[bwreilly]

For everyone dismissing this as "too late" and "this data already exists" should consider that this appears to be addressed in the pledge.

> to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data.

> Responsibly destroy high-risk data sets and backups

[protomyth]

Good luck getting Facebook or the US Census to do that. This is a useless gesture that means very little. I guess some people get to feel better about themselves.

The first step would be some reforms in consumer protection laws dealing with privacy and information sharing. Just watch how much certain SV firms spend to opposed those changes.

[idlewords]

The US census has robust protections against storing or disseminating personally identifying information. They do it right.

Facebook has hundreds of employees mortified by what their management is walking into (the Trump tower, among other things). They have a lot of influence if they choose to use it.

[protomyth]

> The US census has robust protections against storing or disseminating personally identifying information. They do it right.

Can you point to the place where they say they don't store your personal information because that is part of their job. They try very hard not to release that data in an individually identifiable manner, but they have the individual data.

If Facebook's employees are NOW mortified, then they haven't been paying attention for a lot of years. They will just be outsourced or have people who need the job take over.

[drakonandor]

and, you know, the US Tourist / Student / Work Visa system..

[tptacek]

Weak argument. Do better. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13189009

[protomyth]

Ok, so they quit. What does that do to Facebook or the US government? Not much.

If they really want to change things, then you have to enter politics as a group. Ask a Union where it gets its power. This pledge is not a factor in US politics. There is a reason that the US has to have laws to prevent union busting and those specific circumstances are the same for these type of pledges. The difference is the people pledging have no such protection. I can point to a long history of groups entering politics affecting change, can you do the same with a pledge to quit?

[tptacek]

So, then, which is it:

1. You don't believe enough people will sign this. What percentage would need to sign it to make it significant?

2. You don't believe people will actually quit their jobs, despite signing something that puts them a single Google query away from revealing this position to any future employer. What would it take for you to believe this specific commitment, without adding additional commitments?

It's got to be one or the other, right? Which is it?

[protomyth]

> It's got to be one or the other, right? Which is it?

No, it does not as neither is what I wrote or believe.

The pledge is an empty gesture matched against corporate or government interests. Pledgers do not have the same protections that Unions have now. They will be replaced.

Groups organize and exert political power by playing the same game in DC as every other group that succeeded. The faster tech wakes up and learns from Unions and political action groups the better people will be protected. Influence the politicians, force them to pick favorable judges, do the PR work to scare the shit out of politicians that would oppose your agenda, and then you succeed. Why the heck do you think we have an unfavorable bill every damn session? Heck, the Head Start lobby is better at this then people in technology.

Once again, I can point to a long history of groups entering politics affecting change, can you do the same with a pledge to quit?

[tptacek]

I'm not sure how to map this response to my question. It sounds like you're saying, "so few people will sign this that it will be easy for any tech company to make up the loss". How many would have to sign for it to be different?

[nialo]

I think this sort of thing is where unions come from.