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Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

This person was Tweeting internal e-mails from Apple, complete with the footnote explaining that they were confidential and not to be shared outside of the company. Example here: https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1435421599826518025/...

There were headlines and outrage about her being placed on administrative leave by Apple recently. Reading the finer details, it turns out she requested to be placed on leave (From the article: "She was placed on administrative leave in early August while Apple investigated some of these concerns — a placement she says she requested as a last resort.")

She has a dedicated form on her website for press to fill out to request an interview with her. ( https://www.ashleygjovik.com/press.html )

She maintains a website called iWhistleblower ( https://www.iwhistleblower.org/ ) with details about past cases involving Apple and links encouraging people to report Apple information to different regulatory bodies.

Her personal website leads with "Apple Labor Advocacy" as well as "Public Health Advocacy" where she describes how she thinks there might be a toxic waste container somewhere on the property of her old 3rd-floor apartment. She believes it was causing her blood pressure and heart rate to change, according to monitors that she wore. She published photos of herself wearing a blood pressure monitoring cuff and her story here: https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apart...

While I fully agree that all allegations should be given due process and properly investigated, I get nervous when someone is visibly invested in building a personal brand on social media around being a victim. The story about the toxic waste apartment, the story about Apple's lawyers needing her work phone for an investigation, and the story about her alleged harassment at Apple all happened within the past 6 months. Her entire social media presence appears to be built around capitalizing on these stories.

View on HN

Here is her NLRB complaint [1]. It seems fine to me if she wants to get her story out via her own site or press or whatever. It can be hard to "go viral" and you have to put a lot of effort behind it. That said, making yourself a public figure can be tough too, so I hope she's ready with facts.

This summary from her website doesn't make Apple sound all that terrible in my opinion:

> I raised issues about workplace safety in March, upon which Apple subjected me to a nonconsensual sexism investigation on my behalf. Then I faced retaliation from my managers, ER, & HR. I continued to raise my workplace safety concerns as well as my concerns about the employee relations processes at Apple. This led to a second, much larger investigation that I actually requested this time. However, before we could finish gathering & reviewing the evidence, Apple forced me onto indefinite paid administrative leave.

[1] https://foiaonline.gov/foiaonline/api/request/downloadFile/N... (PDF download)

> This summary from her website doesn't make Apple sound all that terrible in my opinion:

Looking past her editorializing, the Apple communications she leaked aren't really unreasonable. She raised concerns about harassment, so Apple started an investigation. She then complains that the investigation was "nonconsensual", despite being the one to raise the concerns. She then requested a second investigation, which Apple started. The part about being placed on administrative leave is particularly confusing, because this article says that she requested to be placed on the administrative leave.

Her Tweets are hyper-dramatic. She calls her Employee Relations contacts "Employee Retaliation" and even insinuates that she thinks Apple might assault her at her home after they requested a meeting:

> Any bets if I get a literal knock on my physical door from #Apple today?

> Hey #Apple, "This feels a little like witness intimidation. I let @NLRB know." Love, Ashley

> Clutches panic button & Mace while still laying on floor pondering the brutality of U.S. capitalism...

Source: https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1436080433175818259

Yeah. I think she has real concerns that need to be addressed to make her whole. I'm not sure this is "the world needs to know"-level stuff though. Good on her for speaking her mind anyway. The "open kimono" stuff sounded bad to me (edit: depends on the context [2]).

At the same time, she is giving these veiled threats to Apple while an investigation appears to be underway,

> .... also makes me wonder what would happen if I shared the incidents [redacted] investigated and said weren't "policy violations" like [redacted] [1]

I can see why Apple would want to part ways with that. It's standard for everyone to keep their mouths shut while an investigation is underway. If you don't understand and follow that contract then you're tainting the investigation.

[1] https://www.ashleygjovik.com/uploads/1/3/7/0/137008339/publi...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28478276

The "open kimono" thing is inexcusable in 2021, but I don't think it's anything more than someone cluelessly using an outdated catchphrase. It was semi-common business lingo in the early 2000s in certain circles: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/open-kimono.asp

Self-help guru Tim Ferriss even copyrighted the phrase and made a big deal about publicizing a $10,000 seminar in his "Opening the Kimono" event in 2011: https://tim.blog/2011/04/12/opening-the-kimono/

Then the phrase quickly died, as it should have. Strange to hear an Apple manager using it, but I wouldn't assume they were implying anything or had ill intent.

> Strange to hear an Apple manager using it, but I wouldn't assume they were implying anything or had ill intent.

Yes, I can imagine oblivious men repeating it if they did not realize it could be interpreted sexually. However you do deserve to be called out if you continue using it while feigning ignorance. Your response should simply be, "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize the implications of this phrase. I'll stop using it." And if you can't do that then HR should get involved. It sounds like that is what was happening. Then she threatened to make her case more widely known and Apple decided, "alright, it's better if you're not employed here while you pursue that."

This thread is political correctness madness gone wild.

The phrase comes from Japanese<->American business relationships in the 70s through 90s. It is not sexist or racist. It literally means providing transparency to internal affairs.

> Strange to hear an Apple manager using it, but I wouldn't assume they were implying anything or had ill intent.

"Look, I will let you invest a million dollars in Apple if you will sort of open the kimono on Xerox Parc." -- Steve Jobs, Xerox Parc, 1979

Under the Xerox Parc kimono, he found a prototype of the modern computer mouse.

Ashley's source for why this is offensive and my source for why it's not are the same (from her screenshot): https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/open-kimono.asp

Investopedia says the term is "offensive" but the only reason they cite is an NYT article from 1998:

> New York Times reporter Stephen Greenhouse became one of the first to draw broad attention to the term when he noted that marketers at Microsoft (MSFT) had embraced it. At the time, he did caution that the use of open kimono may have originally indicated a disrespectful attitude toward the Japanese businessmen who were buying American companies.

It wasn't even disrespectful because of race, it was because Japanese businessmen were buying lots of American companies and doing due diligence. Also, kimonos are worn by men, women, and children.

In reality, Investopedia is probably labeling it "offensive" for people like me who know it is not offensive, but are unaware that using it could lead to problems.

“Open the kimono” isn’t that another way of saying “open the article of clothing primarily worn by women”? To be honest this is the first time I’ve heard the term but it sounds rather problematic.

Edit: explain downvotes and don’t downvote just because you don’t like the perspective. Sure there are men’s kimonos but ask some random person on the street and ask who wears kimonos and men will not be the answer.

Why would it be offensive just because random Americans think that "women are the ones that wear kimono"? Even if it were true.

For the puritanical American mind it might be offensive to even imagine nudity, but other than that I really don't get it.

Because the context is American office settings?

Look I don’t make American culture, I’m simply pointing out how a huge chunk of office workers will perceive it.

Anyway, I can tell people can see this perspective, but want to pretend it’s invalid because they don’t like it. those against what they call “cancel” culture then reacting to opinions they deem unpopular by downvoting shows they don’t care about the principal of what they call “cancel” culture in general but only care that what they are used to is being “cancelled”.

Has anyone tried googling the term to see what comes up? Many posts explaining or talking about why the term is problematic. People downvoting are trying to ignore facts they dislike, but that doesn’t make facts go away.

This even comes up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23549563

So what is the reason it would be offensive? Please explain.

Well according to the past hacker news thread I linked, it’s not racist but people find it sexist. That is also what many of the top google results for the term report

And why do they find it sexist?

Because people come from a wide variety of backgrounds with a wide variety of experiences and knowledge that informs their opinions of things, so that one group of people such as many hacker news commenters may take the term to be non-controversial there are other large groups that have different experiences. wishing they didn’t won’t chance that fact.

On hacker news it may seem like there is little difference in opinion, but keep in mind hacker news readers are a fairy like minded subsample of the population.

No I mean in what sense could it possibly be “sexist”? It’s not demeaning to women, at least not more so than to men. It might be a bit raunchy, but in a gender neutral way.

it's sexist in the minds of people like ashley who want to take down apple. probably due to misinterpretation or misunderstanding on her part.

Here is a somewhat wandering account of the term, showing it’s many sides. Enjoy.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744...

It appears that the beliefs of most of the people who are opposed to it are based on incorrect assumptions (for example kimono -> geisha). Put another way, the people who are using it are neither intending to be insulting, racist, or sexist, and the people complaining about don't have a legitimate reason to be unhappy, because their analysis is just wrong.

That line of argument is probably not going to convince HR or a lot of 50% of the nation.

If you play a word association game, having people say the first word or words that come to mind when they see the word “kimono” what do you think the top few will be?

My guess is that for an average American, the top three would be Japan, geisha and clothing.

What do you think most Americans would say? And what are your top three?

my top three are "elegant" "samurai" "oshiroi" because I grew up reading american manga

But yes, many people in america group "geisha" "oshiroi" and "kabuki" all sort of mix together into this image: https://geishakai.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/HANAFUSA-240...

I would be more than happily to be pulled up to HR if a coworker reported me for saying "open kimono" (not a phrase I would normally say). I'm sure HR would have a wonderful time talking to my lawyer.

This is so stupid I don't even know what to say. Geishas have kimonos hence expressions involving kimonos are sexist?

Samurai also wear kimonos, as do priests and sumo wrestlers. Sure, the general public is uneducated but come on, this is reaching.

I seriously doubt most people even make the connection between geishas and kimonos. In fact, most people don't even mean kimono when they say kimono, they mean a vaguely asiatic thin robe, pretty popular in the 80s.

That also makes more sense for the expressions, since they are easy to open. An actual kimono takes 10 minutes to open, it's probably the least sexually suggestive garment in the world.

Okay righty there you got it. You just said why many people would find the phrase sexist (you actually say most people)

> “ In fact, most people don't even mean kimono when they say kimono, they mean a vaguely asiatic thin robe, pretty popular in the 80s”

The difficulty in understanding how most people would react to the phrase appears to be because you’re judging it based on your understanding of the term, not on what you yourself said is the general public’s understanding.

No, that's the thing. Even if we pretend it's a female garment (even American "kimonos" aren't), I really don't see why using the word in a turn of phrase would be "sexist".

It's not implying in any way that women are prone to flashing, that women would be in any way inferior, or that actual women should open their actual kimonos. You are just using the image of a (supposedly) female garment.

Just like saying "like a kick in the balls" isn't sexist. It doesn't imply you want to kick men or anything like that.

Kimonos are not historically gendered clothing.

They’re basically t-shirts. The cut differs on men and women as a function of fashion, suitability to body type, and some formal rules (e.g. wearing a family crest historically made it a different kimono subtype).

There was a period during the late 20th century where kimonos were only in fashion for women (men wore western styles except at weddings) but both historically and presently kimonos are for men and women. Random people on the street who say differently are probably just misinformed about a culture they don’t live in.

Tying it back to the phrase used… this cultural dissonance is why it’s generally difficult to import phrases/metaphors from foreign cultures: people simply misunderstand you.

It's both racist and sexist that Ashley thinks kimonos are female attire and that opening a kimono is sexual.

If your mental image of a kimono wearer is a vulnerable Japanese woman, as it may be if you are an American that's still reverberating with echos of WW2 racism, then Ashley's disgust makes some sense.

> but it sounds rather problematic

Why does it sound problematic?

As others have already explained: it’s not an offensive phrase and kimonos are certainly not most commonly associated with women, so what’s your goal here?

What’s the point of trying to find offense?

but ask some random person on the street and ask who wears kimonos and men will not be the answer.

You're right, the answer is likely to be "Japanese".

> In reality, Investopedia is probably labeling it "offensive" for people like me who know it is not offensive, but are unaware that using it could lead to problems.

Nothing is objectively inoffensive. Whether something is or not depends on delivery and to whom it's delivered. Clearly "open kimono" does imply nakedness, so if you ask a person to be "open kimono" I can see how someone might be offended by that when just saying "be more open" would serve. I don't know the exact phrasing that this employee found offensive. It could just be a misunderstanding where a manager was saying they need to "open the kimono" on a product, such as by making an API that other people can use to easily interface it.

> Nothing is objectively inoffensive.

Apparently not.

There's almost 0 chance that managers at Apple got the colloquialism wrong and were using it in any sort of sexual or racist way. And if they were, Ashley would have surely brought it to light. This was not a misunderstanding.

What happened here is that Ashley thought the term sounded offensive enough to weaponize, and so she did.

From the Slack reaction emojis, and from our own sibling HN comments, we can tell other people also feel grossed out by the "open kimono" phrase. Particularly people who have never heard it before.

The obvious conclusion is that the phrase just doesn't pass the vibe check in 2021, and no additional research is required. It sounds kind of old and maybe a little racist or sexist, so anyone that uses it needs to be called out, so we can erase this uncomfortable phrase from the tech lexicon. Problem solved?

The real problem is that adopting such a niggardly view of workplace language leads to precisely the type of in-group/out-group division and discrimination that people like Ashley claim to be fighting against. Of course, if it works, she ends up in the in-group with power because she knows the rules. The in-group is then free to exclude other cultures because they're seen as crude or offensive or somehow "less than" the enlightened rule makers of civil society.

> There's almost 0 chance that managers at Apple got the colloquialism wrong and were using it in any sort of sexual or racist way. And if they were, Ashley would have surely brought it to light. This was not a misunderstanding.

That sounds more like jumping to conclusions than objectivity. We're not going to know the truth on either side of this. The facts are, she felt harmed, reported it, started an investigation, threatened to publicize some details, and was let go.

> What happened here is that Ashley thought the term sounded offensive enough to weaponize, and so she did.

You think she pretended to be offended in order to raise a stink publicly, thereby risking her job over a false claim? That doesn't pass the smell test for me. More likely is she truthfully felt wronged, wanted it made right, and overstepped herself a bit along the way.

> The real problem is that adopting such a niggardly view of workplace language leads to precisely the type of in-group/out-group division and discrimination that people like Ashley claim to be fighting against. Of course, if it works, she ends up in the in-group with power because she knows the rules. The in-group is then free to exclude other cultures because they're seen as crude or offensive or somehow "less than" the enlightened rule makers of civil society.

Not everything's a conspiracy. Quit looking at the world in black and white. People are complex.

I'm really having trouble phrasing this because I feel like ultimately we agree, but does passing the vibe check actually matter? Or whose doing the checking?

Cause some may say you haven't passed the vibe check either, as far back as 1999 and at least as recent as 2011.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_n...

It sounds kind of old and maybe a little racist, so should we call you out on your usage?

I don't agree, but others might not agree of your classification of the open kinomo phrase either.

He may have dropped niggardly in there in order to "prove his point" about people creating in-groups and out-groups. Now he's a victim too. It's a common reaction from people who don't want to accept that other people are expressing emotions, and may come from the fact they haven't been allowed to express theirs either. In other words, "Nobody accepted my sadness, why should I accept yours?"

> does passing the vibe check actually matter? Or whose doing the checking? > should we call you out on your usage?

You're asking all the right questions.

Lately, it seems that the only thing that matters is passing the vibe check.

Things that surprisingly pass the vibe check:

* "long time no see" or "no can do" -- making fun of broken English (particularly Chinese and Native American)

* "got gypped" -- clearly insulting toward gypsies

* criticism from the "peanut gallery" -- that's a reference to poor seating for black people during the Vaudeville era, which is super racist by any standard

Things that unsurprisingly don't pass the vibe check but should if people were more educated:

* "jimmies" for sprinkles has a pop culture reputation for being racist and people have corrected me for saying it, but actually ice cream sprinkles were just invented by a guy named James

* "niggardly" shares no root with its racist homophone

* "那个" is a filler word that chinese speakers need to be careful with because of the same racist homophone

I get that language is always evolving and the vibe check does matter to lots of people, so I try to accommodate the sensibilities of the masses.

I know that "niggardly" is so uncommon these days that it practically is a racist dog whistle (though it really shouldn't be), so I wouldn't use it in daily speech.

But I also think it would be a shame if all the interesting turns of phrase that have stuck around over the years are intentionally censored and removed until we have nothing but bland language without metaphor or history or anything that could possibly cause offense.

"Opening the kimono" is certainly not a phrase worth censoring. I think you could make a good faith argument that trying to censor it is actually a reflection of racist and sexist American stereotypes about Japanese people.

> This thread is political correctness madness gone wild.

The purpose of political correctness is to go mad. Its whole point is to control others.

Why would "open kimono" be "inexcusable"? It just means "without hiding anything". Like almost any abstract expression, you're taking something concrete and using it in an abstract sense, it doesn't mean she should actually be naked, even as an innuendo.

I really don't understand why it would be offensive. Is it because kimonos are (originally) an "ethnic" (i.e. non-American) thing? Or is it related to the American panic about nudity?

It's because some have deemed that anything that has origins from a foreign culture is off limits.

The one that gets me the most is someone taking the phrase "Chinese wall" as being offensive. The phrase means a hard separation of business units in some companies, such as analysts evaluating companies and investment banking units trying to win business from those companies.

I always took it to mean "Well, there is one country that's rather famous for having an incredibly extensive barrier that serves to separate 2 areas." I literally have no understanding of how this could even be considered racist, if anything it's praising an incredible human feat and using it metaphorically.

You do realize that kimonos are not exclusively worn by women? Hard to see how that's sexisme without that misconception.

This whole affair seems like a one way ticket out of ‘traditional’ corporate employment for life, so I’d say Ashley would be smart to be setting up alternative revenue streams—-media appearances, book deals, etc.

I don’t agree with her methods, but I do admire the commitment to doubling down.

She's got a huge website[1] organizing every tweet, every hashtag, every document, every bit of media attention adjacent to this story. Regardless of what you think of the topic itself, you have to admire the single-minded focus on media exposure and self-amplification. This is an exceptional, master-level ability to get people talking about yourself. I'm kind of in awe.

1: https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html

They say that Apple only hires the most dedicated people.

She’s attending law school: https://law.scu.edu/news/ashley-gjovik-jd-22-quoted-in-the-t...

This is one tweet that I saw on Twitter that looked actually bad https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1426014545202479108

> Her entire social media presence appears to be built around capitalizing on these stories

Or, she is focused on shedding light on bad behavior of others and she was actually bullied and picked on by some twats at Apple and she wants consequences?

So in the end, I don't understand why it would be a problem to create a website for news coverage and tweet highlights. If she feels she's been wronged, it's okay to fight back, even if she was employed by Apple. What's wrong with that?

On this site, people always say "bad Apple" ("bad Google", etc) behaving badly and abusing its power. Yet, when an employee comes out with complaints, we pretend it is not okay to complain about your employer?

I don't know who is in the wrong here, we have seen both dramatic employees that take offense in everything innocent, but we have also seen corporations covering up bullying and abusive behavior. Which one is it in this case? I don't know yet, I bet you don't either.

From what I understand, there were a few such tickets created for multiple people on that team. “Make X’s life hell”. It’s at best a poorly thought out joke, but it is worth mentioning that this ticket was not isolated to her.

How about the one where they filled a whiteboard with nasty nicknames for her?

Well, that definitely puts this into a different perspective... I see how at some of my former companies we would have made such joke tickets for each other.

It's really hard to tell who is right from the outside, considering all parties might take things out of context.

Just as a personal comment, that is why am the most boring person ever with my coworkers. (Assuming you are right) Is it really worth writing a "joke" ticket like this when it might come back in 6 years and you'll be painted as the bullies of Apple?

Yes, it's definitely worth having a team where you can bond over light, harmless jokes that fly in all directions. It's also okay to be 'boring', of course.

I'm sure her old team is dismayed to see her lying about it now.

From: The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond by Patricia Evans

""" > Abuse disguised as a joke happens when abusers make comments about you that they want other people to believe are funny, but you know they are threats and put-downs in disguise. They’re sick personal jokes between the two of you. Only you know the real story behind his “humor” so friends may wonder why you cry or become so upset when he teases and jokes... Abusers tend to use sarcastic humor and make fun of other people – but they rarely if ever poke fun at themselves. """

Strange how confident you are in accusing her of lying. Almost like you have this strategy down to a science. Can't imagine why.

Your comment was dead, so I vouched for it. I think your accusation is wildly off base, though.

Could you please clarify in what way? I think your accusation that she's lying is wildly off base, but the difference is that I cited an external source to validate my insinuation.

That’s fine that you think that. Your source was a general quote from a book not relevant to that kind of sarcastic whiteboard comment or ticket.

Regardless of whether these complaints have merit or not, I never understood people who crap on their employer in public using social media.

It's one thing to have a complaint (or several) you bring up internally through the right channels, it's something else entirely to run a continuous campaign of shaming a company that you currently work for. How anyone can go to work at a company every day while also actively working against it is beyond me — not to mention how her relationships with her colleagues are impacted by her tweeting.

She calls herself a whistleblower, but was also tweeting about issues that were still under internal investigation at the time, and which was confidential. That's absolutely the wrong way to go about things.

About footnote, claiming is not the same than telling truth.

A lot of corporations are making their own "laws" (warranty stickers, abusive contract clauses, anti-piracy disclaimers, etc.) and they are keeping them even when they know it's total lies.

Authorities also take what corporations tell them as granted truth.

So even if the odds are in favor of corporations being right (corps are usually a lot of people), don't fall in that kind of trap especially when it favors the corporation or if there are facts casting doubts.

-- This is my personal view not necessarily the view of my employer. I may be POTUS too. I may or may not think Apple is right. You owe me $100 if you read that sentence.

As I understand it, the footnote about confidentiality does not supersede state law that employees may discuss their mistreatment publicly.

This mirrors how I feel about this. I've just learned about this today from this HN post, and the first thing I did was check out her feed and websites for something like that. It's weird isn't it? She has this whole persona/business built around this Apple thing.

And she's talking about unions and such on company Slack, come on now. Reckless lol. https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html

I've worked with people like this, they cause a silent rot within teams.

I mean look at this https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1422380335703101443 - totally benign feedback so that you don't sound like you're always asking a question (I've personally had this feedback given to me!) and immediately she skewers her boss as "sexist". Bad juju.

as they say in eastern europe "Don't spit in the well you drink from"

this reminds of that Google ethics researcher who was fired for sabotage and then built a big following on Twitter as a professional "victim of racism"

Timnit had a large following before she got fired. Especially for us who work in the field.

She is not a 'professional victim of racism.' She is a professional who was fired for raising ethical concerns around larger language models.

> She is a professional who was fired for raising ethical concerns around larger language models.

This is a clear mischaracterization of the reported events. Gebru, in her own statements on the subject, stated that she was fired for demanding to know the identities of peers who submitted critical feedback on her work through confidential HR channels. Leaving aside the question of whether those criticisms had merit, her being fired was a foregone conclusion of making such an ultimatum. No confidential peer feedback system can function if there is a possibility of reviewers being de-anonymized at the demand of sufficiently influential coworkers.

On a more opinionated note - making a demand like that displays critical lack of judgement in the important responsibility that all employees in supervisory roles have in ensuring a non-hostile working environment. Even if her intention was not to retaliate against her peers after determining their identities, it’s essential that people in positions of power do not take actions that even suggest that they are seeking to retaliate against less powerful peers. The importance of this principle is extreme to a healthy collaborative work environment. The fact that someone as intelligent as Gebru was surprised to be fired for making an ultimatum like this is itself surprising.

Sabotage is a pretty wild way to say “refusing to retract an academic paper that points out obvious flaws in ML models”.

there was much more to that, she demanded a list of reviewers who rejected her paper in a sort of ultimatum, and blasted group emails calling for sabotage

I don't know if you saw Jeff Dean's response, but here it is https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2kYWDXwhzYnq8ebVtuk9CqQ...

There was also a thread on reddit with her colleagues reactions https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...

you left out "publicly calling out your SVP on twitter for not being racially sensitive enough" which she did before the paper blowup. Pretty sure that was the prime impetus for her being fired.

BTW, I worked with TPUs on the hardware side, and the entire section about hardware power usage is just completely and totally wrong (I would have asked for the paper to be retracted if it was published, the errors are so large). As for the obvious flaws part, yeah, some of the flaws are obvious (and known to all practitioners of the art already), some are irrelevant but made to sound like they are existential crises, and some of the "flaws" are just per personal opionion about what she doesn't like.

Hopefully she can find some academic position from which to propound her opinions. However, I do think in her behavior, she excluced herself from future employment.

Multiple other, even white, employees called out this same SVP. Your usage of the phrase "Not being racially sensitive enough" strikes me as a bizarre euphemism for "racism", which it would appear you don't see as an issue.

"are just per personal opinion about what she doesn't like."

The field of AI Ethics is an amalgam of computer science and moral philosophy. What do you think value judgements are? What are those "personal opinions" and things she "doesn't like" and why?

It seems you're using a lot of euphemisms to hide some very unpleasant truths about your world view.

I don't know of any situation where anybody other than Timnit called out Jeff Dean publicly on twitter, at least not until Timnit had, or with nearly as much vehemence.

I'm familiar with ethics in science; worked in biology for many years before concluding humanity isn't ready for gene modification.

It's pretty clear that her opinion space in ethics is just one view, and not a particularly representative one. I know other ethicists who are far more careful (Sara Hooker for one) and say things that have much more impact, through careful writing to make it clear they are showing a societally relevant position on ethics.

> And she's talking about unions and such on company Slack, come on now. Reckless lol.

Generally speaking she does seem to have issues, but why wouldn't you discuss unions on a company Slack?

still, she's going to get a fat settlement from apple.

was this the plan all along?

Is that accurate? I don't think victims of discrimination actually make from such settlements, especially compared to the salaried positions of their abusers, measured against loss of income from blacklisting and lasting damages from abuse. I think the myth of "big discrimination payout" is designed specifically to pre-emptively discredit whistleblowers (especially survivors of sexual/emotional abuse).

> was this the plan all along? Would you say this about Larry Nassar's victims? (sadly, yes, when it was just the first few women, you probably would). I'd like you to reflect on this comment next time Blizzard's abusive culture is back the news and you're wondering why women abused in the workplace are turning to suicide over legal mediation.

You can choose to look away, but never again can you say "you didn't know."

Her personal beliefs aren't something that changes how Apple handled this situation.

Edit: I'm not arguing that she hasn't made the situation worse, I'm only arguing that her behavior doesn't excuse Apple's.

They do if most of our knowledge of how Apple handled this situation comes from her accounts.

Firing people that actively stir controversy and attract bad press to the corp in question seems obviously like the logical thing to do. This individual clearly desires to advance their personal situation and cultivate controversy almost explicitly at the expense of their employer.

Sorry if I'm being insensitive but it just seems inappropriate to handle this via social media vs. going through internal mechanisms, and then escalate to local PD/LE. I mean I feel like if I was in a position to run a megacorp, I'd try to cultivate a culture of innovation and curiosity. If there are bad actors that are abusing other colleagues, I'd want to fire them (i.e. her alleged abuser) and do my best and make sure the abuser can't engage in any retributive behavior to the individual or anyone else (going even further than just the org) - even so far as to potentially recommend the incident be investigated by the police.

EDIT: I truly sympathize with her situation. It sucks to be bullied, abused, etc. I just don't feel like airing dirty laundry, even if it feels useful in the moment, is an effective way to force organizational change. I know of several cases against major banks that involved sexual harassment and I can't image the hammer of God force of nature damage the legal team at some of the megabanks would cause against this person (as an example), so you have to be realistic and careful. I just don't think in any professional capacity I'd ever say "wow my coworkers looked at my genatalia and I am extremely offended at this - isn't this terrible?" Yes, of course it is terrible. However, is the manner by which you are conducting your counter-offensive truly effective?

If you have cause, take notes, collect as much explicit documented evidence and then go to a lawyer. Airing out your dirty laundry will literally never end well and makes you radioactive in terms of future employment opportunities - except in this case, it's on the person - not the employer. Build your case, move slowly, strike - don't just start tweeting about your grievances. Am I crazy or what?

I think the sad reality is that the only way to have some sort of power and support against a megacorporation is by showing a controversy to the public. I don't know how many threads I've read about people just being locked out of their account and they've had to use HN or Reddit to get in contact with a person. From the point of view of the corp, it's bad press, but they really don't seem to act unless there is bad press.

I don't give Apple the benefit of the doubt when their entire company culture is about secrecy and forcing decisions on its users.

> I've read about people just being locked out of their account and they've had to use HN or Reddit to get in contact with a person

Not really the same thing. She was an employee, and Apple was already willing to investigate the issue twice. She wasn't facing indifference, and "showing a controversy to the public" involved leaking confidential documents.

They should have either fired her if she was completely in the wrong way back when it first started, or acknowledge and own up to her complaints. Instead they resisted her allegations in an indefensible manner and let it become what it is now, firing her when they realized she wouldn't back down.

I don't agree with that at all. Opening an investigation after a complaint is reasonable. If you find the complaint to not be relevant, the right response is to fire the employee who made the complaint? That doesn't seem useful, it will just up the cost of complaints for employees by a lot, so you get fewer complaints and have fewer chances to fix issues.

Firing someone who has become oppositional, doesn't seem to have any interest in "patching things up", discloses confidential information and trash talks you on Twitter? That seems perfectly reasonable. There's no point in keeping them on the pay roll.

From your comment, it's very clear that you've never been in a situation like this.

Have you ever had to report misconduct of a higher-up to HR? HR exists first and foremost to protect the company and they're only helpful insofar as it's in the company's interest. And do you really think the police would be at all interested in getting involved in something like this?

And taking Apple, one of the most well-funded corporations in the world, to court? To spend years and large chunks of savings on litigation for the chance that someone will get a slap on the wrist?

Whew, I'm just saying - maybe people who don't have experience in this area should chill.

> HR exists first and foremost to protect the company and they're only helpful insofar as it's in the company's interest.

This is not true. There are good people in HR who actually believe what they say.

HR. its in the name. Human Resources. Theyr job is to provide human resources to the company, not to defend employee rights. Thats what unions are for.

Though comprised of many good people, HR is just the de facto surveillance apparatus of management. This has been shown to be the case many times over.

> I just don't feel like airing dirty laundry, even if it feels useful in the moment, is an effective way to force organizational change.

Ever heard of Edward Snowden? You think what he did was totally ineffective?

He's on the run living in Russia and we still have NSA spying on people and parallel construction is still widely used so pretty much, yeah, totally ineffective.

it certainly sped up Google's internal project to encrypt its between-datacenter (cross-countries) communications. "SSL added and removed here" indeed.

The comment you're responding to describes her actions more than her personal beliefs.

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