LinkedIn Staffers Go All-Lives-Matter During ‘Dumpster Fire’ Meeting on Racism | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn Staffers Go All-Lives-Matter During ‘Dumpster Fire’ Meeting on Racism

thedailybeast.com

8 pointsNN888 comments

> “We’ll spend most of our time together in open discussion, so please consider bringing questions or experiences you’d like to share,” read the invitation email to staff.

This reminds me of the James Damore incident. They asked for people's honest thoughts, and that's what they got. What they actually wanted was for their employees to shut up and toe the line.

I always wonder what the thought process is behind this sort of thing. Do executives live in such a bubble that they honestly believe all their employees agree with them? Or do they simply expect them to be too intimidated to speak their minds?

I suppose the answer is clearly the latter, since their solution is to de-anonymize the meetings.

>I always wonder what the thought process is behind this sort of thing. Do executives live in such a bubble that they honestly believe all their employees agree with them? Or do they simply expect them to be too intimidated to speak their minds?

Same mystery as Mao asking for a thousand flowers to bloom, and there's also the possibility it's a tactic to bait out opposition so it can be destroyed.

> “We require members on our platform to have real identities and we will not allow anonymous questions in all hands meetings in the future

And just like that the wrong-think was purged from the ranks. No question is legitimate if it goes against the party line. Yikes, hopefully there is a way to actively fight this.

If preventing people from asking anonymously is censorship, then what isn’t? Seriously, if you want to be anonymous with your racism, take it somewhere else; LinkedIn is not required to host your garbage.

Edit: LinkedIn is not banning people for being racist. They’re simply saying, “if you want to be racist, do it with your real name.” There’s no censorship with that.

If doing something with the express purpose of silencing certain perspectives isn't censorship, then what is?

> LinkedIn is not banning people for being racist. They’re simply saying, “if you want to be racist, do it with your real name.”

"So we can ban (fire) you."

Edit: Also, for the record, I don't accept the premise that they're racist. This post has a hint of "when did you stop beating your wife?" to it.

It's not just about racism, it's the concept of anonymity being eroded so people tacitly know not to ask what could very well be a legitimate question. Haven't you heard that phrase "no dumb questions" as you were growing and being encouraged to learn. That's being taken away, and besides, you've already written off what they said as overtly racist. What if it's a question? What if it's a place they want to get into as part of the debate and broader framing of the question. Did you read the article? Were those questions overtly racist?

Lesson learned by the LinkedIn CEO: you can't allow anonymity in a struggle session.

Without anonymity, elections devolve into struggle sessions.

> In 2017, Google fired an employee who argued against the company’s diversity hiring initiatives by circulating a memo claiming women are “biologically” less likely to succeed in tech.

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