Apple just fired a leader of the AppleToo movement | Hacker News Reader

Apple just fired a leader of the AppleToo movement

theverge.com

57 pointsitsme-alan19 comments

I've noticed tech employees conducting organizing activities using workplace resources, such as Slack. Even if I agree with the spirit of organizing activity, many people doing it seem totally out of their depth. Of course you are going to get nailed, unless the company is tolerating your organizing as PR or as a venting mechanism.

> many people doing it seem totally out of their depth

Sure, they are just testing out the activism they were being taught in universities out in the real world and quickly learning that what they were taught in school only works when you pay them (at university), not when they pay you (at work). Oopsies.

Last I checked, conducting organizing activities was something you cannot be fired for under employment law. What am I missing here?

To borrow a quote from the motorcycle community:

"The graveyard is full of people who had the right of way."

We’re not firing you for that you’re being fired for one of the literally hundred thousands of reasons we can fire you for. Side note, It’s really disappointing that even after all the memos, you weren’t putting cover letters on your TPS reports.

(in this case the claimed reason is firing for deleting things from work devices while under investigation)

The comment you're replying to says "using company resources", those are the operative words here.

At will employment was brought in to make sure organizers can be fired for organizing

"Janneke Parrish was terminated for deleting files off her work phone, including the apps Robinhood, Pokémon GO, and Google Drive"

Umm, what? Truly bizarre reason given. I would think Apple could give a more plausible reason to cover themselves for retaliation for organizing.

You’re leaving of a crucial part of that sentence: “…during an internal investigation”

With that, and “work phone” (presumably) implying the phone is Apple’s, she may have given Apple a reason to fire her, even if she deleted the app not to hide that she leaked info, but for other reasons.

But of course, that all depends on what exactly happened. Did she know Apple was investigating, did they tell her to hand in here phone for that investigation, etc.

You’re assuming you’re getting the full story vs just cherry-picking the app deletion violation.

Indeed. Unless that is misreported then I don't really think that's going to do Apple much good in the inevitable lawsuit.

> Gjøvik’s latest charge alleges that Tim Cook’s anti-leaking memo might violate US labor law. In September, the CEO sent a note to all Apple employees saying that “people who leak confidential information do not belong” at Apple.

Is The Verge implying that it might violate labour laws to say that people who leak confidential information will be fired? Even for someone from social democratic Scandinavia, it's very hard to object to leakers being fired.

With respect to the #AppleToo movement, there is now an entire industry of lawyers and activists who go grievance-hunting due to poorly conceived civil rights law:

https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/wokeness-as-saddam-sta...

This is exactly the kind of movement that the financial incentives instilled by civil rights laws would create. And it will continue to gradually sap US industry's efficiency.

More about it at the WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/15/apple-f...

Good.

I can kinda understand the Google Drive: they requested her files for an internal investigation (at least if I understood the article correctly), she deleted those files (by deleting the app through which they could have accessed the data) which is indeed a non-compliance, a bit like destroying evidence.

What baffles me is the Pokémon GO and Robinhood. What, they wanted to see her movement data as well as her share in Bitcoin? That's just dumb. And unless they needed her physical locations and movements at certain times and dates (for which they would need a specific order), they could have simply gone in the location data in the freaking settings!

Note that The Verge’s reporting is almost certainly sourced from the fired individual. Verge is not a reputable outlet.

Apple probably didn’t care about Pokémon Go or Robinhood, and their inclusion in the reported list was probably an attempt to elicit exactly the type of misguided sympathetic reactions we’re now seeing here.

Pokémon GO functions as a self-recording GPS and Robinhood's financial records could produce circumstantial evidence of embezzlement, corporate espionage, and/or insider trading. A geocaching game and an entry-level trading app may seem insignificant ,but the data (and metadata!) collected by just one of them is digital gold to Apple's forensics team.

The article says she declined to comment, and her attorney would only say that she was no longer with Apple. So that info is (at best) second-hand info.

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