Google Loved Me, Until I Pointed Out Everything That Sucked About It | Hacker News Reader

Google Loved Me, Until I Pointed Out Everything That Sucked About It

elle.com

39 pointstoeknee13 comments

"Later, I spent five years in the Marketing department promoting the narrative that YouTube is a net-positive for society, while every day witnessing how ill-equipped the company’s leadership was to govern a social media platform as it became a breeding ground for extremism, disinformation, harassment, and child abuse."

This like reading something from a Scientology defector.

It’s fundamentally hard to govern YouTube. The tools to analyze and remove harmful video content don’t exist. Pic one, the existence of YouTube and harmful videos or no YouTube at all.

I don't deny that. But to consciously serve as an advocate/mouthpiece knowing it's a evil mess, for the sake of one's Googliness (the joy of the happy, well rewarded elite family)?

Having an "elite" job that is very financially rewarding and the lifestyle that comes with, is what a lot of big-tech is offering in exchange for loose morals. Thats how these people justify turning a blind eye for so long.

I'd venture to bet a lot of these folks wouldn't be willing to look the other way for $50k a year.

If it was simply that though - overt cash for compliance - I wouldn't feel so angry. It's the exuded sense of superiority - "The cash is because we're such great people" rather than an acknowledged payoff for socially negative duties.

When people talk about this sort of thing, it's always with the tone that people ought to be paid more for doing good.

But if people had to be paid more for doing good, on average, that would mean most people preferred doing bad things! Which would be bad and mean most people would be evil.

Doing the right thing being costly isn't a thing that just happens to be true of our imperfect society, it's an unavoidable logical consequence of distinguishing between "right" and "profitable".

Convince me I'm wrong.

Sure they would. A few days living in the real world and they would be right back to their instictual, institutionalized reinforced behavior of all that matters to them is them. Never going to change without culture "leaders" being killed, never has before. Put those fools on the streets for a few hours and they would do anything for 50k.

YouTube is a net positive for society, and I will say that to anyone.

It’s also an attractive nuisance, as it is a single point of failure (in the form of censorship) to most common video publishing.

I think this is a perfect case of "drinking too much of the kool aid". Google hasn't been nice and fuzzy for a long time now, and anyone working there thinking the organization is going to change "for the better", is a fool. It's the nature of the beast, as companies grow, things change and mature. If you want to work at a growing, caring company and not a behemoth, change companies. I've never understood arguing and fighting with your employer, it's their game, their field and their ball.

“maturing” and behaving unethically and breaking laws are not synonymous.

Google, for a long time, did things in nonstandard, intelligent, innovative ways. That time is gone, but it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that that time would end on a schedule.

Also, most employers, Google included, are nothing without their staff: it is decidedly not “their field and their ball”. Organizing is important and powerful, and that’s why it’s supposedly protected.

I hope the internal resistance gets more organized and tactical. Cause this story is not ending any time soon given the number of issues involved.

In any large org, its well known which execs up the food chain exist to play empire defense and which ones can cause real change. Both sides will have their own entrenched networks of support. Understanding those networks is critical to getting change through. Applying pressure without mapping and understanding internal org politics is how people end up getting fired in large orgs.

Googlers basically have to use their Profiling and Targeting expertise on their own org chart to weaken the status quoists and identify/strengthen those who can make change happen. Just getting your stories in the press is not going to do shit.

I joined Google less than 3 months before the walkout. Mid level management practically encouraged us to attend. There were big numbers but most were probably there out of curiosity. I was really disappointed. In the New York walkout, there was a tiny area with an underpowered bullhorn and nobody could hear what they were saying. Exactly one hour after it started, everyone was bored of standing around and went straight back to work.

Now waiting for the lawsuit. Hope it will get good press. It's illegal, and everyone knows.

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