ICE rolled an armored military vehicle. with a gunner in the roof. through an immigrant community in Queens.ICE dropped an estimated $5 million on 16 of these military vehicles as an "operational necessity for officer safety."
Sophie Haskins: Why I Quit GitHub:
"What am I trying to accomplish by quitting? Am I quitting because I believe it will have some impact on ICE itself, on GitHub's contract with ICE? How will it compare to what I think I can do if I stay and organize from within?"
For me, the answer to the latter question is: I don't know. I don't know if quitting has more impact on stopping these things. Folks are still working hard to make changes from the inside, and I didn't know that quitting going to have more impact than if I were to stay and fight with them.; I realized the impact wasn't my goal -- I wanted to quit because it's unethical to participate in crimes against humanity. I was choosing based on what I can stomach. Even if someone had advised me, "it wouldn't help to quit," I still would have done it. I don't want to be part of a company that contracts with ICE. [...]
For those considering quitting their tech job, you should examine how your company contributes to these things: who you sell technology to, how tech isn't neutral, how that non-neutrality works. If you're working with image (facial) recognition, that's literally a weapon.
People criticize tech companies for putting money above principle, but Github is holding on to a $100K ICE contract despite employee anger, and Facebook says it will continue to sell toxic political ads that are 0.5% of revenue. These are clear examples of putting principle first.
The problem is that employees and journalists have trouble accepting what principles the companies hold. Big tech is not lying about this -- look at their political giving, their tax avoidance, their senior hires, their boards, their products -- but there's a fair amount of denial.
If I sponsored CPAC, evaded taxes, had dinner with Trump, gave Ivanka an Internet freedom award, donated to Mitch McConnell, appeared on Sean Hannity's radio show to defend Alex Jones, and had frequent off-the-record meetings with Republican figures, you would say I'm right-wing.
You would also say this if I had Peter Thiel on my board, hired a former Bush administration official and the public mouthpiece of Trump's family detention program to run my office of public policy, or operated a massive for-profit video recruitment network for white supremacy.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
And today in dystopian Facebook hell news: https://medium.com/@blindfb2020/facebook-empowers-racism-against-its-employees-of-color-fbbfaf55ab76
Holy fucking shit...
Get out now. There is no saving that hellscape.
I'm curious, what workplace do you think would NOT have people making these same racist & sexist comments if they were given the anonymous tool?
They just do it around the water cooler, during carpool, via text messages, etc.
But Facebook has an app for this. They're not just condoning it; they're facilitating it.
What do you think "happy hour" was, all these years?
Admittedly I live and work in a very different culture, so perhaps this is much more normalised elsewhere.
I mean, this is just a factor of the shit being made visible, not any evidence that white people and dudes at FB are particularly, uniquely terrible.
As Dame magazine says, when social media happened and "little people" got platforms,
Liberals, they discovered, were even offended by all the things people on the Right had been saying about them all these years. That when we heard someone say something like, “Gay people cause hurricanes with their gay sex,” we did not think, “Oh, well, they just have traditional values and beliefs. Live and let live!,” and instead thought they were terrible, terrible people.
They found out that the vitriol did, indeed, go both ways. We didn’t like them any more than they liked us. We were not being tolerant of their intolerances. And that was a tough pill to swallow. And they got angry. So angry, supposedly, that they elected Trump in hopes that he would make it “OK” for them to be themselves again without any social repercussions.
And when shitheels became able to spew their poison anonymously, guess what: they showed who they are. Which many of us knew or suspected all along.
A FoaF was explaining how the problem is that all these marginalized folks are asking for their rights TOO FAST, and THAT'S the problem.
We have the greatest society ever, but change needs to come more slowly and carefully. There have always been marginalized groups, but don't forget that such enjoy greater wealth and freedom here than anywhere ever.
He's made this argument several times - that Trump's election, specifically, was a backlash to attempts to accelerate acknowledging people's inherent civil rights, because things are good enough already. That this supposed mandate lost the popular vote by over two percent of the voting turnout hasn't clicked yet, for some unknown reason. (He's just handwaving away the entire ethical side of slow-walking acknowledging certain people's inherent human rights, mind. Doesn't affect him directly, not a problem! Go too fast with it, THERE'S the issue!)
Yeah, he can get fucked. Preferably with something unpleasant.
slow-walking acknowledging certain people's inherent human rights
Well-put. I'm going to remember that framing.
"I know you're getting fucked and I'm truly sorry about that but I'm just enjoying it too much to pull out now"
ICE == Domestic Terrorists