Microsoft's Hypocrisy on DACA | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft's Hypocrisy on DACA

idlewords.com

46 pointsfeross17 comments

The article looks like BS. The main source is this link:

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?data_type=processed&commi...

According to that web site, quite a few other companies did the same, at the same day. Some even donated exactly same amount.

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?data_type=processed&commi...

I think it's either creative accounting, or donations matching. Probably in combination with lazy payments processing, e.g. all transactions from March are labelled "March 31"

You don't know what you're talking about, to be honest. If you're going to call me out on BS, then state your claim.

> If you're going to call me out on BS, then state your claim.

Sure. The title says “Microsoft's Hypocrisy on DACA”, and the article focuses on Microsoft.

Meanwhile, many other companies did the same: Facebook, Google, Motorola, Verizon, Home Depot, UPS, Accenture, GE, Comcast, Siemens, and many others.

You ignored the rest of them. You have cherry picked a single data point from a large publicly available database, and based your article around that.

May I ask why?

As Maciej --- who has probably spent more time studying this issue than perhaps anyone on HN --- has pointed out elsewhere, corporations are prohibited by law from donating directly to political campaigns, nor can they directly "match" donations to company PACs. Corporate PACs are separate funds managed by lobbyists working for the company, and funded exclusively through individual named contributions from employees. You don't need Maciej to tell you this: authoritative confirmation will be at the top of a simple Google search.

Companies have offered to "match" donations to their PACs by making contributions to charities, shifting employee discretionary donations to the company's PAC while offering the same net desired effect on the employee's preferred charity. But that obviously doesn't explain the phenomenon you're describing: the PAC itself still is and must remain employee-funded.

This seems pretty basic, leading me to wonder why it was you felt it would be reasonable to sum Maciej's analysis up as "BS".

Ok, so I’m seeing a lot of these (googles pac as well), can someone confirm whether these are deliberate donations by the company, or whether they’re corporate donation matching? (I don’t know whether the donation matching that tech companies do restricts contributions to political orgs)

Corporations can't match donations to political candidates.

While I don't like what Microsoft's PAC is doing, and I agree that probably many employees don't really know where exactly the money goes to (OTOH, I'm sure some employees explicitly agree with its political aims!), I also consider it harassment to contact others about their donations.

These are co-workers, for god's sake! The people going around pestering donators aren't some randos on Twitter that you just block. They are people you can reasonably expect to meet in an "official setting" later. They are people some of which you can reasonably expect to be higher up in the hierarchy.

HR is totally right to shut that down, hard.

The activists should do what Maciej is doing here: create publicity. And certainly not contact any of their co-workers directly.

From what I've read, Microsoft Corp. actually distances itself from its PAC. I've heard many times that employees aren't in line with the politics they are pushing. I'd be interested to hear more about how such a thing comes about.

Then why have the PAC at all?

I think the author is confused or biased. Corporations cannot use corporate funds to make donations to political candidates. That's why PACs exist; and they are entirely funded by employees.

I suspect that while a lot of its employees are left-leaning, (just like in the general population) there are some right-leaning as well, and the PAC cannot prevent those from making their donations to whomever they choose.

Microsoft doesn't donate any of its own money to anyone (they would be breaking the law if they did). Microsoft employees do.

I don't think you understand how a corporate PAC works. Employees pay in, and the money is allocated by a group of DC consultants chosen by company management.

What does an organization like MS gain when they “sue” the government like that? What can happen?

If they cared that much about helping people they would focus on open sourcing their OS and making progress to benefit society as a whole, not backroom deals for government contracts.

God, why are you people like that? Article about a social issue, immediately jump back to foss. Is that all the politics the audience of HN is interested in? I could make a remark about the dominating demographic in here right now, but i'll leave it at this metacommentary. You know who you are, "foss is the most important issue" people.

The problem with discussing politics here is that if you aren't on the right side of history (as determined by groupthink) then you very quickly find yourself shadowbanned or outright banned.

So don't expect a nuanced discussion of politics here.

I'll be honest. With that comment I expected to find something between alt-right and neoliberal shit in your comment history.

Positively surprised.

Also, they wouldn't funnel money to human rights antagonists, as per this fine article.

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