Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture
nytimes.com
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In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem.
What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place.
Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to trump,telling workers to attend 'lgbt tolerance' meetings,etc... Wth!!!!
If you are my coworker,I respect you as a colleague and a human being. Your private life and beliefs are not mine to police or encourage in anyway. Left,right,etc... Who cares? You're at work!
Look at it this way,if your company is pro something,it can be anti- that same thing as soon as it becomes profitable to do so. Imagine not being able to work in tech because how you vote,pray or who you associate with becomes inconvenient to the industry.
This is my question for you: Are you willing to surrender your right to believe what you want,associate with whom you want and support the political causes that matter to you in exchange for your political views and ideology becoming the norm you can't deviate from?
What is the alternative? Do politics with your friends, family and community,associate with whom you want and believe what you want. When at work respect your colleagues,not because of their politics and beliefs but because 1) they're human 2) you would want to be respected if you were in their shoes 3) out of respect for your own self
This isn't about left vs right or kkk vs blm. It's about corporations vs individuals,who decides what views,beliefs and associations are acceptable. Should society be run by the people or by the ruling class and their corporate machine?
When you are gay or trans and a significant chunk of people find your mere existence revolting, when you are black and a significant chunk of people believe you are innately less intelligent and more prone to violence, when you are a woman and a significant chunk of people believe you have no business starting a career or working in tech or people don't believe you when you claim to have been sexually assaulted, it's hard to treat "politics" as an abstract debate where free-thinking intellectuals joust in the marketplace of ideas. In these contexts, you actually live "politics" - every day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you sleep. You can't opt out of it.
I am taking these examples because they resonate best with what are considered "political" subjects in the West, but in more gruesome contexts, such as the situation of Syria, "politics" is whether you are pro-Assad, pro-rebel, which rebel group you are part of, etc. You can see how silly (at best) or insulting (at worst) it can be to try and dismiss politics when they are actually a matter of life or death.
Whenever there is a struggle, whenever there is an imbalance of power perceived by some to be unfair, there is politics. If you do not perceive that imbalance, it means you are on the better end of it, and your lack of stand is simply apathy for the status quo. I don't seek to judge you for that, but hopefully you may understand that some people are unhappy with the status quo and wish that it change, and that's why they're getting political.
One definition of power that is sometimes given: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." If the climate around things such as diversity policies effectively suppresses dissent, then the advocates of such policies have real power, whether or not they psychologically perceive it.
I'm pointing this out because I see no one else did, but that quote is from Kevin Alfred Strom, a neo-Nazi convicted for possession of child pornography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Alfred_Strom) and he really meant to convey not-so-subtle antisemitic undertones with it. I'm sure that's not what you meant, but I thought you'd wanted to know so you won't have this pointed out in a more formal context by less charitable people.
If you feel you have a right to bull others and to deny that is to restrict your ability to "dissent"; if you feel that you have the right to spread false information (women aren't welcome in tech, any given race isn't welcome, any given sexuality isn't welcome, etc"; then you should perhaps sit down and remember your company is going to exercise its free speech and kick you too the curb. The cost of giving you a "safe space to dissent" isn't worth reducing the hiring pool.
Free market baby, get fucking used to it.
The act of defining what and isn’t “political” - is itself a political act. It used to be unacceptably “political” in the majority of Anerican businesses to be against racial segregation. Now it’s the other way around. Whether you agree with that change or not, you can’t deny that the boundaries of what is or isn’t acceptable discourse at work have changed over time. When you’re bringing up a topic or opinion at work that makes others uncomfortable, you’re trying to move that boundary, which is a political. When you’re complaining that the topic is “too political” and doesn’t belong in the workplace, you’re trying to keep the boundary where it is, which is also a political act.
Please do not take the position of neutrality away from me. Anyone who forces me using the reasoning above, is, by default, an enemy of mine, regardless of coincidence of wants.
On the other hand you can also simply ban all tribal issues, ie the ones that cause coworkers to go at eachothers throats. This would be minorly political but the workplace atmosphere would improve greatly.
I've never seen any of these ideas openly expressed in the workplace, or for that matter, anywhere.
You know what's more dangerous than treating politics as an abstract debate? Treating it as a constant life-and-death struggle where enemies must be destroyed before they destroy you. The ideas you're talking about aren't even the ideas being expressed by anyone of importance: they're straw men arguments that propagandists falsely accuse people of perpetuating via "dog-whistles" so that you ignore and dismiss what they're actually saying.
Animus against minorities is real. It's not made up. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't real.
Is this animus experienced by every member of every minority for every waking moment? No, that was a bit of an exaggeration, sure. But the animus is definitely not zero, like you suggest.
You might benefit from educating yourself about feminism, race relations, and gay rights.
Probably because none of them apply to you.
> The ideas you're talking about aren't even the ideas being expressed by anyone of importance
You need only look at the president of the United States (or the GOP running for governor in Florida) to see that these ideas are expressed by a ton of people who have power.
This is an absurd dramatization. Really, what percentage of people at Facebook do you think believe that stuff? 0.0001%, or 0.00001%? Later in the post you indict apathy for the status quo, but this sort of left-leaning dramatic nonsense is as status quo as it gets.
The very act of filtering against it at recruitment and when it occurs in the workplace /is/ "politics". And post-Weinstein scandal it's disingenuous to think that the workplace can't have such a toxic culture. Just the other day a Riot employee's post about Riot's uncomfortable "bro culture" was discussed on HN.
One of the most offensive things I experienced in a liberal workplace was being treated differently(for my benefit) because of the 'group' I belonged to.
You show up to work to do a job not to struggle in politics. I should be accepted as a human and a coworker,not as a member of whatever group I belong to. You have the right to earn a living and feed yourself and family because you are human and you have the skills and qualifications for the job. Your membership to some socio-political group neither qualifies nor disqualifies you.
There is a line somewhere here, but it's not unreasonable for affected parties to pursue bureaucratic solutions.
It's obviously just me, but I have a difficult time imagining anyone being well-served by that particular "bureaucratic solution". Which, caricature though it might be, is also an accurate representation of a lived experience.
E.g. There’s a lot of Asian Americans from impoverished immigrant backgrounds who experience reverse affirmative action at American universities. They may still vote liberal, but for very different reasons as people pursuing social justice.
The issues are hardly black and white, and a workplace environment where people are forced to pick sides is inherently unhealthy, not to mention anything but diverse.
Speaking as, as I am, an Israeli citizen, I have to say: having people yell at you to get bombed and die because you can't opt out of politics is actually pretty unpleasant. I can't imagine Syrian exiles like it much either.
It's not about life and death or oppression, it's just about where you're from. And you're just fighting with people who live somewhere else than you.
People's actual concrete opinions on issues change with time, with their social circle, etc. The issues are not as important as people think they are, and there are lots of life and death issues which don't elicit churlish behavior the way politics does.
The counter-argument is that the causes relate to discrimination in the workforce. I.e., BLM needs to be supported because blacks are underrepresented in the American tech workforce. I disagree these need to be equivalent. It's possible for a company to promote hiring underrepresented minorities without allowing employees to advertise their political beliefs.
What happened to never talking about politics on the first date or at your job?
As a gay dude that grew up in Ohio -- and had people yell "fag" when I got my diploma at graduation -- I'm beyond happy that the next generation of LGBTQ engineers won't grow up with the same level of hate I experienced.
The arc of moral justice is only bent when force is applied.
You shouldn't be called a slur at work not because of the type of slur, but the fact that it is a slur at all.
Pretty much just their bottom line. Companies advocate for whatever position makes a large majority of people think of them as the "good guys". How many companies did you see advocating for gay marriage before the political zietgeist shifted in favor of it a few years ago?
Rest assured that all these "socially conscious" corporations will have a sudden and miraculous change of heart the instant the sociopolitical winds shift on any given issue. And you will be expected to fall in line or keep your opinions to yourself.
Personally, I don't want my career success or failure to depend on my willingness to pledge fealty to whatever insincere political opinion my employer thinks is currently expedient.
Why can't you talk about politics at work? We spend most of our waking hours at work. There should be basic ground rules for civility and then people should be free to say what they want, without fear that they'll be fired because they donated to some GOP candidate.
That's tolerance, and honestly, that's America. What the hell happened where everyone's trying to bite each other's heads off all the time?
Don't even go on Twitter, listen to mainstream media and see how much negativity is pumped out 24/7 in industrial quantities. It's an information analogue of First World War industrial warfare, and the effects are devastating.
Look at the comment here just below here - I am sure this guy who thinks half of the country is bigoted racists who needs to be crushed - is a nice person in real life who is a pleasure to be around. As long as he/she doesn't see you as an outgroup. And you probably would get along just nicely if you do not discuss things that reveal you as an outgroup. But if you and them bring your whole self to work, and turns out that person thinks you need to be crushed - would it be easy to get along, going forward?
But... I don't think this should be a PR stunt. Or should be politicized. Go out there, and do the hard work. Engage all people and recruit the whole eligible population. It's in our interest, but don't politicize it and don't introduce politicized quotes. Do it methodically without pretenses.
This appears to be a form of the "pipeline" argument, that the problem with low participation rates by some demographic groups is due to a lack of those people in the earlier stages of the career pipeline to the workplace.
The thing to understand about the pipeline problem is that it is the same thing as the hostile/discriminating workplace problem. The pipeline leaks at every stage, from kindergarten to the boardroom, because some demo groups are supported, assumed capable, etc, and others are not.
So the solutions are the same at every level: workplace and school policies that explicitly correct the inequitable treatment, both structural and individual.
That's only true with extreme censorship. If a company I was working for was hiring people based on race, I would call that out for the blatant racism that it is (under the disguise of "hiring underrepresented minorities"). Would that be an inappropriate airing of my "political" beliefs. It may be construed as "political", but really it's just pointing out a tautology and making a very obviously true value judgement (people ought not to be hired or not-hired based on their race).
The way I see it, corporations are the people who work for them and their relationships. And since politics deals with peoples and their relationships, politics in an inherent aspect of corporations. And all attempts to separate the two by promoting politics that differ from the politics of the people in the organization is an act of propaganda.
Alex Jones is a liar and manipulator. He goes on the air and presents theories for which there is not even superficial evidence as news and established fact. I'm not trying to be political, those are just the facts as I see them.
Just because I show up at work doesn't mean I become some sort of mechanical money making machine. If I was a TV executive at a company running that show, I would want to the show canceled, no matter the ratings or revenue. I suppose many would say I was bringing "politics" into the work place, and maybe I would be, but what's the alternative?
And sorry if upsets someone's political viewpoint, but there is scientific consensus for global warming, and in America we should probably cut back our energy consumption a bit. So, if I advocate that dress codes be relaxed in the summer so the thermostat can go up a degree, I guess it's political, but I'm not advocating it to piss off conservative people. It's just how I see the world.
I think the internal memo linked in the report makes the ever valid point to argue and attack ideas, not people. But honestly, that issue seems to be pervasive in our culture, so it does not seem specific to workspace behavior.
I think most people are just fighting for the world they want to live in. Why should that only be to do that outside of work, when we spend half our waking time at work?
I think we just need to learn how to disagree in a friendly and constructive way. But also learn when to drop something and just get on with work.
If only we could seal off the workplace from the rest of the world and keep it unsullied by politics.
The trouble is that if your work is meaningful, it's making changes in the world. Making changes in the world is a political act.
Online platforms make billions of decisions every day and they need a point of view to guide their decisions. Having a point of view is necessarily and inevitably political.
Pretending your choices aren't political is itself a political act. It's inescapable.
This is indeed not a good development, but I think it already happens literally everywhere. It happens in hi-tech, it happens in restaurants, it happens in entertainment (massively), it happens in payment processing, it happens in travel... Literally every industry I interact with had done some political action lately.
> If you are my coworker,I respect you as a colleague and a human being. Your private life and beliefs are not mine to police or encourage in anyway.
That is a nice sentiment, with which I agree. But imagine proponents of some ideology - say, people that are opposed to wearing hats - do not subscribe to that. To the point they'd refuse to hire anyone who have ever worn a hat (either overtly, or by subtle sabotage if they can't do it legally in the open), would stage a public spectacle if they notice their coworker wears a hat, would sponsor company hat-burning parties (or call for a boycott of the company if the company refuses to sponsor one), adorn their workplace with anti-hat posters and loudly discuss how people who wear hats are just lowlife scum.
Would you wear a hat in such a workplace if you think wearing a hat is OK? Would you feel comfortable even mentioning you know someone who might wear one from time to time? Nope. So, some of the people would feel happy and supported in their private beliefs in the work place, and actively sharing and promoting them, while others would secretly terrified that someone would discover their instagram account and find out they wore a hat once. Not a good position to be in.
So, how you keep your right to your private beliefs and not bringing politics to work if the politics is already there? I don't know the right answer.
Pride is like St. Paddy's Day or Chinese New Year: it's neither left or right.
Tolerance training isn't political either. If an employer wants their employees to be comfortable at work, it's within their right to train employees to be tolerant of each other. It has nothing to do with politics.
It's strange how gay people just being gay is often seen as a political act -- but that's never the case for straight people.
Having worked in Northern Ireland I can tell you that St Patrick's Day is loaded with politics there.
The company got around it by giving both St Pats and 12th July as public holidays but allowing staff to voluntarily work them in lieu.
Hence staunch loyalists could work on St Pats and take the holiday another time, whilst nationalists could work on Orangefest. Neither felt compelled to celebrate the other's festival.
Being a naive Englisher 'Hun' I just took both days off and offended both groups equally.
All discussion of politics and sports was banned at all times. That seemed quite easy to enforce.
Tolerance training is political because the employer wants employess of a certain belief,affiliation or private association to feel welcome. For example,tolerance training for vegetarians would also be political.
Pride also is supporting a political movement much like supporting 'alt-right'.
It's not gay people being just gay,but a company telling workers personal sexual lives of their colleagues is a basis for tolerance or intolerance and that the company favors tolerance in that particular case. By that same right,they can hold gay intolerance training.
Does the state require you to hire a quota of LGBT workers?
Does the state punish bad behaviour towards LGBT workers?
How do you handle people who hold beliefs that conflict with LGBT life styles?
Should you mandate the use of language around these topics?
Is there speech that can cause harm people and should it be protected as free speech?
Are these not all political issues.
Another part of American conservatism is the dignity of the white race and the heritage of whiteness. That includes proud narratives of true heroic sacrifices against the brutish north, and a discussion of how blacks and other minorities play the victim card to create an emotionally hostile atmosphere for white youths. An unjust atmosphere where blacks, asians, and latinos are promoted at the cost of white children.
On a front page Reddit post on the top comment with regards to NYT's hiring of an asian intern who suggested that white people had biological deficiencies due to sunburning vulnerability, was a discussion of the extinction of the white race, and how white reproductive rates have been going down. As well as a discussion how blacks, asians, and latinos cheat their way into college through blind liberal favoritism, an ideology which seems to dangerously ignore that race is the fundamental way human relations work, and that the suggestion that we should all hold hands and put aside our racial differences is an unrealistic Disney vision.
And of course there is a discussion on the biology of sex, and whether liberals are being blind in thinking that women need active promotion in the workplace. That's of direct workplace concern. And do black and Latino people need active intervention in tech, like women?
Americans need to resolve their issues beyond rolling up their sleeves and going to work. There are decade-long wounds coming. Voting is not political negotiation with your peers. It's just an up-or-down bullet.
A lot of Americans also think it's their prerogative to form a religious business, especially a Christian-oriented business. On the flip side, is it okay to have a Muslim-oriented Google? Or a Christian oriented Chick-fil-A which donates to ban gay marriage?
Did that not serve to rally the American conservative base? Is Alex Jones not representative of effective (meaning the kind that wins elections) conservatism? Isn't Alex Jones, perhaps the #1 most popular media personality of today, being censored part of the reason why people are concerned?
Some people will take 1 second to decide they don't like you because of stereotypes and there's nothing you can do about it.
You may be perfectly fine, but one of your more conservative coworkers might be a talented bigot hiding their bigotry in the closet until such time that it might present itself, and human resources has to get ahead of that before it becomes an issue.
This isn't bringing politics into the work place. This is making sure hostile politics (i.e. bigotry) doesn't affect the workplace.
You cannot escape politics no matter the environment. Your personal political views are a reflection of your core values, ethics and morals. I'd much rather have companies take a stand than try to appease everybody. If anything, it would let me know which businesses should get my money and which I should avoid (as well as which I'd work for and which I'd avoid).
> Imagine not being able to work in tech because how you vote,pray or who you associate with becomes inconvenient to the industry.
That is a slippery slope. Certain political viewpoints should be shunned and outcast from polite society...
That's a pretty bad way to view politics, IMO. It not might be what you mean (in which case, sorry!), but the phrasing you used makes it seem like anyone who disagrees with your politics has different morals (or values/ethics).
That might sometimes be true, but you're leaving no room for differences of opinion that have nothing to do with morality! When Galileo said the Earth goes around the Sun, he wasn't saying it because he had different morals/values, he was saying it because he had a different belief about the world.
When the left and right disagree (in America), it's sometimes about morals/values, but it's also sometimes an honest disagreement about how the world works!
Often, companies requires employees to undertake training in this area because the company is legally required to provide a workplace that is free from anti-LGBT discrimination (likewise, anti-racism, sexual harassment, etc)
Like what?
Secondly, following from the first, the fact that I have to post something even as innocuous as this this anonymously out of fear of retribution of it was linked with my professional identity.
Context is important. If we're talking about the hobby of being a KKK member, I'd say that it's perfectly reasonable for that to be disallowed.
A workplace should be, first and foremost, a place where work is done. The march of history has proven that allowing people who are mistaken in their beliefs to contribute positively has achieved great things. Consider, for example, Fritz Haber - many of his beliefs and principles are clearly bad ideas, and his overall contribution is overwhelmingly positive. This is a particularly good example of a general principle that exists up and down the industrial underpinnings of modern western civilisation.
Politics entering the workplace, and monocultures in particular, represent a threat the the mechanisms that allow corporations to drive good outcomes. Nobody should want that, especially considering that even apparent fact sometimes turns out to be wrong.
I understand if you don't think a company should support a political party, but LGBTQ/gay tolerance meetings don't fall into that category.
If you put this into the context of some other progressive social movement such as giving women equal opportunity to men, it makes more sense. A company would not be out of line giving seminars about gender equality in the workplace even though some people may disagree. It's not a partisan issue. It's about acceptance and tolerance.
The majority of people who spout tolerance and acceptance at me are the least tolerant and acceptant of other beliefs.
Karl Popper wrote about this idea called the paradox of tolerance [0] asking if you should be tolerant of intolerance.
It doesn't, which is the "paradox of tolerance".[1]
If my co-worker is donating to Trump, and talking about kicking foreign workers out of America, they're literally talking about kicking ME out of the country. They're donating money to a politician who wants to make my life harder, and make my visa process less pleasant.
I can tolerate my co-worker all day, but if they're working to make my life less pleasant and workable, they're going to feel some chill.
Sorry you're eating alone conservatives, but you're working at a place with thousands of foreign co-workers, what did you think was going to happen?
> Why are companies promoting "pride"?
First of all, you don't need to put pride in safety quotes.
Second of all, gay rights are human rights. Companies promote them because it's the right thing to do, and because they want all the good things that come along with doing the right thing. I don't think it's all that complicated.
Edit: If you're gonna downvote, at least say why you're downvoting.
My guess is that you arent tolerant of everyone either.
Gays are humans they have human rights not gay rights its this idea thats gays are somehow more worthy of our support than say a conservative at a liberal workplace thats the crux of the problem. I dont care what people are, who they sleep with, what they believe, as long as i am not asked to offer them special considertations i wouldnt extend to others.
Thats the right thing to do, not forcing conpanies to take up social caused for a small privileged group of vocal people.
2. I am tolerant towards everyone. It's actually not that difficult.
3. You seem to be a little confused on what gay rights are. Here's a summary: Gay people want to be treated fairly. We want our partner/spouse to be treated equally. We want our children to be treated equally. We want to not be fired for being gay. We don't want to be called names for being gay. We don't want people to hate us for being gay. These things are not special considerations. These things are basic rights.
4. The right thing to do is to be in favor of gay rights.
What you fail to realize is that everything is political. Everything. Politics isn't some concrete, easily identifiable thing you can point at. You can't separate out things into a "Politics" bucket and a "Not Politics" bucket.
No, politics pervades every single human interaction. Politics is in everything and everything is inherently political.
My preference for the scent of lavender over cinnamon -- political. I'm against the designated hitter rule. Political too. I think my dog should not get into the trash. It's all politics.
Of course not directly, but even the tinyiest things can and do become political. Hand gestures, clothing, music, choice of cars, choice of food, choice of words.
Whatever happened to a society that has its roots in "love your neighbor and pray for those who persecute you"? Irrespective of religious beliefs, this is exactly what politically minded people want, but they go about it by hating other people and treating people as non-people - it's a huge hypocrisy and disgraceful behavior.
Think about how Master/Slave vs Primay/Secondary is an issue. It's technical, but at the same time choice of nomenclature reflects about those who chose them.
I've noticed this for a while now. I moved beyond the old left/right political football team-style arguments long ago because the political landscape has changed and become much more muddied.
I don't think the traditional spectrum applies anymore and I'm noticing more and more that others are seeing the same thing.
It still seems like most of the populace is stuck slinging shit at the 'other' though.
Honestly if a person still thinks in terms of left/right I don't think they are contributing anything whatsoever to any current political debate.
We forget that this industry is still young. It's probably not even in its adolescence. When I started working, there was no such thing as an Internet giant. There was Intel and Microsoft and 30 different PC clone vendors and a bunch of small software shops competing to get their boxes on the shelves at Microcenter. A lot of ideas we take as axioms --- for instance, the idea that developers can't organize to coerce changes in their working environment --- haven't earned that status, and deserve to be challenged.
My read on this was that the conflicts is as much between different groups within the "labor" than between management and labor. And within the article it seems that other employees are the ones really pushing for this to be shut down, while managements response is "they haven't actually broken any rules."
Of course management refuse to take action. They're already under public scrutiny and it seems the rebels have just expressed their desire to speak, they haven't spoken yet, so it would be a little harsh to crush them so soon.
We're all generally well-paid (even with respect to the value we create). But this whole message board is practically dedicated to the ways in which our industry pisses us off, from confiscatory IP clauses to open offices to death march projects. Who's to say labor can't organize simply for a better shop to work in? That's not unprecedented.
Trump won because of Facebook. I don't know why these guys are complaining.
What real incentive do they have to unionize even along a professional path? I just don't see having their political views stifled at work to be a big motivator.
It's a cart/horse position problem. If we had to go to school for 7-10 years to be a doctor or lawyer, then of course, we'd want the protection and insurance of a professional licensing organization. But if I can make half the money of a doctor or lawyer without all the hassle, then why bother?
Edit: why the heck am I being downvoted? I'm literally just explaining what I assumed the GP was referring to.
It's possible to be a liberal and be less than 100% on board with defining everything in terms of intersectional oppression. It's possible to be a liberal, and still think the left has gone too far. It's possible to be a liberal and think that people should only be punished for actions, not beliefs. And I believe that the people standing up at Facebook are, by any standard outside of San Francisco, liberals.
They aren't. At least, not any more than previously when they mostly also weren't.
I'm a liberal and I'd join this group in a heartbeat.
I have no issues being friends with right wing people, even if they're more extreme. I just don't very often discuss politics with them, but we hang out a lot.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1913/06/the-neg...
If anything I'd say the organized actions by googlers against military contracts shows the actions you seem to be looking for much better.
They are imposing their beliefs about diet on employees. It's full blown coercion. Some companies are taking the activism a bit too far.
I like this example because it's fairly odd/unique enough to be jarring. I don't think companies need to act compleatly apolically, but it is a fine line to walk.
I find it hard to really generalize my own feelings on the issue without simply choosing my own politics.
Correct. But sometimes these things can bump into protected classes. Like if someone has a medical disability that would require them to eat enough of a certain thing. You can't punish them then
The arguments I've heard usually talk about how companies often don't pay for alcohol (which I think is also ridiculous, if I'm travelling for work I will be stressed and could use a nice drink to relax after the day). The flaw is firstly that food is required to live, and also just because some company doesn't have to provide for $ITEM doesn't mean it's not a nice thing to do for your employees.
Try and flip your example around - say you were vegan and had to travel for work to a small town without any vegan options. Would you expect that your company would ship you food to fill the gap or would you just buy some groceries yourself and figure it out?
I am posting this anonymously as well. While I don't work at FB, I work at a 'hot tech startup', and cannot risk being 'outed' as a conservative. I would categorize my views as 'slightly right of center', very moderate, but it seems like anything not agreeing with Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders' socialism is equal to being called a 'nazi' in our industry.
I feel very sad about this state of affairs, and I applaud Mr. Amerige for his bravery to do this. I applaud everyone who chose to publicly join him in this effort, putting their careers and livelihoods at danger, risking never being employed in Silicon Valley again.
* As much as I enjoy forwarding and debating my own political ideas in settings where I think there's an opportunity, I've never considered work a primary venue for this, and the premise that political diversity should be a priority for a business is one that doesn't seem to have any kind of supporting argument. Companies exist to organize an economic activity. Other activity is incidental. Ideally your employment status is not affected by outside expressions. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you expect to accomplish internally. Especially if the gestalt is different.
* If Mr. Amerige is a fan of Rand, perhaps he should consider that those who own FB would, under Rand's philosophy, apparently be quite entitled to do whatever the hell they feel like with the company, obligate employees to take whatever position they like or leave.
* I've spent time arguing center-to-somewhat-conservative views on liberal websites like Metafilter. I've spent time forwarding nuanced religious or rationalist points in congregations of believing Mormons. I lean center left among family and friends who often lean pretty right. I know exactly what it's like to have to make a case in front of an audience that's not at all sympathetic to your point of view. Yep, sometimes it's super frustrating. I'm not seeing any discussion of particular consequences at Facebook, though, so it's impossible to tell if Amerige and any who agree with him are facing anything more difficult than the near inescapable social accountability for expressing a view where the stakes are a loss of some respect and gaining a bit of baseline hostility/distrust. And my experience is that even if it's an uphill battle, if you're patient and your position is genuinely well thought-out, it's often possible to make some measure of persuasion to people who you're giving both a reason to like you and a reason to think about what you're saying.
I don't see the need to debate political ideas at work, either, but if work claims to offer an all-ideas-welcome forum, then it should actually be that. My observation is that liberals tend to talk loudly about "tolerance" but are pretty intolerant of ideas they don't like. Not that conservatives are necessarily less intolerant, they just don't go around claiming to be tolerant. Authentic intolerance, if you will.
The tolerance paradox comes up a lot, but I don't think it's that hard to decode, really. Nobody has universal "tolerance" -- everyone has things they consider intolerable if they have values at all. Characterizing someone as intolerant is essentially a somewhat pejorative way of saying that you've found a boundary value for them and you don't think it's drawn in the right place because it trespasses on some liberty you think you or someone else should have. How defensible that is depends partly on the strength of the case for the value and partly on whether any observing jurors share your temperament.
And I think tolerance happens on different axes. For some people, tolerance means allowing space for all kinds in society. For some it means maximal ability to live as you choose. For some it means a free expression of ideas.
Whatever you call people who value one or more of these things (conservative, liberal, progressive), if someone trammels in action or expression on any of those values, it's not terribly surprising they might face some hostility rather than conversational/social tolerance because they're challenging a value of tolerance.
When conservatives accuse left-leaners of intolerance, what I usually observe is that a conservative has forwarded some sort of idea under which space for all kinds in society or certain bands of acceptable behavior are limited, and then they're surprised that they face hostility and dismayed that they can't even say whatever they like without social consequences.
It's tempting to put conservatives as champions as speech at this point based on the fact that left-leaners see some ideas as not just points of debate/exploration but as attacks on values (which they do)... but of course there's plenty of ideas conservatives don't like to the point they'll engage with similar or greater hostility (see: kneeling during the national anthem). I think very few people are fully tolerant of any idea, and many of those who are probably have been in a fortunate position in life where ideas rarely have concrete consequences for them.
Your point about the values Facebook claims is well-taken, of course. This discussion arguably takes on a different aspect to the extent that Facebook tries to be quite liberal in its approach to speech and ideas. If that were to apply internally, if it were to take the shape of a policy where employees could openly discuss politics without fear of affecting their employment status, that'd be quite remarkable considering how incidental at best (and more likely friction-inducing) that is to the activity of most companies. Perhaps FB claims it as an ideal without a whole lot of care about how it actually plays out, perhaps it's just a PR move, or perhaps they genuinely consider it as important. But even if they do... there's simply no way to guard against diminished respect among co-workers if you're fond of Ayn Rand and they've assessed her and found her severely lacking, and little way to eliminate consequent individual hostility.
Is there any evidence that Mr. Amerige or others he holds solidarity with have faced anything else?
That makes no sense. It would be against the company's interest to do that for many reasons.
In this case, though, it doesn't have to make sense to you, or anyone else, anymore than dynamiting a building based on plans that you made but found unacceptably altered has to make sense to anyone but a fictional jury. It just has to fit the preferences and power-reach of anyone who has authority over a given individual in the company, assuming that individual cares about their employment status.
People whose ideas are on the wrong side of ethical will often say this sort of thing- as though the two things, a person's character and their ideas, are somehow not connected. I'm not sure where they get the idea that the ideas they support indicate a lot about their character, and they will be judged accordingly.
>Your colleagues are afraid because they know that they — not their ideas — will be attacked. They know that all the talk of “openness to different perspectives” does not apply to causes of “social justice,” immigration, “diversity”, and “equality.” On this issues, you can either keep quiet or sacrifice your reputation and career.
You shouldn't be called a racist because you think that the US should work to ensure no one crosses our southern border without permission.
I would ask anyone who believes that the US should work to to control entry at the southern border to question why they believe this is an important thing to focus on. What is the root of that belief? Why should the US be exclusive? What benefit do you derive from keeping it exclusive, and why is the accident of your birth somehow firmer ground of entitlement to citizenship than any other abstract concept?
Perhaps they are not "a racist" but I strongly believe that the desire to control the border is deeply rooted in racism in America, and anyone having this discussion needs to be willing to consider the basis for their ideas.
Unless you've got an objective meter to say which side is the "good" and which is the "bad" (and which will be so 50 years from now), be very careful about allowing people to shut down the other side.
I somewhat agree with you that the character of a person can be inferred by the ideals they claim to hold. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, given the context of the worldview held by the speaker, you can infer positions that person might take on other issues of the day.
Understanding the worldview of the speaker is incredibly important when making character calls. I've found that people will attempt to reveal their character to you in subtle ways, often in an attempt to see what positions you claim to hold in response. The ideals they claim to hold often mean very different things for their character depending on their worldview.
Example: I've found that when interacting with people who have grown up in black culture, when they make a statement against the ownership of guns, they're actually signaling to you that they don't believe in the unjust use of violence. In white culture, revealing a pro-gun stance says more about their belief in the role of the individual in relation to the government. Confusing one for the other will result in a very unproductive conversation.
People tend to interpret other's words outside of the context of the speaker's actual worldview. My understanding is that this is the problem that 'attacking the person's ideas, rather than their character' tries to solve.
Full disclaimer, I grew up in a very conservative circle(The kind that didn't vote for, and generally has a strong distaste for Trump), and as a result I have a very good understanding for how their ideas tend to be generated. I can say with confidence that many of these people have outstanding moral character, but would also be condemned by those in more liberal circles.(Granted, the conservatives I know are absolutely guilty of the reverse)
So many of my colleagues (at a big tech co) have expressed various conservative views. Granted, I live in NYC, but this feels a bit like you're experiencing confirmation bias.
I've never heard any such officially expressed views or political rants from coworkers expressing right-leaning views.
Just a data point but I suspect it's not an uncommon one.
I can't claim to speak for conservatives, but I can totally understand why they would stay silent given the atmosphere. See the reply to my other comment, where a HN poster straight up says they would fire any employees that support Trump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864280
If the linked commenter were to say nobody would express their conservative views to them, that wouldn't surprise me.
However, it seems like you'd be a bit more sympathetic (than the linked commenter). I've found a number of colleagues from red states who supported/support Trump (often for reasons posted in Altman's article about crossing the aisle - single issue voters etc).
Lots of conservatives on Wall Street, too (many leave for big tech cos after a few years).
Finally, I see a bunch of tech-libertarians, which is sort of a hybrid of some conservative financial ideas and some progressive social ideas.
"In polite company, it’s not proper to talk about sex, religion, or politics"
No matter what you have to say on those topics, you'll step on someone's toes. There's really no good reason to talk about it at work unless you're in a brothel, church, or a capital building.
Isn't it simpler for everyone to behave like respectful adults even when you fundamentally disagree than making a blanket rule to only ever discuss non sensible subjects?
Despite that, France routinely sees a lot of remarkably aggressive political activism - farmers dumping manure on roads, the incident with the fishermen pelting the boat with rocks a few days ago, huge quantities of striking and so on.
I don't think there's anything special about France that makes French people able to discuss politics in a more civilised way. If France were to see significant change in politics the discussions would stop being 'adult' very quickly. For example if you had a referendum and France voted to leave the EU, "Frexit" would rapidly turn into a much more heated topic than it is even in the UK, I bet. It's all about the stakes.
This is such a clear mirror for what Facebook is going through itself. As a company it never stood for anything except for growth and engagement at all costs. When leadership doesn't stand for anything, it invites others to try to guide culture.
If Zuckerberg had come out to say either the product or the company's culture stands for something, it would put this all to rest...but he won't, because growth and engagement at all costs.
But it was really disturbing that it was a coordinated move by all the major social platforms at once. Wow. It's shocking that they would cooperate with eachother on those decisions.
Secondarily, it undermines the idea that they can leave all kinds of bad stuff on their network (libel, etc.) and pretend like they aren't the publisher. They really want to have it both ways.
That's his claim, but the reality is that (1) he violated hate speech policies on several platforms at around the same time, and (2) he's happily tweeting his usual garbage on Twitter as I type this.
It's like an angry drunk complaining that all the bars he's banned from are coordinating to ban him. It's like, no, you were an angry drunk separately at all of them.
In contrast, something like a machine shop (random example) won't be politicised much if at all, because the work doesn't revolve around making political decisions.
During machine down time I've heard some of the most radical Stalinist politics coming from people who you would think are only interested in football and beer while trying to fix the lathe for an order that's due in 3 hours. By the same token I've heard some of the most extreme fascist views too.
What a controversy.
Think about that for a second. Other employees were so outraged by a tiny handful of their colleagues banding together to express mildly conservative views that they lied to the company about the content in this group in an attempt to eradicate them from existence. That is the opposite of tolerance, and it is reveals a toxic underbelly at a disturbingly powerful company. Everyone, regardless of political affiliation, should be concerned by that.
Look at the product and the mission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1957
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1991
Guess what, corporations are also intolerant of drug use and other activities that many Americans perform but are none-the-less ILLEGAL.
That stereotype is the problem. Lots of people on the right have nothing against women's rights, lgbt rights, black rights etc, but still gets treated as if were against those things just for expressing unrelated conservative talking points.
Can someone remove this so we can move on and continue with rational discussions? Please? :)
For this population, they see their own views as normal and the center. While from the outside conservatives think it's far left of center, the "dozens" of employees who don't feel this way are the outliers. There are "dozens" of employees who feel FB's culture isn't liberal enough. With an employee base of tens of thousands you are going to have disagreements in philosophy, but Facebook does nothing to hide the company culture in it's hiring practice. There is no bait and switch going on. Other voices are heard, but if you have a minority viewpoint you shouldn't expect the world to pivot around what you think is right.
A person B1 can have a moral compass that people should be treated as they treat others. In which case person B1 may be totally fine being discriminatory/intolerant toward A1 because of A1's intolerant/discriminatory behaviour. Person B1 will be total toleralant towards others and will be considered a tolerant person".
Now is person C1 preaching intolerance/discrimination? Perhaps not, as Person C1 is preaching "treat others as you want to be treated" and may lead to "intolerance toward intolerance only".
Maybe there are logical flaws in the above argument as most spiritual people will not preach intolerance towards even A1. However I assume the spiritual person will not hesitate to point out to A1 about "treat others as you want to be treated".
However if A2 is preaching equality and having a different view on say some other topic and faces discrimination, then people who discriminate should be ready to face "discrimination".
One thing that people are making mistake is if A2 and A1 are similar on many views and even if A2 disagrees with A1 on "equality", A2 gets clubbed with A1 and start being discriminated like A1.
Being ring wing doesn't mean you're intolerant:
- no general free healthcare, only private for people that work
- lower taxes for everyone
- no gender or racial quotas in hiring or entry at university (against positive discrimination)
- no free trade agreements with other countries
- no aid to poorer countries
- close the boders to immigrants
- no refugees
How is any of this discriminating or intolerant? I see it as a different opinion. And I am a liberal, immigrant myself and don't agree with those political statements
However if someone says that certain people are more capable because of their gender will you call it discriminatory? (I would think it is).
however, it is not discrimination if someone is against favouring a certain gender in hiring to achieve a gender balanced workforce. that's just his opinion and should be able to say it without repercussions.
Without these specifics, it's hard to understand the problem.
I’m a hiring manager, but I don’t work in HR. I follow HR guidelines and ask relevant policy questions. Nothing more. I don’t express an opinion about our hiring practices around diversity.
>moderation/curation of news feeds
The article doesn’t say that all these individuals raising the issue work on one feature. That would be a relevant detail. My reading of this piece suggests that a swathe of individuals don’t like company culture — the bits that bind employees above the work itself - and that’s the part I can’t grasp. I work at a Fortune 50 company and I have no idea the political or religious affiliations of my coworkers. I could guess, but don’t want to.
I just don’t see how a company culture can have an impactful political bias to people who mind their own business. The article doesn’t specify any specific instance, so I can’t form an opinion on the validity of their claims.
Then they wonder why nobody wants to get lunch with them.
Remember when HN was tech stuff? Now it's:
manfredo 16 minutes ago
The following views were listed on the memo:
* Support of President Trump (e.g. This and Palmer Lucky's campaign contributions)
* "All lives matter"
* Criticism of Islam's human rights record.
* Calling the company's art politically radical .
Which, if any, of these views don't deserve respect?
reply
brainkim 9 minutes ago |
The first three are deeply problematic and rooted in deep-seated white supremacist beliefs and were it up to me
I would fire anyone who held those views.
Sorry, that’s just how I have to feel these given everything that’s been going on these days.
Am I crazy, and the world has just moved on to be horrible?
The other factor is that society has been repolarizing ideologically. That's a massive macro trend and HN, alas, is not immune from those.
We're probably in for rougher waters, which is why we're trying to set down stronger markers about what's unacceptable here. The idea of HN has always been that a place for substantive, thoughtful discussion on the internet is probably doomed, but let's try to survive as long as we can. We'll do our best, but Cnut cannot command the waves to stop.
To call these comments "inquisition level", and potentially ignorant of the catastrophic history of suppressing dissenting opinions, is a pretty wild attack based on what they said. Your hyperbole seems far more damaging and dismissive than their comments.
Regarding "All Lives Matter", there was indeed inquisition-level blowback. I vacillated between abhorrence, anguish, and rage as I watched the drama unfold.
For context: I was a Facebook employee at the time, and although I tend toward liberal ideals (despite a very conservative upbringing), I was appalled at the level of intolerance toward conservative views. Though I could not in good conscience vote for Trump (nor even throw away my vote on a third-party candidate), I continue to respect other humans who voted for Trump. That felt like a dangerous view to espouse as a Facebook employee, and I saw other employees behave with unease regarding their personal political views. Intolerance is dangerous all around, and in my opinion Facebook's internal politics have fallen (mostly unwittingly) into the trap of "not tolerating intolerance", using a liberal (pun intended) -- IMO overly broad -- definition of intolerance.
I ended up stating on most of my posts that I didn't like Trump and didn't want him to win but
- just tried to come up with an explanation for why so many others voted for him
- or tried to point out that the rules that allowed him to win had allowed democrats to win before
- etc
I still received loads of downvotes (I'd see my points rising and then falling sharply, seemingly when some part of the word woke up.)
All in all I came out positive wrt useless points but I still wondered about it.
And BTW: I still really don't like that man.
The things that scare ME are:
A. Some people seem to be practically unable to engage with dissenting opinions without claiming to have been "shouted down".
B. There seems to be less disagreement about the how to achieve what's right (i.e. we both agree on what's right, but disagree on how to get there), which can realistically be argued about in good faith, and more disagreement about what's right in the first place (e.g. person X thinks gay marriage, abortion, etc should be legally prohibited, and person Y does not), about which good-faith arguments are vanishingly rare for perhaps unavoidable reasons.
That only holds if you're willing to perform enough mental gymnastics to somehow transmogrify the gulags, mass graves, firing squads and famines that the USSR, Mao Zedong, Cuba, Pol Pot, etc. employed to deal with dissenters into features of right wing governance.
Or just pretend these things don't count...
Ultimately I don't care, I don't have a horse in the race of keeping HN a safe, civilized, good-faith neutral space for conversation. It just means this sort of dialogue has to be moved elsewhere. I'm happy to talk purely tech, but politics seeps into everything these days, so it's hard to avoid.
Lol I got fired for making a joke after-hours over beers to a guy that wasn't politically aligned. It's wild. To mess with someones livlihood because of a political opinion.
In terms of economics and power, the rich have gotten richer, the republicans have gotten ruthlessly more fundamentalist. Reagan raised taxes. Nixon proposed universal healthcare. Obamacare/Romneycare was originally a Heritage foundation "we wish" policy document. Trump has added a trillion dollars to the deficit for a tax cut, without a peep from the "deficit hawk"s.
1. Believing in the near-absolute protection of free speech, even that which I find repugnant.
2. Acknowledging that sex differences are less than 100% culturally determined.
I'd argue that if you're working for Facebook you're kind of superficially liberal to begin with. Zuckerberg is only liberal until he has to worry about his bank account.
Also...Oculus' Head of Computer Vision was busted in an underage prostitution ring after all the Palmer non-sense. Yay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_(song)
>The name of the eponymous character has given rise to a slang term online which refers to overzealous, maniacal, overly obsessed fans of a celebrity or personality; the term has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary.
TBH if you visit them enough to get the paywall, then you probably ought to just pony up the reasonable monthly subscription fee.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/201-facebook-politic...
You ask this question, then answer it in your very next line. People don't respect everyone. They are intolerant.
Ideological flamewars are stupid, even if the people contributing to them are smart. They're also repetitive, which makes them off topic here. So could you please not post like this again to HN?
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864365 and marked it off-topic.
I have read countless articles and posts at this point claiming that "America doesn't care about black bodies" and that black people in America should "fear for their lives every day," all in regards to the perceived danger of police shootings. In that example, despite this perception by not only those populations themselves, but a large majority of the population at large, the facts are that 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem.
I actually think that this is a central theme to many of these discussions, where one population is claiming that there is a substantial disadvantage to having a certain characteristic, whereas the counter states that there is either no such disadvantage, or its magnitude is misrepresented.
In any event, I think that there is often merit to both cases, and I think what you're seeing with the Facebook group here is simply a response to the growing perception that the conversation has become increasingly one-sided in the large SV corporations. Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense. That's not okay.
It's easy to hand-wave other's hardships away when one doesn't experience them first-hand, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
When -those- are your daily experiences with the police, the fact that non-violent, un-resisting black males are killed by the police without repercussion in your city (see: Eric Garner) is terrifying, even if the absolute risk of your being shot by an officer is low.
When you are legally barred from say, having power of attorney when your loved one of decades is on their deathbed, or, say, unable to find a landlord that will rent to you, because some asshole politicians fought on behalf of their asshole constituents against your right to do so simply because you do not conform to the idea they project onto their god as holding as to what constitutes a "proper" family unit, politics very much happens to you.
Per 2016 US Census [1]:
> Black or African American = 40,241,818 (12.6%)
If you really believe that under-represented minorities are not at a major disadvantage in our society, facing multiple layers of explicit and implicit discrimination against them, then, in my opinion, you're part of the problem.
> the lack of female representation in tech...
Likewise, if you took the pseudo-science [3] by disgruntled engineers for granted, and believe that the lack of female representation in tech is due to some ridiculous genetic predisposition, ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes, on top of open sexual and moral harassment, then you're part of the reason for the divide. It's exactly this kind of thinking that creates gender stereotyping and legitimizes the systemic sexism in our industry.
If you're interested in understanding more about the true root causes of our gender disparity, a good initial read is "Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley", by the amazing Emily Chang [4]. No pseudo-science required.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demography_of_the...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
[3] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-me...
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Brotopia-Breaking-Boys-Silicon-Valley...
> 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem.
Perception doesn't make a political experience any less valid. You don't have to have lived a traumatic experience to be afraid of it, and the records of bad encounters with police from black people are plenty even though they aren't counted in your stats. It is of course the same with women and sexual assault etc. I suggest you listen to the stories of people around you as they probably have many to tell, and if they don't, here is a very good read that someone posted here on HN: https://lithub.com/walking-while-black/
>Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense.
I don't believe that was the fireable offense, although the statement itself is no less ludicrous. If I remember well, the letter made a clear distinction between the abstract wishy-washy evopsych stuff and the clear implication that Google's current diversity policies were lowering the bar for hiring and thus that his female colleagues were less capable than average.
Being shot by a police officer is a symptom of the disease, but you can see the effects on a daily basis if you take time to notice.
[1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/1...
Why do you think that your opinions about other people's feelings and experiences are more valid that their actual experiences?
(When answering, please be aware that that your statistic about police killings does not single-handedly invalidate black Americans' daily experience of racism and discrimination.)
Non-Marxist: Is <objectively true statement> true? Marxist: No. <objectively true statement> was/is/will be used against my political tribe, therefore it is false. Non-Marxist: Well, can it just be "technically" true in this narrow case if we ignore the greater context? Marxist: I don't understand what you're talking about. Non-Marxist: Can anything be both true and politically inconvenient? Marxist: What a stupid question. Of course not!
It's a wonder how so many of these people get into tech. How can you study science if your ideology invalidates Newtonian mechanics because it was invented to help England bombard natives?
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864571 and marked it off-topic.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/19/at-least-during-the-int...
So maybe the lesson to be learned is not the one you think?
That aside, we really need to figure out as a society how to fix a few notions. 1) You have some sort of right to not be offended. 2) You must get outraged at anything you disagree with.
There once was a time when two people with different ideas could be in the same room as each other. But long are those days. Now we live in a time where simply having your name printed next to somebody's name who made a joke you were offended by calls for public outrage and immediate removal of the offending persons name from said list.
Things are in a very bad way...
From the article:
>This month, the social network barred the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, a move that critics seized on as further evidence that the company harbors an anti-conservative bias.
Banning someone like Alex Jones is not an anti-conservative bias. It is an anti-asshole bias. No one is going to ban you for discussing tax policy.
If Facebook has the right to set up their workplace such that mainstream right-of-center views are excluded, then other companies have the right to set up their workplaces such that mainstream left-of-center views get excluded, too. IMO, it's far better to cut as much of the political BS as possible so that the greatest number of folks can get along and work together - this is why a lot of workplaces have a professional norm against talking politics in general.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
For example, is economic inequality primarily natural or due to injustices? these things don’t have knowable answers - with current technology.
* Support of President Trump (e.g. Thiel's and Palmer Lucky's campaign contributions)
* "All lives matter"
* Criticism of Islam's human rights record.
* Calling the company's art politically radical .
Which, if any, of these views don't deserve respect?
If they resist cooperating with that designation, despite their monopoly, then we must regulate them.
Split off Instagram and WhatsApp from the core Facebook platform as an anti-trust action. At a minimum legally mandate that all monopolist platforms must equally enforce all of their terms of service for all users and must do so in a publicly verifiable manner. If they fail at that task, drown them in fines until they go bankrupt or stop selectively punishing some groups while allowing others to do the exact same things without punishment. Ideally, regulate Facebook and all such monopolist platforms that deal with speech as a form of public square.
I dislike Roy Moore and his politics. That doesn't mean I think it's ok for all the car companies to conspire together as a group monopoly and deny Moore the ability to purchase a new vehicle to punish him. Or that it's ok for the couple of telecom monopolies to get together and deny him access to the phone networks.
Denying voices access to the public square - Facebook's social monopoly - is equally reprehensible. The most important speech we protect, is the speech of the ugly minority, which is what both the far left and far right often represent.
I don't like seeing Antifa clad in black body armor, marching around with Soviet flags urging the adoption of Communism and the overthrow of the US Government. I similarly don't like to see it on Facebook. I fundamentally disagree with them. We should protect their right to that speech and their right to have access to Facebook's monopoly platform.
For what it's worth, my current employer has easily the most diverse tech workforce in terms of gender and race but it's also easily the most monocultural company one I've worked at.
That's a massive oversimplification:
* Ireland only recently legalized abortion, which has been legal in the United States since 1972. The legal status of abortion in the United States is in some ways far more liberal than in many European countries, and in other ways less.
* American courts have routinely protected levels of civil liberties that are beyond those recognized anywhere in the EU.
* Unlike some EU countries, the United States neither has a state-established religion, nor regulates or prohibits the public exercise of religion.
* The United States has stricter corporate regulations and higher corporate taxes than many EU countries. The right-wing Heritage Foundation's "Index of Economic Freedom" ranks the United States 18th, below Switzerland, Ireland, Estonia, the UK, Iceland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, and the Netherlands. According to actual American conservatives, countries following the famed "Nordic Model" are in fact, even more capitalist than the United States!