I think there's something to be said for listening to your customers and community. But how much of the pushback was from the community? Certainly the developer who yanked their code. And from what I've read the internal developers too.
But I think having to fear crowds of probably less than completely informed people generally lacking nuance is not something to be lauded.
Even for those that do think halting border crossings is bad, the consequences of making ICE change to a different IT solution is likely that ICE's bureaucracy is hampered and people detained at the border take longer to process and thus result in more hardship.
Thwarting ICE? Incredibly unlikely and impractical . Slowing ICE down? Probably.
If the objective is to gain some immediate press exposure for immigrants rights issues, it seems totally rational, and it appears to have achieved the goal.
If the objective is to improve conditions for immigrants in ICE/CBP custody in the near term, it's not clear it will help, and it could definitely have unintended negative consequences. For example, ERO agents under increased pressure due to IT systems going down may be less likely to offer DA on humanitarian grounds, if it's just easier and less paperwork to deport en masse. Maybe there's a strong rational argument to be made in favor, but average citizens don't have complete information or authority to investigate, so it really seems to boil down to more of a "gut instinct" decision.
If the objective is improvement in conditions for immigrants in the longer term, it might be rational if it's part of a persistent, steady application of pressure to reform ICE/CBP/ORR through a combination of protests, opening cases to trigger judicial oversight, and lobbying to achieve change through legislative processes. But it's unclear if this kind of boycott is particularly effective use of time/resources towards that goal.
nothing else works, people work with the tools they have at their disposition, and if companies don't have any morals when it comes to us (results driven approach no matter the consequences), why should we have any morals when dealing with companies? We're just playing at their own game, and getting good results, and there is nothing wrong with that, so keep on going as long as there are results.
My objections aren't to these specific actions. I'm trying to discuss the phenomena of very vocal outrage at a distance motivating company change. I specifically didn't mention my stance on the results because I don't want to be one of those people who supports the means only when it leads to results I like (e.g both Democrats and Republicans when it comes a President of their party overreaching their power to do something their party supports).
For the record, I am very pro-immigration and don't like the current Administration. That's part of why I have mixed feelings about the general approach.
The other reason I have mixed feelings is because corporations do need to be accountable, and currently the outrage mob seems to be the most effective, if very narrow tool for helping accomplish. But while I don't think it's the proper tool for that, I'm not really sure what else to try to replace it with.
> Your statement also completely disregards morality and ethics.
That's a fair point, my description was lacking. I think mobs also tend to act amorally and without regard for ethics. May they have reactions rooted in moral and ethical causes? Absolutely. I don't think often gets applied to their reactions though. I think in these situations, most people check their civility at the "keyboard" (door, getting online, etc).
The reaction here was relatively mild. There have been bigger, badder ones though, and while this doesn't really compare effect-wise, it is on the same spectrum, in my mind.
Do I want things to change? Absolutely. Do I want things to change just because a large number of people were informed of something through a random news article and poor handling of it? I'm not so sure.
Personally, I consider myself to be a Republican, but it seems fear and hatred has tainted my party. A great example would be to look at all the Republican presidential candidates for 2016 and watch how many opposed the current administration.
However, once they saw the voters following they were forced to do the same rather than demonstrate what a backbone is for.
Please give a counter example so we have evidence to back it up to the contrary.
"Why not?"
1) The first time
2) Later than that
They did the second. It’s sucks that it isn’t the first, and it sucks that they didn’t pick the right horse during the race up until this point. But they changed their mind, openly and in plainly spoken terms.
“Worked” doesn’t need a qualifier here. Their failure to implement #1 correctly, and their pivot to implement #2, will help them serve as a lesson to others.
No, I disagree. What they have done is literally the minimum amount of effort.
The right thing to do is not to "continue to do what we're doing, offering a passive promise to not get more money."
1. Insufficiently.
2. Sufficiently.
The question is on this aspect.
Disclaimer: I bid on federal gov projects. The work is fairly fungible.
Where does it end? Maybe next year Chef decides they don't like DEA. Or ATF. Or something else.
It is not noble to deny work with the US Government. It's inefficient, bureaucratic, and deeply flawed. But it does a powerful lot of good.
Let them pick the contract up. Hopefully they charge more, take longer to implement, and are generally worse.
No one is ever going to deprecate ICE because it’s too expensive. They’ll just pull the money from someplace like NASA (unfortunate reality, not a policy I endorse).
No one is going to deprecate ICE because it's too expensive, but they might do it due to extensive political pressure from all sectors. I'm okay with paying 0.001 USD or so to send that message.
Maybe a compromise between voters picking where their taxes go and a minimum for what tax payers have to pay for a certain area?