people using a totalitarian system against their peers. Not against the powerful (they can't do shit about that).
That happens way more often than the powerful abusing the little person....
See my post above about our lives under communism and the STAZI archives that showed 1 in 3 common people ratting on their peers resulting in 'cancellation' in the basement of the secret police HQ or in a Gulag....
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Voltaire never wrote that.
Demanding ideological purity
I don't see how that's relevant to this article.
and silencing your political opposition is the foundation of fascism and totalitarianism
Yes. When the government silences political opposition, it is characteristic of fascism and totalitarianism. Of course, this also has nothing to do with the article.
This, at least, gives me a little hope that even though many will bleat and moan, they are not completely gone into the extreme beyond as their actions - seemingly - do not back up some of their words.
It gives you hope that people don't have the courage and/or economic independence to act on their moral convictions?
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Voltaire never wrote that.
Which is why I wrote "Voltarian principle" as it was a summation of much of Voltaire's work.
Yes. When the government silences political opposition, it is characteristic of fascism and totalitarianism. Of course, this also has nothing to do with the article.
In this case, we have big tech working hand-in-hand with a specific political side, and functioning its best to skew the results of elections. That's about as close to Mussolini's Fascism as you can find.
That's actually not true (Score:4, Interesting)
You can demand ideological purity all you want, but if you're a dictator with a ruling class and the 99% are united then you lose. All the information control in the world won't save you.
What you really need is a caste system. You need some way to segment that 99% up and get each segment punching down instead of punching UP.
Seriously, look at every single ruling class in history. They all do this. India just plain has castes, America uses skin color (and sometimes nationality, re:Blazing Saddle's Irish jokes), hell when the Japanese didn't have a caste they made one up by job title (re:Burakumin).
This isn't to say that information control isn't a useful tool, just that it's a minor one compared to the effectiveness of caste systems and getting folk to punch down.
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See https://quoteinvestigator.com/... [quoteinvestigator.com]
That said, Trump is an immature and disturbed individual.
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Legally speaking, you're correct. But when corporations are the size and wealth of nations it's not at all clear that the desire to have the first amendment (and the others) apply to those corporations is unreasonable. It's not the way the game is currently set up, but perhaps it ought to be.
Bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's your choice. I have abandoned options and RSUs multiple times in my life. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't. Of course I wasn't quitting for political reasons, I left to what I perceived to be better opportunities.
Hypocrites all (Score:1)
Others already in a company's employ may see an opportunity to fix some of its ills. One product manager at a large tech firm, who also advises many early-career professionals, spoke with me on the condition of anonymity because she fears reprisal from within the industry. She told me about her "activist" friends who refuse to leave jobs at Facebook, even if they disagree with the company's practices. "They came to change the world," she said, "and stayed to work within the system on issues they cared about." The same drive that makes these workers care about the consequences of Facebook's impact on democracy also makes them want to stick it out in an effort to improve the service.
Sounds to me like these "activists" are more than willing to post on Twitter about how righteous they are, but when it comes down to it their beliefs are thinner than the paycheck they enjoy. Hypocrites one and all. Perhaps it's time that the world stops giving attention to those who are so willing to talk but not willing to walk?
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Perhaps it's time that the world stops giving attention to those who are so willing to talk but not willing to walk?
Then poor Twitter would go out of business.
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there's freedom of speech, and then there's getting punished for expressing a view that isn't popular. e.g. pointing out that George Floyd had a criminal history with multiple incarcerations and really was resisting getting into the police car can get you fired
posting anonymous because... well... don't want the backlash. Nobody deserves to die, in police custody or otherwise. ALL lives matter. Does shit happen? Yes. And it happens with more frequency if you're difficult when dealing with law enforcement. Wa
They Work For Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
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Breaking democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, it is. The difference is that most candidates don't actively foment violence like this one does.
Heck, Twitter requires you actively follow the President to see what they're saying.
That's irrelevant, and also false.
The President should communicate with the country in a way that grown-ups communicate, not like an angr
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Or more to the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are like most people - full of shit. Empty rhetoric and slogans rule the day. It's very easy to SAY but much more difficult to DO. It's like when people say "thanks for your service" or "our thoughts and prayers are with you". If you really are grateful for someones service then do something about it. Like donate money to veterans or volunteer your time to help in some way.
There are a few people, like the actor Gary Senise, that actually step up and do something worthwhile for causes they believe in. But the vast, vast majority of celebrities are content to live in their walled estates spouting slogans like fairy dust. They are more than willing to ask YOU to donate YOUR money but where is THEIR money?
If Black Lives really do matter to them why not invest in the black community? Open some stores to create badly needed jobs. Donate something to help improve the horrible schools that many black kids are forced to attend, putting them at an even further disadvantage. Anything - just stop with the fucking virtue signaling and pandering.
As always, watch what they do not what they say.
Democracy is built on freedom (Score:3)
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Democracy as used by the activists today is absolutely not based on the word you read in the Dictionary. Democracy has been sublimated to mean something new. It's like one of those code word/buzz word/dog whistles now. Democracy means leftism/socialism now and the very first thing to be done in this Democracy is remove the voice of any competitors or dissenters.
The last thing the current activists want in their Democracy is an actual Democracy.
Because after all... if we are a Democracy already then how i
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Dear Activists... (Score:4, Insightful)
you are going to lose... and the worst part is that you do not see that the only loss will be your own. The tools you use to silence the ones you hate today, will be used to silence you tomorrow. It always happens this way! This right here is how tyranny is invited in by the front door, under the guise of "fighting something you hate".
It is more important to let speech fly, because it gives that person a way to deflate from the pressures they have and it allows people to judge that person for their words. If you do not allow this to happen, then pressure builds and then it is released explosively and worse things happen instead.
Just lets your ears burn... it is better than burning the world, because in all reality those are your only choices. It's been a long time since WWII and the fucking Nazi are still here... just like all of the other racist muthafuckers on this planet full of hate, pride, greed, and evil.
That dagger you feel in your back? It's the one you made and gave them!
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It is more important to let speech fly, because it gives that person a way to deflate from the pressures they have and it allows people to judge that person for their words. If you do not allow this to happen, then pressure builds and then it is released explosively and worse things happen instead.
You mean like protests that end in violence? Yeah, that sounds like pressure being released explosively. I guess those people have been denied a way to speak for quite a while. If only they could do things like silent protests without losing their jobs.
Blacklisted? (Score:2)
If finding talent is really that competitive, I find it hard to believe there's much of a danger in being "blacklisted". If you're a good worker, no company in its right mind would blacklist you for expressing political beliefs. That makes no business sense at all.
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If finding talent is really that competitive, I find it hard to believe there's much of a danger in being "blacklisted". If you're a good worker, no company in its right mind would blacklist you for expressing political beliefs. That makes no business sense at all.
Oh you sweet summer child. People do vindictive, petty things that are explicitly straight line against their own interests all the time. Businesses are petty tyrannies, one and all, and some of the pettiest and most tyrannical are the ones who officially claim to be neither.
If businesses were actually run perfectly rationally, any competent engineer could build a machine to trade the stock market with a 100% perfect record. This has never happened and never will.
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FWIW, the black list originated in Hollywood, where some stars with politically unpopular opinions were "black listed" and no studio would hire them, even though they were extremely popular.
You may not think the option makes sense, but it works in human society. Look up the history of, e.g., Pete Seeger.
What the hell slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: What the hell slashdot? (Score:2)
Please?!?!
There has never been a totalitarian lefty regime that did not establish itself by spilling blood, did not spill enormous amounts of blood while it lasted, and did go away without spilling blood.
I so much wish that was not true!
Re:What the hell slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, your post doesn't do anything to defuse the argument. You're just saying you approve of what's being done and the folks on the other side are evil bastards. That's *not* defusing the argument.
It was always like that (Score:3)
If you don't like what your company does, you can a) put up with it or b) vote with your feet. If you pick option b, understand that someone will replace you within a week or two and life goes on. There really aren't any other options. Want to change the company? You're chances of winning the lottery are better.
The employees who are suddenly realizing this are waking up to a cold, hard fact that's existed since the inception of the modern corporate structure. Zuckerberg understands this. I've said this many times before. Zuckerberg is an AD MAN, plain and simple. The social networking platform is nothing more than a honeypot. A delivery mechanism for the ads. He will NOT voluntarily do ANYTHING that reduces ad sales. Trump drivel, bot traffic, and blatantly illegal stuff... if he can get away with leaving it up on the platform, he will. It will sell ads. It's that simple. It's not good. It's not evil. It just
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No. If you want to claim that some companies have always been like that and solely pursued profit, then I'll agree. If you want to claim they've always been dominant, then I really disagree. The laws have been manipulated to favor companies that act that way, so they have prospered, and *that's* why so many that we see today act that way. Go back a few decades and it was much less common, and companies that violated "social good" (as opposed to personal good) would be subjected to customer revolt. This
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It was always like this. Always. Companies don't change. They pursue profit. That is literally the definition of a for-profit company. That's it's ENTIRE SOCIETAL PURPOSE.
You're stating that like it's a natural law. It's not. Humans invented the corporation. We defined it. The idea that its only purpose was to generate profit for the shareholders has only been around since 1970 [wikipedia.org].
Need the eggs (Score:1)
Gotta laugh at that one. It's like the joke about the guy who takes his brother to the psychiatrist because he thinks he is a chicken. Shrink prescribes a drug that will fix him. They come back in a week, the doc asks if it worked, no, it didn't. Why not? We didn
Oh noes! Democracy in danger! (Score:2)
the promise to move fast and break things (even priceless and irrecoverable ones, such as democracy)
If democracy can be broken by social media, then it's really not that strong in the first place. Perhaps man's true nature is to be ruled.
But I think that democracy is a bit stronger than you think. I see it living quite well in the Black Lives Matter protests. I see it in the upcoming election that will sweep an anti-democratic party out of power in the Executive and Legislative branches of government. Don'
So, the same reasons people in Trump admin don't r (Score:3)
Some have resigned in protest, but his core people stick it out, quite likely because they feel they can keep things from going off the rails. But what if it's too late for that, and they are in fact enabling poor governance? The situation at Facebook seems analogous to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe they support his policies? Not everyone is a leftist who approves of defunding the police so that gangs can take over, or that China should be given free reign to destroy our economy.
Your jokes are hilarious (Score:3, Insightful)
"They came to change the world," she said, "and stayed to work within the system on issues they cared about."
Stop it! You are killing me with your jokes.
They stayed because they whored themselves out to the almighty dollar but they are so full of themselves that they are trying to convince everyone else they are different. Maybe they believe it themselves or not. I have known quite a few people in my time that are so delusional they actually seem to believe it in their heart but we all know otherwise. Pathetic.
The comments .. (Score:1)
It's like I said in a previous post (Score:2)
Why would they would want to quit now anyway? (Score:2)
At a time like this, when someone can just be fucking grateful as shit to even *HAVE* a job, let alone a decent paying one?
There are *MILLIONS* of people out of work right now thanks to recent events, and the competition for the jobs that are available is fierce.
I would say that there can very well be times when one has an obligation to stand up for what they believe and confront an employer that they disagree with.
I do not think that now is one of them. Personally, I'd just suck it up and just be
Jingoholicism (Score:2)
Grownups Behave Like Grownups (Score:3)
If someone had something snuffy to say, he/she had to have the "balls" to tell you in person or put in writing so you had proof.
Now people get hurt feelings typed on a keyboard by an anonymous person on the Internet. You can't even verify the person typing is the person who belongs to the account it posts under.
In short, do your job and don't let an angry tweet/message/forum post ruin your day... or in this case, make you quit your job.
Be a grownup.
I'm too smart (Score:2)
censorship (Score:2)
Maybe they just don't believe in censorship. Maybe that's why the haven't quit yet?
Too many unvested stock options (Score:2)
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