“Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” memo goes viral, usual suspects outraged

TheDoc wrote: »

There is no discussion here on the appropriateness

Yeah that's what I said: people tag it as inappropriate without referencing the actual document and explaining why. It precisely is a way to refuse any discussion.

Bambi wrote: »

He did what now?

You'll have to quote the specific sections of his paper that did the above, I'm not rereading with my outrage sensor pumped to the max.

If you didn't grasp that from your first reading, never mind subsequent readings, I'm not going to entertain explaining it to you or educating you

suicide_circus wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/larissa-nolan-political-correctness-will-hurt-us-all-in-the-end-1.3180394?mode=amp

fantastic article and it shows up Lena as a moron yet again, thanks for sharing

TheDoc wrote: »

...
But there is no debate or discussion to be had, when as an employee you send a memo like that out to everyone. You are an idiot, and really don't appear fit to work with others

He didnt sent it to everybody. He sent it to a select few people who then proceeded to forward it and it eventually went outside the company.

Hastentoadd wrote: »

Google is a fascinating company. Its search engine is predicated on stealing personal details. And then it decides it has a moral compass?

stealing personal details?

Google doesnt steal personal details. Everything google has was willingly given to them by their users.

If people dont read the terms and conditions of the apps when the sign up then thats their problem.

You wouldnt accuse your phone company of stealing your money when they start taking direct debits from your account because you didnt read the terms of your phone contract.

Just because google are offering financially free services it doesnt mean it is actually free.

BrokenArrows wrote: »

stealing personal details?

Google doesnt steal personal details. Everything google has was willingly given to them by their users.

If people dont read the terms and conditions of the apps when the sign up then thats their problem.

You wouldnt accuse your phone company of stealing your money when they start taking direct debits from your account because you didnt read the terms of your phone contract.

Just because google are offering financially free services it doesnt mean it is actually free.

Even if you don't have an account with them they'll track you using cookies and have a pretty good idea of your browsing patterns (as long as boards uses google ads, google analytics, or google social sharing they would for exemple know you visited this thread). That is without you having ever accepted any T&Cs.

Also at some point a standard was implemented for web browsers to have a "do not track" option which would explicitly tell websites you don't want your online activity to be tracked, and Google (along with other) chose that their plateform would ignore these clear requests from people.

And again keep in mind I'm not only talking about browsing Goggle's website but any website on which there is the salightest google presence (which is a majority of websites you visit so an ad served by google on a webpage would be enough - or just an innocent looking "share on google+" button.

Now you can say you have no problem with them doing these things, but if you genuinely think Google is only tracking people expressly agreed to be, you might want to document yourself about what they do.

strandroad wrote: »

Looks like his issues with women started well before Google's diversity programmes.

http://gizmodo.com/fired-google-memo-writer-took-part-in-controversial-s-1797658885

So making a joke about masturbation, that doesn't go down well, means you've issues with women now.
I like how in that long winded piece they didn't actually tell the joke, so readers could judge for themselves.

Bob24 wrote: »

A "memo like that" doesn't mean anything though if you don't quote it to explain what you mean by "like that".

Same as saying it is inappropriate - it doesn't mean anything if you don't clearly lay out why.
If you're saying any memo expressing a personal opinion is inappropriate fair enough no need to discuss the details of the document, but then there must be many other ones shared everyday within google which are not flagged as inappropriate so there is a bit of a double standard.
If however you're saying the specific content is inappropriate and at the same time you say "there is no entertaining this document" you are basically saying your are refusing to explain the facts your opinion is based on.

I'm saying that this reach from people to explain why this sort of action is unacceptable, is somewhat pointless since the people defending this action clearly are either not in employment, or have worked in a professional environment.

To explain why this document/memo is inappropriate due to it creating a hostile work environment for colleagues along with isolating the employee in question from being able to effectively work with peers, well I just shouldn't need to explain it to properly functioning adults...

conorhal wrote: »

Did he send it to 'everybody'? I see no evidence of that, just a mention that it 'went viral within the company'.

Well, I'd love to see the reaction on the left if a company fired a few employees for wearing their 'repeal' hoodies to work...

Something tells me a double standard would apply..

The memo was sent to numerous groups internally and while it ended up on one of the public, internal platforms, the employee clearly wanted and made efforts to make his memo viewable across the board.

And what reaction? No one would be fired for wearing a repeal hoodie. Granted in my place of work if someone came in wearing it I would pull them into the office, probably give them a dressing down and leave it at that.

However if one of my team created and circulated a memo with questionable facts and assumptions, creating a hostile environment for a certain demographic to push their repeal agenda, then yeah, they probably would get fired. Whatever about peoples opinions or beliefs, we are running a business here. We arn't running some social think tank. So if an employee creates an uncomfortable environment for others, and then isolates themselves of from collaboration and interaction with peers, then yeah, its dead weight I'm going to get rid off.

Bambi wrote: »

You're seeing two different criticisms here.

One is based on the merits of the piece itself, which you will get zero attempts to engage with from these quarters.

The other is based on the authors motivation and lack of judgement in producing and sharing it. If you work at google you might have an idea as to the mechanisms and culture of debate they have. I don't work at google and neither does anyone here I guess so all we can do is speculate.

I know enough people who work at Google to have spoken to them about this incident. And I've worked in enough companies of various sizes, one of which not to dissimilar to Google, and am pretty safe in making the assumption the actions taken by the employee were ridiculous and stupid.

If he bought into Google being more then a company because they provide some nice lunches, bright colours and bean bags, he's an absolute fool. Work is work , a company is a company, and while there is loads of wonderful Americana and "freedom of expression" being brought into modern companies, there is still some fundamentals and basics of work and office etiquette. One of which is not, be it you think maturely or proper, circulating material that degrades or puts into questions the abilities of colleagues based on gender or untangible metrics. Especially when your construction and "facts" are questionable and to be honest just nonsense