Why does your last bullet point make me feel like we read two different articles?
I don’t see anything in the article that suggests Google suppresses unfavorable research or censors authors whatsoever. Instead it sounds like a lot of whining and complaining from exceedingly privileged researchers who want some version of tenure to apply within for-profit companies and seem too immature to accept that legal and compliance functions within a large corporation very differently than in academia.
Google tells Researcher 1 to re-word things in X way for Y reason.
Google tells Timnit Gebru to re-word things in X way for Y reason.
The X and Y are the same.
Based on the rest of your response, I believe you are having trouble reading the article in an objective manner. You say that it sounds like whining to you. That’s because you already think it is. You came into the article with this viewpoint about academics in corporations already established. This is why I also found your comment hilarious. You already think Timnit is a whiny researcher. You say this article is about whiny researchers. Yet it’s _ludicrous_ to mention Timnit in this article?
Also, Jeff Dean lied in his email. Maybe that’s why you’re confused about the Timnit situation. I’m assuming you don’t work at Google.
To be clear, it’s ok to disagree with Jeff Dean or to dispute his charitability in accepting Gebru’s ultimatum-based resignation, but to claim he publicly lied is beyond the pale.
I wish he hadn't. I'm disappointed that he did. But I don't know how else to describe sharing statements one knows (or should know) to be false.
He lied. There are falsehoods that he knew (or had a responsibility to know) were false in a public statement he put his name on. They've been repeatedly corrected both by other employees and by data.
Specifically, he at least lied about a 2 week requirement for paper reviews in the internal publication approval process. While that's listed as a further requirement, they don't "normally" require two weeks.
(I wouldn't, for example call the resignation statements lies. Those were unintentional falsehoods)
For what its worth, I don't think "threatening to resign" is the same as resignation. Much as I don't think "threatening to shoot someone" is attempted homicide.
[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-mem...
> calling it a resignation is completely correct and needs no retraction or correction.
Alternatively: publicly calling it a firing is essentially an admission of guilt. That's the one thing Google's lawyers would insist Google cannot do.
Presumably neither one of us are the experts on EEOC and employment litigation strategies. So instead I'm going to take the statements at face value. And at face value: Google is no longer willing to state that Dr.Gebru resigned. Anything else is spin.
I agree! He also refused to say she resigned. Fancy that!
The important thing to note is that one of these was a change in behavior and one was not.
EDIT: Sorry, I understand that you don’t have as much information as us and you’re just going off based on tweets and stuff. But come on. It’s insulting to be lied to like that. I hope you can understand that feeling at least.
Besides the 2 week thing, he also misrepresented the “list of demands” to make it seem like it was worse than it actually was. So much so that I’m even surprised he was allowed to publish the email publicly.
I can’t imagine a single lawyer looked at his email, honestly.
Hypothetical but likely scenario below.
Jeff Dean: “Oh, you say she made a list of demands. Ok, let me put that in the email. Oh, you said there’s this 2 week deadline that she didn’t follow. Ok, let me put that in the email. What else do you want me to add?”
I believe the question you should be asking is _who_ told him these things. Please guess.