I agree wholeheartedly that there is nothing wrong with valuing evidence-based judgements and due process. But that is not what I was ranting against. Conflating the trope of immediately jumping to a concern about false accusations while ignoring victims with "valuing evidence-based judgements and due process" is, however, a pretty good example of what I am bothered by.
I think the real thought experiment is: Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations, without paying any heed for the victims?
I think the answer might be, most of us here have never had to worry about being harassed at work. Most of us here don't know what it's like to be worried for our safety -- psychological or sexual -- at work. Most of us don't know what it's like to be subjected to a constant stream of microagressions from coworkers. So most of us can't imagine what many minorities in tech go through on a daily basis. That's just because most of us fit in.
What all of us can imagine is being falsely accused of doing something bad. And so since that's what we can imagine without effort, that's what we talk about, and worry about. Availability bias.
Falling prey to the availability bias doesn't make you a bad person. But you can learn to be better.
What makes you think they don't care about victims? My loved ones and I volunteer a lot in this area.
> Why would so many of the HN comments jump to worrying about the false accusations...
There are personal (verbal, emotional abuse) and social (bullying) forms of abuse that hinge on slander, lies, and manipulation to punish people or to otherwise assert power. Wanting to make sure that is not an issue is wanting to protect people.
I guess we could argue about which kinds of innocent people are worth protecting, but I'm not really interested in getting into that business.
There aren't many specifics being posted here about particular stories, but there mostly seems to be consensus that egregious behavior requires at least immediate dismissal and that less cut-and-dry incidents require some sort of correction. There also seems to be agreement that better awareness of poor behavior is a good thing.
There just doesn't seem to be consensus that anonymous posts sent out by anonymous curators is the best way to go about this. That doesn't mean some people are indifferent to awful things. They're just wary that the tools we use to help people don't end up hurting others.
> What makes you think they don't care about victims?
I never said that anyone does or doesn't care about anyone else.
I said that the words written here on HN focused on the spectre of false accusations, rather than on the victims of harassment, abuse, and worse. I also said that this is a common, much-discussed failure mode, and that we should know better.
> There are personal (verbal, emotional abuse) and social (bullying) forms of abuse that hinge on slander, lies, and manipulation to punish people or to otherwise assert power. Wanting to make sure that is not an issue is wanting to protect people.
Right.
But in this particular instance, we're talking about wanting to protect people from those they're harassing. This list is very clearly not being used to bully anyone, and part of my objection is with the kneejerk assumption that this must be what's going on, and that privileged white men aren't getting sufficient protection in their workplace.
What I am saying is, rather than restricting our consideration to fringy concerns of how this list might harm white men (it doesn't), we should also (not even exclusively! -- just also) consider how it affects everyone else.
[edited for formatting]
you're connecting two points that are not naturally connected. caring about false accusations does not exclude caring about victims.
additionally, some awareness of the current political climate is necessary for this discussion. false accusations have been weaponized in other contexts.
I really think you are missing my point, sadly.
> This trope of jumping immediately to the problem of false accusations is sadly common in discussions e.g. of rape reporting. Yes, some reports of rape (and harassment) are untrue. The vast majority aren't. Jumping so quickly, as many comments here have, to considering effects of fake reports is wildly disrespectful of the (largely female, and thus underrepresented here and at places like Google) victims, and is part of the reason that rape and sexual assault go underreported.
a victim of a crime should make a criminal complaint, and if he or she doesn't, then we should attempt to discover the reasons why not.
however, anonymously accusing people of misconduct does absolutely nothing to assist those who have been wronged. it has significant potential for harm and creates a chilling effect and a culture of paranoia.
what is the supposed benefit of anonymous accusations? is this intended to mitigate against future misconduct? why do you suppose it will accomplish that? my intuition on this is that those who are legitimately abusive will continue to be abusive (because they are already insensitive and not caring about how their actions impact others) and those that are only accidentally committing transgressions will now be subjected to ostracism because they could not adequately predict how their actions made in good faith will be perceived by others.
additionally, let's consider the principles of due process and justice described in the U.S. constitution. the right to face your accuser. the right to expedient arbitration. the right to representation. the right to defend yourself without being presumed guilty. all of these principles of justice are lost with an anonymous accusation mailing list.
This system does not facilitate accusations of any kind, because it is anonymous to all parties involved.
I've repeated this a number of times, but people are not hearing it. This is exactly my point, that people here are fixating on the non-problem of false accusations instead of the real problem of microaggressions, macroaggressions, and harassment proper in the workplace.
> a victim of a crime should make a criminal complaint, and if he or she doesn't, then we should attempt to discover the reasons why not.
Not everything bad that people do to one another rises to the level of criminal misconduct. And not every victim of a crime wishes to confront their perpetrator in the court of law. Part of the point of this list is to raise awareness of stuff which does not go through the courts, but which is nonetheless bad.
> however, anonymously accusing people of misconduct does absolutely nothing to assist those who have been wronged. it has significant potential for harm and creates a chilling effect and a culture of paranoia.
Nobody is accusing anybody of anything.
People are relating stories. "This happened to me." That is not an accusation. The only victims here are the people relating the stories.
If the "paranoia" effected is that more white dudes start considering how the things they say and might affect people who are not white dudes and think twice before doing or saying things that might hurt another person, then I think that's working as intended.
> what is the supposed benefit of anonymous accusations? is this intended to mitigate against future misconduct?
That is one purpose to the list, yes.
> why do you suppose it will accomplish that?
By raising awareness, as TFA and I have said multiple times now.
> my intuition on this is that those who are legitimately abusive will continue to be abusive (because they are already insensitive and not caring about how their actions impact others) and those that are only accidentally committing transgressions will now be subjected to ostracism because they could not adequately predict how their actions made in good faith will be perceived by others.
Nobody is being publicly accused of anything, as has been said multiple times in this thread.
Those accidentally committing transgressions -- either called out or not in the newsletter -- may now be made aware that they are doing something bad. Through this mailing list, I personally have learned of whole classes of things that are hurtful to people, that I just didn't realize before. That makes me a better, more considerate person.
> additionally, let's consider the principles of due process and justice described in the U.S. constitution. the right to face your accuser. the right to expedient arbitration. the right to representation. the right to defend yourself without being presumed guilty. all of these principles of justice are lost with an anonymous accusation mailing list.
Those are all rights that you have when the government accuses you of something.
Those are not rights that you have when another person accuses you of something.
But, one more time: Nobody is being accused of anything via this list.
Notice how many times above you assume that's not the case and that people are being falsely and publicly named and shamed, despite this having been made clear multiple times in thread? Notice how few times you have considered why people might be posting to this list? This is exactly what I am talking about.
This thread was a great opportunity to talk about harassment in the workplace. Instead it's turned into a bunch of people complaining about something that is not happening, but is bad because it might hypothetically hurt privileged white men.
Give it a break, everyone. White men are doing just fine at Google. We are not the victims here.
I agree with you but please don't single out us "white dudes", we can be victims of harassment and discrimination as well and we benefit from the yes@google list as well as anybody else.
I find considerable irony in this assertion considering we're talking about Google here. If any organization should know about the emptiness of promises of anonymity it's Google.
> Nobody is being publicly accused of anything, as has been said multiple times in this thread.
they are, actually. they're being accused anonymously, but that is cold comfort because anonymity in an organization and social setting like that one is a false promise. the ease by which candid identities can be discovered and correlated makes this a deep flaw if you mean to use it as a defense against potential abuse of the list.
> Those are all rights that you have when the government accuses you of something. Those are not rights that you have when another person accuses you of something.
this seems like deliberate misinterpretation of my point. I presented the principles of due process in the U.S. justice system as a model for how to manage disputes in other systems as well. I'm not making a legalistic argument I'm making an ethical argument. I believe those principles establish solid ethics for handling disputes, and are just as well suited for interactions between individuals they are for interactions between the state and an individual.
> Give it a break, everyone. White men are doing just fine at Google. We are not the victims here.
Not the point. The point is that the slippery slope to truly bad outcomes begins with well intentioned systems like this one.
So, you're assumption is that the 15,000 engineers who are subscribed (including multiple people in this thread), are incapable of determining whether or not the list is actually anonymous? Its a google internal list, how do you think people submit things? Your argument seems to boil down to "these 15000 people don't actually know what's good for them", and I find that (as a subscriber) incredibly infantilizing.
>they are, actually. they're being accused anonymously, but that is cold comfort because anonymity in an organization and social setting like that one is a false promise.
That's not what an accusation is. "Someone did something that made me feel uncomfortable" does not accuse anyone of anything.
>the ease by which candid identities can be discovered and correlated makes this a deep flaw if you mean to use it as a defense against potential abuse of the list.
You don't think the list curators thought of that? C'mon.
>I presented the principles of due process in the U.S. justice system as a model for how to manage disputes in other systems as well.
Which are irrelevant. Half of those things don't apply in civil cases, much less a company's HR process, much less something that isn't a disciplinary tool. But if we're going to use the constitution as a point of argument, it also prohibits restrictions on speech so if Google as a company intends to uphold the constitution, it shouldn't restrict its employees right to speak to each other about anything, including complaints about perceived sleights.
Once again: comparing this list to any kind of disciplinary tool or group is misleading and conveys a misunderstanding of the list and Google.
If management wanted to find out who posted what on yag, it would have no problem doing so.
think carefully before you answer. officially designated authority is not necessary for a thing to be impactful.
I only wish you'd express and weigh equally a concern for the well-being of women and minorities in tech, who are disproportionately the victims of harassment.
I only wish you'd express and weigh equally a concern for the well-being of those who might be anonymously accused of harassment without evidence or opportunity to defend themselves.
-----
Does it sound better turned around? If not, why not? What are you attempting to communicate, and how might you state it more clearly?
To my knowledge, as I have said a dozen times in this thread, that is not happening. Nobody here can point to a single instance of that happening as a result of this email list. All anyone has offered is an entirely hypothetical slippery-slope potential.
We know that people are being harassed in our workplaces all the time. That's a real problem, which is why I am concerned about it.
You keep equating these two issues -- harassment and false accusations -- like they're both big problems that we need to worry about equally. I have zero evidence that this is true, and tons of evidence that it's not.
But no matter. Thank you for clarifying your perspective. I understand, appreciate, and empathize with it. After all, here before us is a clear, real, known problem that hurts the vulnerable and weak among us. Why would we worry about what else could go wrong, when we know for certain that women and minorities are being hurt?
While we're doing thought exercises, let's also step back and consider why someone would value things like evidence-based judgments and due process. Someone could just value justice and fairness, including channels for recourse when legitimate incidents of slander (or honest misunderstandings!) arise.
There's nothing wrong, ignorant, or shameful about that perspective. In fact, we should embrace these perspectives in a diverse work culture.