[dragonwriter]

Google is doing something unethical, even if Google wasn’t doing something unethical before they decided to name and blame an employee on a personnel matter before completing an internal investigation to establish the facts. There’s a good reason why even under direct questioning with the most serious internal indications but an ongoing internal investigation, companies simply decline comment on personnel matters.

Of course, if they weren’t trying to poison the well about an imminent revelation of some greater unethical behavior on their part, they probably wouldn’t have engaged in the obvious unethical behavior. So...

[throwawaysea]

Isn’t that a one sided expectation though? Timnit Gebru publicly tweeted about this second activist losing email access. By calling Google out in such a public manner, I feel like Google is forced to respond publicly, to set the record and prevent the early viral spread of these activists’ one sided take/misinformation. Otherwise what happens is journalists like Kara Swisher source entire stories from these activists, plaster it across their platforms, and Google then faces another manufactured outrage PR issue.

Edit: another comment here also claims that Google’s statement was made because Axios reached out to them regarding this story after Timnit Gebru’s tweet. So there you have it.

[dragonwriter]

> Isn’t that a one sided expectation though?

Yes, Google’s ethical responsibility in a current employer/employee relationship with Mitchell is different than Gebru’s ethical obligation to her former employer with whom she is already in a public, contentious battle.

And even if the ethical obligations were identical, Gebru’s violation toward Google wouldn’t excuse Google’s toward Mitchell.

[mikejb]

> And even if the ethical obligations were identical, Gebru’s violation toward Google wouldn’t excuse Google’s toward Mitchell.

What about Mitchell's violation towards Google?

[dragonwriter]

> What about Mitchell's violation towards Google?

If we accept Google's own claims, they have an automated indication which leads to suspicion of that and on ongoing investigation, not even something where they are prepared to claim an actual violation. i.e., exactly the circumstances where every half competent organization would decline comment (potentially citing “personnel matters” until they'd actually completed an investigation.)

[mikejb]

So you say you suspect they have an ongoing investigation, and that would be "circumstances where every half competent organization would decline comment"

What substantiates this conclusion? They can have an investigation ongoing, and share the cause for said investigation. In the statement they explicitly establish that this doesn't imply guilt of the account owner.

Why are you so triggered by this clarification?

[dragonwriter]

> What substantiates this conclusion?

My experience over a lifetime as a news consumer of seeing how organizations deal with media inquiries about personnel matters.

> Why are you so triggered by this clarification?

Grow up.