11 ms·

I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

53 points by canweriotnow 12y ago

koberstein 12y ago
What I can never comprehend is how so many people have the time to argue with each other on twitter and such.
- jacalata 12y ago
  What people on twitter can never comprehend is how so many people have the time to argue with each other on HN and such.
- baddox 12y ago
  It doesn't take any more time than it took you to make that comment.
tedks 12y ago
This isn't the decline of agency, it's feminism and anti-racism creating agency for oppressed people. Traditionally, if a woman or ethnic minority is being harassed in their workplace, they are unable to speak out against it for fear of being fired by their bosses. In this sense, capitalist hierarchies (as the author identifies) are used to enforce gender and race hierarchies. Now that it's become unacceptable to be outwardly racist or sexist, capitalist hierarchies are occasionally used to stop oppressive behavior. This is still rare, and not at all at the level it should be, but this is a positive trend. Just as we as a society decided that public segregation was not acceptable in the 1960s, we as a society are currently in the process of deciding that private bigotry is not acceptable. What the author is really calling for any conflict between privileged and oppressed people to be limited to exactly those people -- which of course means the privileged person wins. The author misses exactly the point of liberatory social struggle: to reduce the agency of privileged people, in favor of expanding the agency of oppressed people. (As an aside, to appeal to class when discussing software engineers is laughable. I'll take the author seriously on this when he starts organizing a union for developers in his workplace.)
- gress 12y ago
  Agency is not a zero sum game. We don't have to reduce the agency of 'privileged' people. We just have to resist oppressive behavior.
  - aidenn0 12y ago
    Agency seems to be zero-sum to me. If I can command 100s of people who have to do whatever I please, then granting them freedom reduces my freedom. Giving someone freedom necessarily reduces the freedom of those who previously took advantage of their lack of freedom.
    - gress 12y ago
      Agency is not zero sum. That's why you couldn't use it to make your argument and had to switch to using the word 'freedom' to construct a straw man.
      - aidenn0 12y ago
        Plese educate me on the difference, as (at least in this context) they seem to be interchangable. [edit] To clarify, consider a hypothetical total autocracy, where the autocrat makes a decision, and everyone's behavior is altered by various means. By my reasoning, the autocrat has collected everyone's agency to themself. Maybe it's not a perfect zero-sum, as you have inefficiencies in the system, but it does seem that you reach a point at which increasing one person's agency happens only at the expense of reducing others'
        gress 12y ago
        Your example of the autocrat who has a magical means to alter everyone's behavior is totally artificial and has no corollary in the real world, and therefore isn't relevant to the real world concept of agency.
        aidenn0 12y ago
opendais 12y ago
I think the core problem here is we have someone (Shanley) who is allowed to attack people on the basis of their gender, class, profession, etc. [e.g. https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 ] An example relevant to HN is: https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 "HN is fucking obsessed with me lol. what is wrong with you little boys? mad cuz i'm cute and would NEVER talk to you or know you exist?" Yet, this person is still able to get an employer to fire one of their employees for engaging in the same behavior she does. Is it just me that feels people who attack people on the basis of their gender shouldn't be able to get people fired for doing the same thing? Edit: I was trying to say the consequences should be equal. I probably should have said the reverse in my question at the end there since it seemed to lead to confusion. [e.g. Both should be fired since consequences should be equal for equally bad behavior]
- fleitz 12y ago
  The employer doesn't care because no one on the internet is going to look into the backstory. It's realpolitik my friend, if you don't engage trolls you can't be bitten by them.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    I thought it was all about the noopolitic these days.
  - opendais 12y ago
    I guess. I just don't like the idea of cowering in fear because trolls will be trolls.
    - fleitz 12y ago
      No no, don't cower in fear, change tactics.
      - opendais 12y ago
benmmurphy 12y ago
I'm surprised you can get fired in the UK for this. Though, livestream seems to be a US company so maybe he was a contractor.
- opendais 12y ago
  The person that was let go has a profile that says Contractor: https://twitter.com/zivcjs https://twitter.com/zivcjs So I'd assume contractor.
fleitz 12y ago
Has this guy not been around on the internet long? Everyone knows not to feed the trolls. They have no real power so they will try to get you fired, order pizza to your house, etc. Best to ignore them and do something productive.
ad_hominem 12y ago
I suggest you be careful with your jokes or they'll put you on their list: http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/weve-all-got-a-list http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/weve-all-got-a-list The people you've mentioned curate their own echo chamber. If you read their Twitter stream you can see that they block anybody who even tries to engage them from an ignorant-but-skeptical point of view. Then they crow to their followers about the ignorant "bros" they block to gain plaudits. It's a toxic atmosphere that is best avoided entirely.
mathattack 12y ago
If you follow the stream, not only does the tattler go after the person and get him fired, she stays at it trying to make him unemployable. Strange.
lsaferite 12y ago
Honest question, how does a comment like this get you fired? I mean, beyond the person calling for your head. Since when do personal statements translate into firing offenses at your place of work? I'm from the "I May Not Agree With What You Say, But I’ll Fight For Your Right to Say It" camp and things like this honestly confuse me. To clarify, I think what he said was morally wrong.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  The article omits a lot which might cause people to disagree with it. For instance, @zivcjs aggressively harassed her, retweeting attackers calling her "animal" and I believe "psychob---h". He also deleted many of his tweets. Furthermore, such harassment campaigns generally cause an increase in the violent threats they already normally receive. It contributes to an environment where women are terrorized and chased out of the industry. And imagine a woman having to work with this harasser. As for economic oppression, he crows about "Non-stop phone calls" with so many job offers that he's "struggling to remember who sent what." (https://twitter.com/zivcjs https://twitter.com/zivcjs)
  - arzugula 12y ago
    Please. If his tweet with a naughty word constitutes a "harassment campaign" that contributes to an environment where someone is terrorized then what are we calling the streams of hatred Shanley and her group spew towards Ryan Block, Marc Andreesen, Paul Graham, etc.?
  - lsaferite 12y ago
    But that still leave my original question. Assuming his job is not PR (I don't know or care to know him), how would his behaviour during non-company time translate into being fired? Mind you, it sounds like he's a real pleasant person that I'd totally get along with. /s
  - graffic 12y ago
    Appealing to emotions! Because other people think like him, he is harassing her. Nice logic. The bonus point is: because other people think I'm an asshole, they're harassing me. That totally made my day. At least he got a job with an employer that can defend employees against pogroms. Good for him.
joesmo 12y ago
Livestream firing an employee for off-work conduct is just as morally wrong as Shanley was for tattling. Calling someone a cunt is certainly not nice, but it's miles away from firing someone or getting someone fired. It's not even in the same ballpark. That said, he should've known better and used an anonymous account if he really wanted to make comments that might be dangerous to his well-being.

53 points by canweriotnow 12y ago

koberstein 12y ago

What I can never comprehend is how so many people have the time to argue with each other on twitter and such.

jacalata 12y ago
What people on twitter can never comprehend is how so many people have the time to argue with each other on HN and such.
baddox 12y ago
It doesn't take any more time than it took you to make that comment.

tedks 12y ago

This isn't the decline of agency, it's feminism and anti-racism creating agency for oppressed people. Traditionally, if a woman or ethnic minority is being harassed in their workplace, they are unable to speak out against it for fear of being fired by their bosses. In this sense, capitalist hierarchies (as the author identifies) are used to enforce gender and race hierarchies. Now that it's become unacceptable to be outwardly racist or sexist, capitalist hierarchies are occasionally used to stop oppressive behavior. This is still rare, and not at all at the level it should be, but this is a positive trend. Just as we as a society decided that public segregation was not acceptable in the 1960s, we as a society are currently in the process of deciding that private bigotry is not acceptable. What the author is really calling for any conflict between privileged and oppressed people to be limited to exactly those people -- which of course means the privileged person wins. The author misses exactly the point of liberatory social struggle: to reduce the agency of privileged people, in favor of expanding the agency of oppressed people. (As an aside, to appeal to class when discussing software engineers is laughable. I'll take the author seriously on this when he starts organizing a union for developers in his workplace.)

gress 12y ago
Agency is not a zero sum game. We don't have to reduce the agency of 'privileged' people. We just have to resist oppressive behavior.
- aidenn0 12y ago
  Agency seems to be zero-sum to me. If I can command 100s of people who have to do whatever I please, then granting them freedom reduces my freedom. Giving someone freedom necessarily reduces the freedom of those who previously took advantage of their lack of freedom.
  - gress 12y ago
    Agency is not zero sum. That's why you couldn't use it to make your argument and had to switch to using the word 'freedom' to construct a straw man.
    - aidenn0 12y ago
      Plese educate me on the difference, as (at least in this context) they seem to be interchangable. [edit] To clarify, consider a hypothetical total autocracy, where the autocrat makes a decision, and everyone's behavior is altered by various means. By my reasoning, the autocrat has collected everyone's agency to themself. Maybe it's not a perfect zero-sum, as you have inefficiencies in the system, but it does seem that you reach a point at which increasing one person's agency happens only at the expense of reducing others'
      - gress 12y ago
        Your example of the autocrat who has a magical means to alter everyone's behavior is totally artificial and has no corollary in the real world, and therefore isn't relevant to the real world concept of agency.
        aidenn0 12y ago

opendais 12y ago

I think the core problem here is we have someone (Shanley) who is allowed to attack people on the basis of their gender, class, profession, etc. [e.g. https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 ] An example relevant to HN is: https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 "HN is fucking obsessed with me lol. what is wrong with you little boys? mad cuz i'm cute and would NEVER talk to you or know you exist?" Yet, this person is still able to get an employer to fire one of their employees for engaging in the same behavior she does. Is it just me that feels people who attack people on the basis of their gender shouldn't be able to get people fired for doing the same thing? Edit: I was trying to say the consequences should be equal. I probably should have said the reverse in my question at the end there since it seemed to lead to confusion. [e.g. Both should be fired since consequences should be equal for equally bad behavior]

fleitz 12y ago
The employer doesn't care because no one on the internet is going to look into the backstory. It's realpolitik my friend, if you don't engage trolls you can't be bitten by them.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  I thought it was all about the noopolitic these days.
- opendais 12y ago
  I guess. I just don't like the idea of cowering in fear because trolls will be trolls.
  - fleitz 12y ago
    No no, don't cower in fear, change tactics.
    - opendais 12y ago

benmmurphy 12y ago

I'm surprised you can get fired in the UK for this. Though, livestream seems to be a US company so maybe he was a contractor.

opendais 12y ago
The person that was let go has a profile that says Contractor: https://twitter.com/zivcjs https://twitter.com/zivcjs So I'd assume contractor.

fleitz 12y ago

Has this guy not been around on the internet long? Everyone knows not to feed the trolls. They have no real power so they will try to get you fired, order pizza to your house, etc. Best to ignore them and do something productive.

ad_hominem 12y ago

I suggest you be careful with your jokes or they'll put you on their list: http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/weve-all-got-a-list http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/weve-all-got-a-list The people you've mentioned curate their own echo chamber. If you read their Twitter stream you can see that they block anybody who even tries to engage them from an ignorant-but-skeptical point of view. Then they crow to their followers about the ignorant "bros" they block to gain plaudits. It's a toxic atmosphere that is best avoided entirely.

mathattack 12y ago

If you follow the stream, not only does the tattler go after the person and get him fired, she stays at it trying to make him unemployable. Strange.

lsaferite 12y ago

Honest question, how does a comment like this get you fired? I mean, beyond the person calling for your head. Since when do personal statements translate into firing offenses at your place of work? I'm from the "I May Not Agree With What You Say, But I’ll Fight For Your Right to Say It" camp and things like this honestly confuse me. To clarify, I think what he said was morally wrong.

calibraxis 12y ago
The article omits a lot which might cause people to disagree with it. For instance, @zivcjs aggressively harassed her, retweeting attackers calling her "animal" and I believe "psychob---h". He also deleted many of his tweets. Furthermore, such harassment campaigns generally cause an increase in the violent threats they already normally receive. It contributes to an environment where women are terrorized and chased out of the industry. And imagine a woman having to work with this harasser. As for economic oppression, he crows about "Non-stop phone calls" with so many job offers that he's "struggling to remember who sent what." (https://twitter.com/zivcjs https://twitter.com/zivcjs)
- arzugula 12y ago
  Please. If his tweet with a naughty word constitutes a "harassment campaign" that contributes to an environment where someone is terrorized then what are we calling the streams of hatred Shanley and her group spew towards Ryan Block, Marc Andreesen, Paul Graham, etc.?
- lsaferite 12y ago
  But that still leave my original question. Assuming his job is not PR (I don't know or care to know him), how would his behaviour during non-company time translate into being fired? Mind you, it sounds like he's a real pleasant person that I'd totally get along with. /s
- graffic 12y ago
  Appealing to emotions! Because other people think like him, he is harassing her. Nice logic. The bonus point is: because other people think I'm an asshole, they're harassing me. That totally made my day. At least he got a job with an employer that can defend employees against pogroms. Good for him.

joesmo 12y ago

Livestream firing an employee for off-work conduct is just as morally wrong as Shanley was for tattling. Calling someone a cunt is certainly not nice, but it's miles away from firing someone or getting someone fired. It's not even in the same ballpark. That said, he should've known better and used an anonymous account if he really wanted to make comments that might be dangerous to his well-being.