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Comment by sequoia | Hacker News Reader

To be honest I wish Zuckerberg would say "We're not censoring political posts, and if you don't like it, --> there's the door. Who's leaving first?"

Facebook engineers may love to beat their chests about social justice, but when push comes to shove, they are not about to walk away from those gold plated salaries & stock grants. Most of them could leave FB and get another job paying somewhere in the ballpark of $200k (if not much more) within weeks, or a couple months. But no, 200k is not enough, they need 250k + equity + food etc. etc..

So to social justice oriented facebook employees sticking around facebook: spare us the performative gnashing of teeth. You know what facebook is, either admit the $$$ make it worth holding your nose, or put your money where your mouth is & go get a different job.

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Maybe I’m out of the loop a little bit I feel that the argument framed as political activism is a deflection.

Post 5g causes sickness or other theories... These aren’t political at all, they are just factually incorrect.

Framing them as political is a mistake and it seems to have worked so well, even here on HN.

Employees were mad specifically because he wouldn't take down the president's post threatening a violent crackdown on rioting & looting. Is it your perception that the main objection of employees was to explicitly counterfactual claims? That's not what I got from TFA

Also TFA makes clear that facebook takes down tons of posts, that's the biggest complaint they get from users, so it's not true that they are leaving everything up. Respectfully: did you read TFA?

Using conspiracy theories, bunk science, and outright lies to influence the lower-awareness majority _is_ political action, and evidently it is currently one of the more effective strategies.

Some might. Google had an exodus of some dozen to two-dozen high-performing engineers in the past 2 years resulting from multiple controversial management decisions.

I don't expect FB to see an exodus more than sub-1% over topics like this, but the company can feel outsized impact if the sub-1% are 10x engineers... Or decide you can air any dirty internal laundry you want once they're no longer buying your silence and there's good dirt to share.

I doubt the people who take time out of their workdays for political activism are, by and large, the "10x engineers".

I can't imagine why. 10x engineers tend to either find a blend of their work / life balance or are so productive and organized that they have surplus time-in-day to burn.

I wish he'd say this for a different reason: we'll find out whether you're correct or not very quickly.

In a way, I also wish I could be this cynical, because I wouldn't have to think about the complexities of human motivation, and that would be a lot easier. But I don't think money and status is all there is. Which is exactly why these outcries are happening: people are negotiating as best they can to maximize all the things that make them happy and keep them motivated, like working in a context that keeps them right with themselves, and good for them. Until Zuckerberg actually says what you're saying, there's a chance they can be successful, so I don't blame them for trying.

But you know, if he actually came out and said this, we'd find out pretty quickly if money is all there is.

Totally agree–eliminate the rhetorical hiding places ("I work here but I object strongly...) and let people either be honest about the fact that the money is worth the compromise (i.e. stop performing outrage) or actually be outraged enough to do something (walk out & get another job).

Personally I would not work at Facebook precisely because I object to the negative impact I think it has on society. I'm not condemning employees for objecting, I'm rolling my eyes at them objecting loudly but seemingly avoiding the personal sacrifice of actually refusing to contribute to facebook and foregoing the pecuniary benefits of those contributions.

I also personally make compromises. I cannot always work at my "dream job" that's "mission driven" etc., and I'm honest with myself about that. We all make compromises, we all draw our own line somewhere.

(also I know some FB workers who have left due objections to FB policy so it's definitely wrong to say "none of them do that")

I would love to work at a company these days that cares more about building interesting products instead of being constantly bombarded by social justice and political activism issues.

Honestly, if Zuck pushed out the SJW types, I'd love to work there for half my current salary. He's showing solid leadership right now and just needs to go slightly further.

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