Amazon investigating engineers who criticized AI data center expansion | Hacker News Reader

Amazon investigating engineers who criticized AI data center expansion

cnbc.com

56 pointshathym16 comments

A practice which apparently is illegal in Seattle:

"The complaint accuses Amazon of violating a Seattle ordinance that prohibits companies from discriminating against employees for their political ideology, race, religion and age, among other things."

Wonder how this will go.

Is being against data centers a political ideology? I could be against building data centers in the area I live in, if one were proposed, but I don't see it as an ideology myself.

At most it would be an issue in one aspect of a political ideology (like say a green party is against using coal fired electric power plants and data centers consume fossil fuels, lets say) but being against data center in itself is not a political ideology. I think if they were Amish, I can see it being part of their ideology since they eschew many modern conveniences.

if they were Amish, it's unlikely that they would also be software engineers

As the article says further down, it really depends on what exactly they said. I can easily see how describing your employer as being engaged in an “all-costs-justified AI build out” could cross the line from political advocacy which happens to impact Amazon to improperly representing Amazon and its business strategy.

There’d be no question, for example, that you can be fired for publishing Amazon’s full internal datacenter buildout plans, even if your city council says they’d like to see them.

It’s fairly silly to work at Amazon if you don’t like data centers. And also stupid for Amazon to employ you if you don’t like data center and are actively making efforts in your free time and possibly while at work to prevent the construction of data centers.

You really have to question the motives of somebody who is anti data center working at Amazon to the point they may only work there to throw wrenches into plans for such.

Making it a “political issue” should not result in a company dealing with such issues.

You would never stand up for having doctor or nurses plotting to prevent abortions and potentially taking action on the job to prevent them.

I might stand up for a doctor who tells the city council not to authorize construction of a new hospital wing, even if the hospital really wants one. It would again depend on what they say and why. You can't wield your employer's name and proprietary information against them in the political scene, and political activism on the job is another story entirely, but you have every right to show up to city council meetings as a NIMBY even if your employer finds NIMBYs inconvenient.

My understanding is that this ordinance mainly protects employees sharing a political representation at work e.g., wearing a pride shirt.

I don't think it provides sweeping protection to use your employer's name in the name of your political organization which is what these employees did, “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice”.

Eh, they really shouldn’t be using Amazons name for their group while doing advocacy in their private life.

I had to get pretty far down in the article to find that bit, when I was fully ready to pull out the pitchforks against Amazon initially.

Where does it say that in the article, except from the extremely unreliable source of the Amazon HR rep?

The article says that the company /may/ have been speaking in their capacity as Amazon employees and not citizens.

Even if they described themselves as working for Amazon, that doesn't mean they were posing as representatives of the company.

Further, even if this violates Amazon policy -- the policy itself violates Seattle law: https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...

Bruh, read the article.

They were part of an activist group they named “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice”

There is no nuance there to say they weren’t trying to tie their speech to Amazon with that name.

Hell if they had even made it anonymous with like “FAANG Employees for Climate Justice” or “Former Amazon Employees for Climate Justice“ there would be some wiggle room.

I am generally on the left for most political views, so I am saying this from a “the call is coming from inside the house” energy. The leftist groups tend to be dogshit at naming things and getting burned for it.

The right will make a horrible bill removing our rights and call it “The Patriot Act” and get low information voters on board, the left will push for comprehensive legislation that restructures emergency services to split it out so that police don’t show up to situations that don’t need violence and send social workers instead and call it “Defund the Police”

Naming their group as associated with the company was an unforced error.

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