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Google Engineers Are Organizing A Walk Out To Protest The Company's Protection Of An Alleged Sexual Harasser (buzzfeednews.com)
In response to a story about Google paying and protecting former executive Andy Rubin following an investigation into sexual misconduct, a group of 200 Google employees are organizing a "women's walk." From a report: A group of more than two hundred engineers at Google are organizing a company-wide "women's walk" walkout for later this week to protest recent revelations about the search giant's protection of employees that had allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct, according to four people familiar with the situation inside Google. The protest, which is expected to happen on Thursday, comes in light of a story by the New York Times last week into the misbehavior of Android creator Andy Rubin and other executives at the company, some of whom still have positions of prominence at Google. Google gave Rubin a reported $90 million exit package in 2014, following an investigation into an allegation that he had coerced another employee to perform oral sex on him. That investigation reportedly found that allegation to be credible.
Since the company essentially fired Rubin, I'm not sure what protection they gave him.
The previous story made it sound as though the money was actually through stock options or some other benefits package that he'd previously negotiated in order to stay with the company. Unless Google had some kind of morals clause as a part of that, they wouldn't have any good reason to deprive him of what they had already negotiated.
So the company investigated a report (i.e., they didn't just brush it off), removed Rubin after finding the allegation credible (i.e., merely likely enough to have happened), and paid him what he was owed based on previous negotiations. I'm not sure what Google did wrong in any of this to warrant a protest by anyone. Normally this is the type of shit that just gets covered up, so Google should be getting praised by the people protesting this if anything.
Probably gonna be downvoted to hell but I don't care.
What's with all this witch-hunting nowadays? Notice how many things in this story are nothing but a pure speculation: "allegedly engaged", "a reported $90 million exit package", "an allegation", "reportedly found that allegation to be credible".
Nothing in this story has been proven. There's never been a lawsuit. Nothing has officially been revealed.
First, it was Hollywood actors and even directors. Now, CEOs or high ranking officers. Can anyone name a single instance of relatively recent sexual harassment allegation to be conclusively proven in the court of law?
I'm not trying to downplay this story or say that women are never oppressed/sexually harassed at work. I just want such stories to become a tad more factual than they've been so far. Someone said something to someone and now the whole Internet is buzzing about it. What the hell?
I'm not a woman, of course, but why on Earth at least a number of rape victims seek legal counsel, press charges and somehow act on the harassment in a provable manner while this recent witch-hunting has been fueled by pure speculations and seemingly nothing else?
Come on, they paid somebody $90m to receive a bj. Call me a SJW if you want, but that's just plain stupidity on Google's part in my book. It encourages more BS.
Table-ized A.I.
No innocent until proven guilty, no jury of equals, no rule of law, only mob justice. And that's supposed to hold the moral high ground? Why don't they just walk to his house and lynch him, if it's so bad...
Absolutely no one should be surprised when China quickly takes over the United States as world tech leader.
To quote/paraphrase a vile and toxic SJW:
"you made your SJW bed. Now get fucked in it" Google.
I'd fire them.
Why?
It's not like Google engineers have a 9 to 5 schedule.
If their work performance doesn't suffer, I don't see what the problem is.
Google's got over 85,000 employees. Probably half of them in the various south bay campuses. Two hundred being gone for a day isn't going to be noticed. Though I imagine eng-misc@ and industryinfo@ and memegen might be a little quieter.
It's not like they had a choice.
Andy Rubin sold Android to Google for 50 million dollars initially.
But it's only with his continued leadership that Android became what it is today.
And that continued leadership didn't come for free.
If the guy is found to be actually a piece of shit who sexually harasses women, and the company protects him, then I would support these people. If they are protesting with just allegations, then they should be fired.
This over-reaction is all because of an ALLEGED issue. Nothing proven. Its a witch hunt / virtue signalling at its finest.
IE
Ever here of a Poison Pete? This is that on a grand scale. If you can not separate your personal from professional life... GTFO.
Want to be a drama-lama? Do it on your own time and dime. Not your employers. This is not college where you are paying for the privlege of acting like a child throwing a tantrum.
Plus its not like Google wont have ten for everyone they fire lining up for just the chance to work there. Why keep anyone that is not a team player? Why keep anyone who will make the workplace (more) toxic?
Fire them all. Send a message that SJW'ing is for your personal time only... and get back to work... or dont work for Google.
You are pointedly not "innocent until proven guilty." You are presumed innocent. And that is a protection against a kangaroo court, not a viable life philosopy. All criminal trials start with the baseline that the defendant is innocent of the charge until the prosecution proves otherwise. The defendant also is never found to be "innocent." The determination is "not guilty." There's a big difference.
Like it or not, HR departments have no such standard by which they need to abide.
IRL, nobody presumes anyone innocent because they'd be a freaking idiot to do so. People may presume whatever they like, but it's better to base your judgement on the preponderance of evidence, the standard in a civil matter. If you wait for conclusive evidence as would be presented in a criminal court, you're going to get your head taken off very quickly. People also rely on so-called "gut reactions," and there's nothing wrong with that so long as you don't hurt anyone over it.
TL;DR: If I see a guy in a ninja costume, on the street, staring at houses one-by-one, I'm not going to presume dick. I'm calling the police and they can sort him out.
Actual outcome: Instantly demoted from a Stanford golden child, to a lifelong felon, having served a big chunk of actual jail time (six months in the slammer in the pink petticoat for a socially maladapted Stanford nerd is not small change), whose given name is now synonymous with "dumpster rape" on the Internet for all time, and is barely employable, anywhere, ever (except on false pretenses where he dishonestly conceals his sordid history) because the social media wrath of the Sorority Sisters against any "clean slate" employer who ever associates with this person for all time would be too vituperative to even contemplate. All this for an act committed as a socially mindless young male not yet brutally familiar with neither alcohol nor women.
And if he had been a regular guy instead of that "golden child", he would have gotten 3+ years in prison and everything you list.
Are we equal under the law or not? Because right here, you are arguing that we are not.
have no freaking clue about the brain-cramping rampage of peak TSB in a young man's late teenage years.
Hey look! Incel bullshit. How surprising.
There was no evidence of job favoritism or threats; merely two adults mutually playing around.
That is not how sexual harassment works, even back then it was understood to create a hostile workplace. When a boss and a subordinate have a consensual affair the other subordinates fear there will be favoritism. This fear is real. It negatively effects retention, productivity, etc; it makes employees hate the workplace, their boss, their fellow employees, etc; it creates a risk of lawsuits for the company.
Again, this is not some new radical SJW interpretation. This is what has been taught in sexual harassment training since the 1990s.
Standards are not being lowered for diversity hires.
They are because 'equal opportunity' is being replaced by 'equal outcome.' When this kind of thinking becomes law, industries with unequal representation in race and sex now have to hire people based on these supposedly irrelevant attributes to hit the minimum quotas. To further the irony, the current trend is to make racial and sexual 'diversity' some form of automatic productivity boost when, again, the stated goal was to reenforce the idea that these 'diverse' attributes don't affect merit.
I still count as a diversity hire though and guess what, I always run into some asshole like you who thinks that I'm there just because I fill some Affirmative Action quota.
..and why do think people assume this? You're right. It's racism, just on the part of those who assumed you needed such preferential treatment in the first place. No one likes working with the boss' incompetent son who's there because of his bloodline and little else. Same thing here. No one wants to work with someone who was hired because of his race or sex. If you were hiring for a company, wouldn't you pick the interviewee you thought had the highest chance of having had to bust his ass to get where he is..or would you hire a less capable person who met some racist or sexist 'diversity' quota? This is no less bigoted than a company only hiring women or only men, or only whites, etc. You call it a cherry, but it is in fact the very kind of systemic bigotry 'social justice' claims to fight. If your race was merely 'secondary' to your hiring, then you were still given a buff for it. Would you tolerate it if a white was hired in this manner? Somehow, I doubt it.
Many comments here only prove one thing,
That slashdot has been overrun by Anonymous Coward Snowflakes who can't stand for something to happen without labelling it a conspiracy of the SJWs?
I mean, don't get me wrong, slashdot has not been a go-to place for intelligent discussion for a very long time, but now it's becoming #gamergate enough that I'm kind of thinking I should go elsewhere for news. I don't even care if they're trolls or if they really believe this, because it's like debating whether you'd rather swim in a pool of vomit or a pool of shit.
Standards are not being lowered for diversity hires. Stop perpetuating this bullshit.
They absolutely are. Even when your life is on the line. Female soldiers, firefighters, etc. have to pass easier qualification tests than their male counterparts. That's absolute and utter bullshit that:
1: Lets under-qualified people in to critical roles.
2: Is unfair to one half of the population.
3: Perpetuates the sexist idea that the other half of the population isn't as good and needs a handicap. (Even when this is true on average, those who beat the bell curve and can make it on their own still get treated as if they only got where they were because of the handicap.)
That's both racist and sexist of you.