[sinyug]

> Facebook, like a lot of tech companies, has long had problems with diversity in engineering.

If that is the case, why is it that Google voice nav routinely butchers the names of places and roads in India in spite of having thousands of Indian engineers on staff?

Could we blame the intractability of the problem, or just plain old incompetence, before we blame every single problem in the world on racism and lack of 'diversity'?

[esyir]

Strong agreement here. The impulse to attribute any mishap on anything race-adjacent to racism is one of the most destructive memes at the moment.

It forces a worldview where malice is the default assumption and encourages the "enemies all around us" mindset.

[ummonk]

Another example: Apple Maps pronounces “Jai Ho” as “high hoe”. Apparently Apple has too many Latino engineers and not enough Indian engineers?

[IncRnd]

Maybe, but in the particular case you mentioned there is a specific word, "jai", that is pronounced as "high". See Jai Alai, which has been absorbed into English.

[wpietri]

Given that the goal of racism is to structure society, and given how well that succeeded in America, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether it's at play in pretty much any situation where we see racially biased outcomes.

But it is an excellent question why Google Maps is still terrible at Indian place names even though they have plenty of people internally who not only could help, but would be delighted to. The answer to that will be essentially sociological. If you think that answer in no way includes structural inequity despite it being pervasive in America since its founding, you will have to explain how you think Google managed to eliminate that in the Maps division and then managed to re-introduce some sort of structure that leaves a wealth of internal knowledge untapped.

[sinyug]

> structural inequity despite it being pervasive in America since its founding

America is not unique in this. And African-Americans are not the only people in the world who were enslaved. What is unique is that America and Americans are so good at controlling narratives and sucking oxygen out of rooms that other stories and catastrophes are forced into irrelevance.

[wpietri]

America is not unique in this. But America's history is uniquely relevant to the problems in America. Where Facebook is based and the tech industry is centered.

[sinyug]

> But America's history is uniquely relevant to the problems in America. Where Facebook is based and the tech industry is centered.

Sure it is. But if Facebook, Google and other American companies want to indulge their Americentric proclivities to the detriment of everyone else, they should voluntarily withdraw from the rest of the world.