The fired employee Tweeted today:
>In the interest of transparency, I was let go for calling out an employee’s inaction here on Twitter. I stand by what I said. They didn’t give me the chance to quit [0]
He then specifically cited [1] the Tweet in question that was the cause:
>I asked @Vjeux to follow @reactjs's lead and add a statement of support to Recoil's docs and he privately refused, claiming open source shouldn't be political.
>Intentionally not making a statement is already political. Consider that next time you think of Recoil. [2]
This is specifically targeting an individual front-end engineer at FB, which in my own estimation crosses the line from criticism of executives or general policy, to specifically trying to instigate public outrage against a co-worker. If such actions were directed at me, I would definitely consider it as contributing to a hostile work environment. It all strikes me as a modern-day example of "Havel's greengrocer" [3].
[0] https://twitter.com/aweary/status/1271522288752455680
[1] https://twitter.com/aweary/status/1271531477209976832
[2] https://twitter.com/aweary/status/1267895488205869057
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Hav...
We must ask ourselves daily, "what am I supposed to be outraged about now?"
I'm not sure we should mark this down as a political and cultural climate thing. I'm more convinced the guy was simply an asshole and it so happens that he felt strongly about politics.
Hence, many people are very secretive of their beliefs if they don't conform, and they may even "play along" like Winston does during the "Two Minutes Hate" (1984). Unlike 1984, we don't have a state or federal "thought police" but we kind of have something similar - a "thought mob" that patrols coworkers for evidence of thought crime.
Politics is intensely personal. It's not so much about conflicting ideas, but rather loudly delineating social groups and whose camp you're in.
Pushing beliefs to simplistic extremes and demanding declarations of beliefs is an efficient way to make clear where yourself and others stand socially. Truth has little to do with it.
Politics seems "stupid" because we're putting the cart before the horse.
Mob rule is entirely different: it refers to rule imposed from outside the law, possibly by a large group.
Also, the "fewer votes" really only applies to the presidency, not the senate, house, or governors.
The Senate results in huge vote power discrepancies.
[edit: though it's correct that the Senate, like the EC, is not "popular", as every state has two senators, rather than a proportionate amount, like representatives]
While "mob rule" may be an unfair term, not only did more people vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, there have been more votes cast for Democrats than Republicans as a whole not only in Senate races over the last decade but in House races, too -- the Republican majority there is protected by gerrymandering.
Those aren't mutually exclusive. Middle school civics class explanations of the electoral college are fine. You can understand the reasons the electoral college was created and still oppose the fact that there have been multiple recent cases where the electoral college went against the popular vote. And, not that it's particularly relevant, but I highly doubt the very people who designed the electoral college would approve of its use when it seems to routinely elect someone who lost the popular vote.
And the people who set up electoral college (the authors of the constitution) explicitly added a mechanism to change the system via amendments (it's just very hard to get one passed).
Clearly, the college was a compromise the authors of the constitution felt that had to make to create the US. I bet a lot of them didn't like it.
When you say routinely: only 5 presidents have been elected without the majority of the popular vote, spread throughout a couple hundred years.
Okay. I'm not attached to the particular semantics of "mob rule," but if you define it deliberately such that it doesn't apply in this scenario, then of course it doesn't apply. I just meant, very simply, that it's rule by someone other than who the people expressed their desire to be ruled by.
That's not what the term means. It's practically the opposite of one of the meanings of the word, which is a pejorative for majoritarian rule. An absolute autocrat is about as far as you can get from mob rule, and yet it's "rule by someone other than who the people express their desire to be ruled by".
That's literally why they invented the electoral college. To add indirection between the popular vote and the presidency.
The issue with fighting mob majority rule with minority rule is that there's no reason a minority is itself any better or non-moblike than a majority. It's trivial for me to select a different minority whose votes are allowed to count that gives totally opposite results than what exists now. The one advantage of having government be determined by a majority of all people is that you can't slice and dice "all people" to be a particular biased subset of people to get particular outcomes.
But still, I find it difficult to believe that the people who designed the electoral college would think it's okay that we held a national election, we got to see who wins the popular vote, and we still choose a different person for President.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68
basically they wanted smart people amenable to debate and not be corrupted by a foreign nation to pick a president that doesn't have the nation's best interest at heart. or a vile person.
considering they do not do that anymore and vote based on popular vote per state it's a vestigial tail of our democracy. also, considering they were supposed to not cap the number of house of representative members and the delegates were based on this number also means that it's corrupted even more so than it was.
Also, I guess it's the fact of "winner takes all within a state" that disincentivizes candidates from simply drumming up more support within states they've already won, more so than the distribution of votes per state.
Absent the electoral college there would not be a United States of America.
Just asking, I'm not an american.
The Electoral College is working as designed. It was never intended to implement a direct democracy.
Here's a video that goes into more detail on the Electoral College and the Popular Vote Compact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUX-frlNBJY
(Note: this doesn't mean I agree with the behaviour shown in this case - nobody says politics between colleagues must be done over Twitter.)
(edit: sad downvotes without actual logical counterpoint are sad.)
Hear, hear.
In fact, it's an age-old addage that politics and religion should never be discussion topics at work because of how easy these discussions can spiral down to hostile work environments due to assholes like this guy.
And this case is just yet another example reinforcing the addage.
Does someone need to 100% support BLM (the political movement) to make an acceptable colleague?
What if someone: opposes racism and thinks police's use of force should be more regulated, but disagrees with some BLM tactics/approach to achieving change?
For example, what if the destruction of property from the protests, or calls to defund the police, actually cause a backlash at the next election and it reduces the chances of anything actually being done. Is someone allowed to make a critique like that?
The bottom line is there actually needs to be a diversity of thought to solve problems, and if you silence anyone who isn't 100% behind your message your not going to make change.
No, and I never said as much.
My point is that stuff like BLM is relevant enough that should not be considered a taboo subject between reasonable adults on the workplace. Nobody should be forced or publicly shamed into agreeing on this or that action, and there are well-known ways of resolving this sort of disagreement (i.e. voting) while respecting each other.
I am not supporting what happened in this case, I am only disagreeing with people in the thread turning it into an excuse to never talk about politics on the workplace. If we don't face problems and talk about them, we will never solve them.
If I was running a company, I would prefer employees not to talk about politics because it will create needless arguments that have nothing to do with the job at hand. If I am an employee, if there is a disagreement about something, how do I know there is not going to be a long-standing hatred from a colleague about my position on a topic that will manifest itself in unpredictable ways.
There are too many activists which make every topic good vs evil and life vs death.
OTOH MLK did not have his followers pressure coworkers - they kept it in the public, not behind doors.
(human) politics requires just 2 people, not a whole societies’ worth; even zero people at the limit, since politics happens in and with other species too.
More importantly, it sounds like he was bullying colleagues to force them to comply with his personal desires on how to do activism by proxy.
Worse, he was trying to force colleagues to risk losing their job in the process just so that they could cater to his whims.
Beyond that, I'd be nervous that a co-worker like this might advance to physical violence.
At best, you're never going to change somebody's mind in a political discussion (you can only change people who are not directly participating), and at worst, there's the risk of being raked over the coils by HR or even losing your job.
e.g. government employees initially raise concerns on policy privately, then resign and speak out when the discussions fail.
IBM commercial from 1934 'Übersicht hollerith lochkarten' https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/im...
IBM CEO photo-op with the leader https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/punched-cards/2/1...
Not talking politics in the workplace doesn't mean not taking a stand outside of the workplace it just means you're at work to get work done not talk politics and I as a potential coworker frankly don't want to hear your politics in the workplace and, I'd have no problem letting you know that fact if you act in real life like you post, hyperbolic and unwaranted.
In fact, taking a stand for what you believe in is one of the fundamental rights the US protects and I think you should participate in any protest, march or riot you want to. I just think you shouldn't do it at work, and if you do, for people not to be surprised that it get's you fired at a few places because people don't want you disrupting their business.
While partially agreeing, i would note that "Havel's greengrocer" was more about situation where boths sides consired that speech act just as expression of power relations and loyality, ignoring its meaning. In this case it is more a case of "true believer".
EDIT: It is indeed about that!
His tweet wasn't meant to encourage ppl to join his cause, his tweet was targeted at one person and meant to solicit others to attack. I wouldn't be surprised if FB already had complaints about that Dail guy being abrasive and difficult to work with.
If you want to do public shaming and cause backlash, nobody can stop you.
>I asked @Vjeux to follow @reactjs's lead and add a statement of support to Recoil's docs and he privately refused, claiming open source shouldn't be political.
That is 100% not ok.
And "find another job, then" isn't always practical, especially with marriage+kids+debt.
And yes, you should always ask for consent before making a private reply public.
I'm supportive of Black Lives Matter, but I don't think what OP did was ok.
Of course they could. This person didn't claim anything to the contrary. The complaint was not about the webmaster's personal beliefs, but rather about the webmaster's decision in their capacity as webmaster.
> Forcing their hand at going public with their support could get them fired
The request was to change the website of an open source project, not for the webmaster to personally declare anything about their beliefs. Of course it is possible (though unlikely) that there is some threat to the webmaster's safety or livelihood that would prevent them from taking certain actions regarding the project's website, but in that case, the responsibility over the project's website should probably be more evenly distributed.
I'm sympathetic to his motivations, but his behaviour was unprofessional and unwarranted.
Trying to mobilize Twitter mob against a person that declined your suggestion was a problem.
That sounds less like a suggestion and more like an order.
Is this appropriate?
Instead of trying to prove there was no harm, and that being a maintainer of an open source project should make it okay if people do this to you.. think about the intent of what this person did.
Did they intend to create a safe environment? Or did they intend to bully someone into seeing their view, and doxed them on Twitter. A view that the original tweeter identified as political!
“Thanks for letting me know how you feel about this, I consider this a valuable opinion and think deeply on it”.
Then go ahead and do whatever you were going to do anyway, but at least let them know you’ve heard and acknowledged what they had to say. Sometimes folks just want to be acknowledged, that doesn’t seem like too much of a burden.
I think it starts to crumble when people start to demand you to do stuff like posting on your social media or showing them donation receipts.
Edit: this is very basic EQ and active listening, not sure why it's controversial to have good social skills.
Getting upset when someone wont be truthful on things with you on touchy subjects at work is like being upset when someone wont be truthful with you on touchy subjects when you're pointing a gun at them.
“Thank you for your opinion but I’m going another way” is no more of a failure than establishing any other decent and respectable boundaries between peoples.
Manners maketh the man (or woman, or however an individual chooses to self-identify).
Assuming you're in the US, it's my understanding that political affiliation is generally not a protected category. So if it's at-will employment at a private employer, it's probably legal to fire you for your political beliefs / actions (or "no reason" when it's really about political affiliation). If someone is engaging in behavior that bothers you, tell them to stop. If they don't, report them to HR. Make sure everything is in writing. But, be aware that HR might not be on your side; but at that point you really need to reconsider whether you want to work at a place where you are harassed and not supported by the company for not discussing politics.
Some high level laws by state: https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff...
The City of Seattle "assure[s] equal opportunity to all persons, free from restrictions because of race, color, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, political ideology, age, creed, religion, ancestry, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status or the presence of any sensory, mental or physical disability."
https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...
Response: "Crazy"
Only way to survive in a tech company.
I'd like to portray another question for you to consider: Do you think being able to have this policy is an inherently privileged position? For the record, I don't disagree with you. I have the same one.
I don't want to assume anything about you, so I'll speak about myself: I'm a het cis white male. I'm well-educated and well paid. Politics basically don't affect me unless it's taxes (which is why our industry ends up leaning so heavily libertarian." I am able to CHOOSE when to discuss political/social issues because i am able to CHOOSE when they affect me.
This is not the case for many others, including I bet your coworkers. If you are a woman, non-hetero, non-cis, or a racial minority, you don't get to choose whether politics/society affects your life - it is automatic. There is no clean separation for a lot of people between work and life and it spills over, and even if they intend to not bring it up, it sometimes will.
I say all this not to get you to change your policy, but to keep in mind why others may not be able to have the same one. What will naturally follow from that, is that people invariably look for allies. So if someone asks you to discuss a subject, one that violates your policy, you should really consider whether your policy actually makes sense in the world, or if it only helps you while actively harming those around you.
So if you're an ally, you should consider flexing your policy, and trying to help.
And if you're not, well...then your silence IS complicit, and you shouldn't be surprised if it affects your career accordingly.
You aren't entitled to a conversation.
Work isn't your entire life, you can be loud outside of work and yet still be silent at work. Think of the phrase, "Don't shit where you eat".
And, again, context for where you are “saying they didn’t do it” matters. If it’s an internal company board vs Twitter or github matters.
This part right here, pal. Asking is proposing something, and politely accepting whatever answer is given back.
What he said was closer to coercing and appealing to community shaming, which is evidently not professional.
I’m not speculating about secret intentions. It is the only reason to call out a private conversation that didn’t go your way.
If staying silent is unacceptable and saying something "wrong" is unacceptable, then it's in your own self interest to learn the "acceptable views" (whether you agree or not) and mouth them whenever the Powers that Be demand it.
That's quite twisted.
Free speech isn't the First Amendment. Free speech is a broad foundational principle of liberalism, and the First Amendment is just an encoding of this principle in the context of the U.S. government. But go back to Mill's "On Liberty" and you'll find that he was just as concerned about threats to free speech stemming from social disapprobation as those from the government.
Anyway, I prefer this modified version of the strip: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECqxDQGVAAAXUgK?format=jpg&name=...
Wow, that sounds eerily like 1984:
"In the Two Minutes Hate [Winston] could not help sharing in the general delirium ... Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction. But there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him."
Basically, if you have to do that, it means there is some implementation of thought police around you that you are hiding from.
When the "acceptable views" being discussed are stuff like Black people shouldn't get murdered by the police at a disproportionately higher rate accounting for all other factors than White People.
FFS, it's not like there is a public debate about whether we should guillotine Jeff Bezos.
If you're finding yourself having to pretend to agree with the 'acceptable views' of the world today, maybe your views are actually shitty and unacceptable?
There is literally no other justification for their actions (apart from possibly some form of mental illness, but I'm not a doctor and unqualified to guess at that)
I don't think I've ever seen a newspaper that hasn't done this.
[edit: if you want to see some articles about misleading headlines, see https://daily.jstor.org/the-incredibly-true-story-of-fake-he... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/youll-cry-when-you... ]
>oh no Arthur thinks I'm rude, how will I recover
ETA: apparently the user giving Arthur shit is just trolling
This is the decay of modern political discourse.
Hmm, mob rule and "educating people why they are wrong" does one thing - it sends these people underground and it's why Trump might win again:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/03/secret-donal...
I'd rather have these ideas out in the open where people can defeat the arguments properly without ad-hominem, rather than shouting them down. And hell, maybe even learn something new.
The only way? How about reconsidering your own position and offering people something they would like better?
What if people like the police having free reign to assault and even commit murder arbitrarily because of false associations with, say, safety?
In other words, he publicly harassed a colleague who (for what could be any number of perfectly valid reasons) preferred not to publicly state their beliefs. That would seem to me to be an eminently reasonable reason to fire someone. If you go around publicly harassing your colleagues to publicly state their political opinions, you deserve to be fired.