[finnyspade]

So having interned at Facebook, I find this post confusing. They made it very clear to us during HR onboarding that the only zero tolerance policy was on unauthorized access to user data.

The harassment stuff isn't a zero tolerance thing. They even told us to go ahead and ask out other employees if you're interested, but just don't press if you get a no.

It's pretty clear he accessed data he shouldn't have, and for that a zero-tolerance policy makes total sense.

[nilkn]

What's scary (if the offense was indeed access to user data) is not that this one person did it, but that this person insists that it's as common at Facebook as jaywalking is in the real world.

[awakeasleep]

Which seems impossible, considering an automated system flagged him for this level of scrutiny.

[brador]

Probably saw others viewing public Facebook pages and thought they were tapping the backend. Tried that, got fired.

[delazeur]

The person kept saying that what they did was "just like jaywalking," but as soon as they were called in by HR they knew they were in serious trouble. That doesn't add up.

[rco8786]

Perhaps speeding would be a better analogy. Everyone does it, but when you see the blue lights(or get a meeting req with HR) you know you're in trouble.

[delazeur]

It doesn't sound like the violation and the investigation were temporally linked though. When you're speeding and you see flashing lights, you know you're in trouble for the thing you're doing right then. If some minor violation is common practice (everyone is doing it all the time), how would you know immediately that you were in trouble for it when you get the meeting notice? The person even said that they had previously been called into HR as a witness in investigations of other people, yet this time they knew they were being investigated without being told.

[rco8786]

No analogy is perfect :)

How about a red light camera? Pretty commonplace to push a yellow light, and when you get the envelope in the mail from the city ticketing office you probably know what it's about.

[caseysoftware]

In most larger companies, there "zero tolerance policies" and "wink wink nudge nudge zero tolerance policies."

If you break the first type, you are out the door, no questions asked.

If you break the second type, you might be out the door depending on why you did it, who you did it for, who you report to, if you're part of the "in group" or whatever. In some cases, they're forgotten until later when someone wants to demonstrate an "ongoing pattern."

[stevejones]

> They made it very clear to us during HR onboarding that the only zero tolerance policy was on unauthorized access to user data.

Given that Facebook HR trawls user data to send job spam I find this claim quite ironic.

[otterley]

What evidence do you have of this? Particularly with respect to nonpublic data.

[stevejones]

My inbox.

[otterley]

And the information they used to decide to contact you wasn't available, ever, through any other means? Even a referral from a friend or former colleague?

[stevejones]

I don't know anyone who works for Facebook. I'm thousands of miles away from Facebook HQ. I keep careful tabs on who has what info about me and use many different email addresses.

[jonesb6]

What about using someone else's credentials, like the VP's whose project he was working on? While we can be instantly vindictive if we found out he was accessing private user data, you have to remember this was described as "jay walking" and it's hard to believe such a large company could only have ONE zero-tolerance policy...

[kelukelugames]

It sounds like he violated a privacy issue. Probably looked up a friend or celebrity.

At my last job, a company that sells houses, people looked up each other's data for fun. I was kind of annoyed that one of the college hires found how much I paid for my house but that was the norm.

Okay, I should probably specify that I didn't tell anyone my address. People don't even know my legal name. I worked at and bought my house through Redfin. Redfin gets my info from my Redfin account. A little different than looking up an address on Zillow.

[lutefisk]

Housing data is public after you close on your house. What's there to be annoyed about?

[kelukelugames]

I worked at and bought my house through Redfin. He didn't know where I lived until he looked it up.

In their defense, privacy policy is probably better now.

[adanto6840]

Home sales, including home ownership data, is public in most (all?) of the US.

Even without providing your address, many US county government websites (the Recorder's office, Clerk's office, etc) allow for online lookups by name.

This is precisely how RedFin, Zillow, Trulia, and the like are able to obtain that same data...

[kelukelugames]

That is not how Redfin works. Nor is it how Redfin is spelled. Source: I worked there.

[uniformlyrandom]

Home sales is open data in US. You can look it up at Zillow. All you need is an address.

[kelukelugames]

I certainly didn't tell him my address.

Right now I can't tell if people are excited to tell me there are way to uncover my home address or they think those methods are socially appropriate and not an invasion of my privacy.

[toomuchtodo]

> or they think those methods are socially appropriate and not an invasion of my privacy.

Why would looking up a public record be an invasion of your privacy? If you want to hide it, buy your primary residence through an LLC incorporated in a state that doesn't disclose its members.

[awakeasleep]

spokeo.com intellius.com +infinite copy cats

[FD3SA]

Yes, it's a bit of a massive story to digest without knowing what he actually did.

If it was accessing user data, of course he should be fired.