[teacup50]

It's an interesting counter-point, but I'm not sure it's an example to be lauded; most of her complaints were found to have no basis in fact, and she's likely poisoned any future legal suit she might wish to bring.

Additionally, she's incurred significant personal liability in the process.

> She may have to deal with legal repercussions because of her actions on Twitter, but I can't help but think that nothing would have changed had she kept silent or quietly hired an employment lawyer after being forced out.

I can't help but think the court of public opinion has been used to bludgeon an opponent, not achieve justice.

The public absolutely lacks the facts necessary to judge the merits of the accusations, and the objectivity necessary won't be forthcoming through inciting angry internet mobs. This wasn't something as simple as Sterling's overt racism -- and even then, the public's ability to observe and act on his overt racism wasn't possible until it saw the cold light of day through objective and verifiable evidence.

The safest and likely most productive way for GitHub to be held to account, if GitHub as an organization needed to be held to account, was by providing a clear, objective statement of the allegations, vetted by her lawyer, and if possible, a tenacious lawsuit and refusal to settle for anything less than a public statement.

[ceejayoz]

> most of her complaints were found to have no basis in fact

Enough of them had a basis in fact to get a founder fired.

[cookiecaper]

While I'm not sufficiently informed on the daily operations at GitHub, "basis in fact" has nothing to do with whether a C-level remains employed or not. Companies these days are hypersensitive about their reputations and you'll be considered a liability for a single misconstrued statement despite years of stellar (and most importantly, completely politically sanitary) work.

You may even get owned for politically incorrect behavior that occurs in private and completely external to your professional affiliation. Off the top of my head I can cite a handful of such ousters that have occurred in the last month, including but not limited to Brendan Eich and Donald Sterling.

We're in a really bad spot right now. The principles that undergird free society are not well regarded anymore. Make a single statement that stirs the ire of the reigning corporate thought police and you're done for, no matter how innocuous it may or may not be. People don't care about the facts, it's all about perception, and if you're perceived as a thought criminal in any of the many varied channels now considered taboo, you're "toxic" to the company. It's as simple as that.

Considering this status, perhaps aggression and even subtlety are justified if you're seeking to defend yourself against the types of accusations that would get a toxic label applied to your name.

[wpietri]

Eich's public behavior was absolutely material to his work. You can't work to break apart gay families and undermine gay people's constitutional rights and then expect gay people to be be perfectly comfortable working for you. And Mozilla's board reasonably felt that material to him being the CEO of a company. Well, that or his demonstrated inability to handle a corporate crisis with a big press element.

[cookiecaper]

* Marriage is not a constitutional right for anyone

* The rules that say the government is not allowed to define marriage further than "two humans say they want to live together and want us to give them stuff for it" are very new, and Eich was fighting to not have this become the rule.

* Gay people should be perfectly comfortable working for people who supported Prop 8 or they're going to have a hard time, as there's a > 50% chance that a random stranger will have done so.

* Eich's ideas on what relationships the government should reward does not materially affect his performance as CEO. He'd already promised to keep Mozilla's inclusive policies.

* If you really want to say gay people would find it impossible to work for Eich, I find it hard to believe that any such persons at Mozilla are less replaceable than Brendan Eich. If they do resign in protest, Eich would've had no trouble replacing them. However, Mozilla's official statement indicated the vast majority of the company supported him, with "less than ten" current employees threatening resignation if Eich maintained his post.

* The board didn't fire or pressure Eich to leave. He resigned voluntarily as damage control. Mozilla's official statement is clear about this.

Casting anyone who supported Prop 8 as a villain is a wholly untenable philosophical stance. It condemns the majority of Californians and Americans. You can't live life with that large of a chip on your shoulder, it's completely disruptive. If you are doing so, I recommend you seek a shoulder-chip repair professional before further damage to self and others is perpetrated by political intolerance.

[wpietri]

* The reason Prop 8 was was a constitutional amendment is that equality before the law is a right enshrined in the California constitution.

* Immaterial.

* There is a difference between "voted for" and "funded". Further, Eich refused to say whether his opinion had changed. And obviously, you don't get to say what gay people are comfortable about.

* Incorrect. Promising to be bigoted only in his off hours is not a promise that will convince everybody.

* Your view apparently is that as long as you're not powerful, injustice is fine. That's not a view many share. Especially at Mozilla.

* Fair enough.

At one point vast majorities of people opposed interracial marriage. And, earlier, were in favor of slavery for black people, an institution maintained through brutality and torture. I'm not saying those people are villains, but I am saying they were wrong, and bigoted in a way that was deeply problematic. And I'm saying the same thing about people who supported Prop 8. Thankfully, as the statistics show, people are more quickly waking up to their anti-gay bigotry, so it's a dead issue here in California, and it soon will be in the rest of the nation.

[cookiecaper]

> The reason Prop 8 was was a constitutional amendment is that equality before the law is a right enshrined in the California constitution.

OK, again, it's not that "the right to marry" is constitutional. It's just that some judges have decided "marriage" means giving benefits to any two humans who claim they want it. This isn't what marriage is supposed to be, but that's beside the point at the moment. Bans on same-sex marriage were considered unconstitutional because marital benefits were granted to persons who engaged in opposite-sex permanent coupling, and the judiciary decided that since the existence of sex was acknowledged, it was unfair. Enforcing this massive blind spot is obviously absurd, but again, currently beside the point. The point is there is not a constitutional right to marital benefits.

>* There is a difference between "voted for" and "funded". Further, Eich refused to say whether his opinion had changed. And obviously, you don't get to say what gay people are comfortable about.

Eich's contribution was minor, so not much of a difference in this case. Perhaps, as a wealthy individual, he routinely donates to political causes that accord with his beliefs and considers this good citizenship. You can't say that this issue was critical to Eich simply because a small contribution exists.

There was no reason to demand Eich recant his position. This is still a hot mainstream political topic. As Mozilla stated, almost the entire company was content to follow Eich; only a negligible number of employees threatened to leave. Eich resigned to prevent damage to Firefox and its users.

>Incorrect. Promising to be bigoted only in his off hours is not a promise that will convince everybody.

It doesn't materially affect his performance as CEO no matter what he chooses to believe on a social issue about as far removed from computer software as you can get.

>Your view apparently is that as long as you're not powerful, injustice is fine. That's not a view many share. Especially at Mozilla.

No, my view is that Eich committed no injustice by expressing his opinion via political contributions, and that we shouldn't displace extremely well-qualified persons because a very small percentage of people chose to have their feelings hurt by Eich's completely reasonable, defensible, and valid actions. It has nothing to do with anyone's power, just their value and contribution. Eich, as the inventor of JavaScript, provides irreplaceable value, and as he did nothing wrong, he shouldn't have been displaced.

>At one point vast majorities of people opposed interracial marriage. And, earlier, were in favor of slavery for black people, an institution maintained through brutality and torture.

However deplorable you consider these things, you need to understand the context in which such people were developed and some basics about human moral development. The black and white, scorched earth view is not beneficial to anyone except those primarily concerned with stroking their victim complex. After the South surrendered, widespread amnesty was offered, not widespread condemnation of all "bigots". One needs to learn to live with the fact that vast majorities of his contemporaries have different belief and value systems, instead of trying to force them to adopt the same value system by shame and bullying.

I don't want to get into it here, but I believe there are major differences between opposition to same-sex marriage and racial issues. Pretty much the only thing they share is that they were controversial political issues.

I agree that in the short-term, discussion on gay marriage will be chilled and it will be grudgingly accepted in light of absurdly hypocritical bullying and shame campaigns orchestrated by gay rights activists. But I don't think it will last. I think the fact that gay marriage is even entertained demonstrates that western society has been stretched to its breaking point, and I expect it to break, at which point these realities that we prefer to ignore will pronounce themselves starkly and demand recognition, as has happened over and over again when a society gets enough wealth to drink and imbibe itself into major social stupor.

[PhasmaFelis]

> Gay people should be perfectly comfortable working for people who supported Prop 8 or they're going to have a hard time, as there's a > 50% chance that a random stranger will have done so.

You're seriously arguing that people should be okay with being oppressed, as long as a lot of people are oppressing them? Like, maybe we should be flattered by all the attention?

[cookiecaper]

I'm not arguing that people should be OK with "being oppressed". People are free to engage in responsible social and political action to effect the changes they want. One can disagree civilly and continue his/her social activism. I'm arguing that people should accept not everyone agrees with them, and not try to get those people fired/destroyed for their disagreement.

[PhasmaFelis]

Sterling? Is this seriously what we're doing now? A corporation removes a staunch racist from a position with hiring authority, and it's a free speech issue?

[cookiecaper]

Yes, it's a free speech issue. He expressed a private view to his personal associate with whom he had no professional dealings. He was recorded illegally and all action has been based on a single statement, given without context, and sourced from a legal adversary. You may agree or disagree with his private views about whom he prefers his girlfriend to mingle with, but it's quite drastic to forcibly divest him of his property because you don't like it. There's certainly nothing illegal about his opinion, and there's nothing wrong with him choosing to express it in the context in which he expressed it. The only thing objectively "wrong" about his opinion is that it is unpopular.

He wasn't brought down by a case that proved his practices were discriminatory. As far as I know no one has claimed that he was discriminatory in whatever hiring capacity he had with the Clippers (which for the record is probably not major). No one would know or care if the news media had something worthwhile to talk about instead of celebrity gossip. They can replay a sound bite over and over and turn a whole city against someone, someone who didn't do anything wrong other than possessing an opinion that's considered uncouth or presented as troublesome, and more than just "public outrage", they can then get his property taken against his will. The fact that this is possible, regardless of the content of the sound bite, should be very scary to anyone interested in maintaining free dialogue.

Free dialogue necessarily requires people to feel capable of expressing very unpopular things without major ramifications. Adverse governmental action is one element of this, but not the only element. I understand that the proceedings against Sterling are held in accordance with NBA bylaws to which Mr. Sterling supposedly agreed and that they're not an external legal proceeding (though I don't doubt there would be such a proceeding if the NBA didn't have provision to strip Sterling of ownership), but as stated, public hostility toward the principles of free speech, which is becoming quite massive, is nearly as problematic, especially when our media is so conglomerated.

Our modern communication media are inherently dangerous due to the extreme barrier to entry. This is changing partially with the internet, but for the time being and foreseeable future, it's still no competition with cable and establishment outlets. This is a major social and cultural threat and the FCC should do something about it.

[eurleif]

>The only thing objectively "wrong" about his opinion is that it is unpopular.

Don't confuse disagreement with subjectivity. Racism is objectively harmful, and typically based on factual beliefs that are objectively false. Some people disagree with that, and it's their right to hold that opinion, but they're wrong.

The NBA's decision was probably driven largely by a fear of private boycotts. Do you think such boycotts are wrong, too? I.e., do you think Don Sterling's right to say racist things is more important than my right to choose not to do business with racists? Or do you think the boycott would've been ok, but the NBA should've ignored it?

[cookiecaper]

I think boycotts should be used sparingly and that people should first consider whether the deeds were sufficiently problematic to justify the potential cultural ramifications that arise when we choose to punish someone for having different beliefs or opinions than us, no matter how much we may or may not dislike them. It'd be preferable if we based our boycotts on more significant matters.

However, I think the much larger problem than boycotts from random groups (which are unlikely to be effective long-term) are the steps taken to purge Sterling entirely and divest him of his property.

[PhasmaFelis]

I'd like to be perfectly clear on this: you believe that there's nothing objectively wrong with racism, it's just unpopular right now?

[cookiecaper]

Racism as a social crime is an abstract concept and there are no objective criteria by which to determine if a thought is "racist" or not.

I prefer to judge individual actions based on their consequences and/or likely consequences, without forfeiting my right to formulate an opinion due to a popular media outlet applying an abstract negative label. In the context of news media, calling something "racist" is more about trying to forcibly project a view onto the audience than anything else.

[teacup50]

> Enough of them had a basis in fact to get a founder fired.

Which allegations were true? What did that founder actually do? Did she expose herself to liability through libelous statements?

On this, The Court of Public Opinion lacks the standing to rule. Your comment is a case-in-point as to why.

[ceejayoz]

Github was willing to go on the record at https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation-... stating " The investigation found Tom Preston-Werner in his capacity as GitHub’s CEO acted inappropriately, including confrontational conduct, disregard of workplace complaints, insensitivity to the impact of his spouse's presence in the workplace, and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office."

[teacup50]

This doesn't appear in conflict with any of my statements above.