This is an odd thing to see widely published. I'm at a company that had a rather detailed negative article written about us, and we were warned about it internally shortly before it was published, after the reporter had contacted us with details and questions. However, we didn't go public with a reaction until after it was out, since it seemed rather pointless to respond to something that hadn't been published yet, especially when we hadn't even seen it in full.
It is odd to me that they would preemptively go loud on this, drawing attention to a story that might not even get that much traction. It seems like it would have been much easier to just let that story go out and respond with a simple "We've investigated this before and dispute the claims, except for these few unfortunate stories we can confirm happened, and here's how we will prevent them in the future." What on earth do they gain with a preemptive memo like this? Are they really scared of their employees leaking this? Would anyone even pick up a story of "someone's about to publish a bad article about Coinbase"?
It is odd to me that they would preemptively go loud on this, drawing attention to a story that might not even get that much traction.
It's hard for me to imagine an NYT story getting less traction than a Coinbase post, though. So is this really drawing attention to the story? Maybe this is just drawing more attention to Coinbase's version of the story, rather than the NYT's version.
Basically, if you're going to end up publishing a counterargument to an upcoming news story, why not publish the rebuttal first? Maybe the tradition of waiting for a bad newspaper article, then immediately publishing a rebuttal, is an artifact of the olden days when there were no corporate blogs and social media, when there was no way to bring attention to a pre-rebuttal.
I suspect part of the motivation is to scoop the reporter's own story as a passive aggressive reprisal. It also serves to reduce the chance of future reporters on negative topics to talk directly to Coinbase since they've already showed they're willing to break stories before they publish.
Yes isn't this a rather common strategy, "Be pro-active, not reactive".
When the actual story comes out it is not such a big news any more, because it is not news any more. First impressions often last, so now the first impressions is that the story is fake.
So even if their response does amplify the story, it might amplify a good story rather than a bad one. So go even so far as to say "all publicity is good publicity"
I get that this strategy can work, but are there really that many people who will be swayed by a pr statement from coinbase? I'm primed to assume their version is filled with lies and spin, and I'm waiting for the piece in the NYT to cut through the corporate pr bullshit.
Personally, I don't have a lot of confidence in the objectivity of the NYT around race and related social issues. Not to the extent of "lies and spin" but not exactly accurate reporting either. The truth is likely going lie somewhere between the NYT and Coinbase versions.
Well you have an eye for objectivity. Many people don't. And whenever there are two conflicting versions of a story it sows some doubt on both of them. We know this from politics already. So from a pure PR and game-theoretic standpoint I think they made the right (pro-active) move.
Well, speak for yourself. My own assessment is the opposite: that the NYT is highly likely to assume anything an 'oppressed minority' tells them is true, even if it's not, and meanwhile a company is highly likely to be more objective: they have every incentive to investigate complaints yet also not self-flagellate if the complaints are false.
That said, I think Popper specifically has done a decent job with tech stories in the past. So I reserve judgement. But only because of him, not because of the NYT.
> When the actual story comes out it is not such a big news any more, because it is not news any more.
Why not? I was never going to read said article. Now I am, based on this post, alone. This was never going to be headline news.
> First impressions often last, so now the first impressions is that the story is fake.
Except my first impression is that it is real, not fake, based on this response, because companies lie all the damn time. I imagine many don't believe in company PR at all.
I don't know the details of the story, but the thing is with baseless accusations of 'racism' is that it's a perfect slander, one can never prove innocence once proclaimed guilty.
Everyone who has read this and then reads the NYT story will do the latter with the former in mind. As much as possible, they're anticipating what the story will reveal and getting their objections on the record so that a reader can't help but view the story's assertions in light of the responses they've already read.
Moreover, getting in front of this means adopting a stance of openness and transparency that, in itself, seems quite laudible. As a PR strategy, this is good work, especially for a company that's already raised its profile on these topics earlier in the year.
Whether it's cynical PR strategy or sincere crisis management is left for the reader to decide.
It seems their reasoning is explained partly in the FAQ at tho bottom:
We provided several written, on-the-record statements to The Times. We have no control over whether and how The Times uses those statements (in whole or in part) in the story. Given this, we decided to make our email to employees and FAQ publicly available to provide additional facts and context.
> As Brian shared with the ColorBlock ERG this morning, we don’t care what The New York Times thinks.
Yeah, if this is the level of maturity that’s in charge, it doesn’t matter if these execs personally discriminate against their black employees. They’re donezo.
> As Brian shared with the ColorBlock ERG this morning, we don’t care what The New York Times thinks. The most important thing we care about is you, our employees, and what you think.
Should probably share the whole quote and not just cherry pick.
Anti-Streisand effect? This article "spoils" the surprise of NYT's article. I don't think it's odd, and it's probably the best they could've done if all the people responsible really no longer work there.
> Let’s keep focused on building an amazing company together; we are hitting amazing new records on users, volume and revenue, and we have so much great work to do together.
Ignore any potential negativity, everything we do is great, all that matters is revenue, nothing bad ever happens hear, blah blah blah. Don't focus on the bad part, those are all lies!
The NYTimes article isn't released so I can't comment on the substance there, but this quote struck out to me, and makes me less likely to believe Coinbase.
EDIT: Adding this to clarify for later readers, apparently the above quote I took from the post has been removed from the main post.
Coinbase has been on the receiving end of news media abusive for a short while (ever since they offered to pay their disruptive employees to leave). I don't really blame them for wanting to preemptively defend themselves.
Criticism is not abuse. They’re also not doing the best job defending themselves since they offer no concrete proof, testimony, or narrative. Who were these employees? What happened? We don’t know, but are left with some empty promise of a statement that Coinbase “handled it internally.”
Normally companies don't publish details of internal employee doings and especially not complaints. That's just not done. What if they're mistaken about the contents of the article? I'd be furious if a company put details of some internal complaint I made on their blog, if I hadn't actually gone and tried to get it into the press.
Good point. Let's see if CB follows up with evidence and details after the specificities of the NYT story come to light, but I agree that the lack of detail here is a bit suspect
TBH, this blog post from CB sounded like something you’d hear from the Trump campaign. Everything’s fine, we’re making lotsa money, it’s all fake news...
Why not? They would've had intel from current employees who were interviewed about the likely contents, and they claim that a number of the allegations that are likely to be published are false. If I was either innocent or guilty of such allegations, I will want to try to control the narrative ahead of time. Doing so doesn't seem to update our prior beliefs about the probability of guilt, all it shows us is that the allegations are significant enough to warrant damage control
Because ideally your culture should be strong enough to weather things like these, and your damage control should read more as a statement of facts than "we did nothing wrong," especially when you issue it preemptively.
That's fair enough. They did say that three former Black employees made false allegations though, so there was some specificity there. Although it would be been better to outline what those allegations were and why they were false, in that I certainly agree (and not having done that, it is a bit suspect)
It is also possible that someone(s) at Coinbase, having complained about what they perceived as poor treatment back in 2019 and been blown off, decided to go to the NYT after Coinbase made lots of noise about "not being political."
He is probably correct though. Often times a company or person will do something that catches attention, this then provides an opportunity for a story on a subject that people are already aware of and drives interest.
If Coinbase had not published the prior memo, this article would likely have not been written. Was it written by someone with an axe to grind, I don't know (maybe) but the odds of the article being greenlit were definitely juiced due to coinbase garnering attention and most critically, divided attention via their publication.
is that an actual problem though? Controversial actions drawing attention to other issues isn't exactly new in journalism, what matters is if the allegations in the piece are going to be substantiated, and this preemptive post makes me think that will be the case. When I read that previous coinbase statement I actually wondered immediately if they have internal issues like this, and their policy was just an attempt to shut it down, I guess that's what a journalist might think as well.
It's of course also hilarious that Coinbases attempt at shutting political discourse at the company down now has put them into the crosshairs if that's actually the case.
Not a problem, just a result of their actions. Oftentimes leaders of these high profile, unicorn style companies have a self focused, semi - narcissitic view of the world and have a hard time understanding the consequences of their decisions. Now a personality like this may at times be helpful in driving success (see Elon) but it also blinds them (see Elon's 420 tweet).
Coinbase's ceo may have had a pro Trumpian view of the world or he may have just thought cutting off political / cultural conversations at work was the best thing to do, odds are either way he probably did not understand the type of focus this would bring in a hyper partisan media. Culture wars sell clicks and papers.
All things being equal, the Coinbase office is probably going to be a pretty awkward place to be the next couple of months.
I have to wonder to what extent this is just punishment from the establishment for Coinbase’s recent rejection of political activism in the workplace. Of course we will need to see the article from the NYT first before drawing any conclusions, but the timing is pretty suspicious; this implies that the NYT more or less launched this project immediately after that announcement went out.
Probably because the announcement made people question if the change in policy was prompted by exactly something like this brewing internally. That's kind of how investigative journalism works.
It's like Google changing their policy to never mention the words 'marketshare' in internal documentation and journalists going out and investigating Google's antitrust situtation and writing about it. That's not a bad thing, that's what generally prompts journalists taking a look at a company
Coinbase's political non-activism policy announcement at the end of September had no bearing on this article.
Investigations into racial discrimination or sexual harassment complaints take months (see for example, at Riot Games, an internal investigation took almost 5 months even though most of the facts were already publicly known at the start of the investigation. https://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/26686134/how-got-her...). This means that the race complaints predated the September announcement.
Additionally, given that investigative pieces generally involve months of investigation, fact-checking, re-writing, it's very likely that this article was already being researched or written at the time of Coinbase's original political non-activism announcement.
Doubtful the NYT would spend >2 months on a story about one relatively small company. Journalist time isn't free. The timing does look very odd and let's face it, the NYT has a lot of people who would absolutely hate a tech firm standing up to their agenda in the way Coinbase has done. Having successfully politicised the NYT they'd certainly feel entitled to do the same everywhere else. The 100% idpol nature of the story also lends weight to this theory. I very much doubt that Coinbase is actually racist against blacks (er, sorry, Blacks). Never encountered a tech company that was.
Some of the complaints at issue here certainly predate that infamous "please leave your politics at home" post. So while my comment above was made somewhat flippantly, I'm pretty sure it isn't wrong.
It's no surprise that Coinbase touts some other changes. But these are made under duress, facing the imminent PR crisis that being called out in the paper of record. As such, they tell you as much about their true convictions and future actions as a confession made under torture.
As to additional info: I only have the knowledge that there is an article about to come out, and it will be weighty enough to invite an already incriminating attempt to preempt it.
> that infamous "please leave your politics at home" post.
Why is that 'infamous'? It's entirely reasonable to want to avoid political discussion at a workplace, in favour of work.
Especially considering a particular political group (BLM) seems to have been the cause of issues at Coinbase.
> an already incriminating attempt to preempt it
Wanting to have your own say in advance of a newspaper that is objectively creeping towards the left (http://evoweb.net/blog2/20190630-islamophobia-nyt-timelines.... as mentioned elsewhere) writing an article criticizing your company is not evidence of guilt.
the world is not standing still of course they are "creeping towards the left". how could it be otherwise?
correlation that words like toxic masculinity are rising. well, they didn't exist before, did they? we had different problems then. we tackled them, now we're moving the the next ones.
> It intends to fool the neurotic, which, it usually succeeds in doing.
Disagree - neurotic people who believe in equality are not so easily fooled. It's meant to sway MLKs "white moderate" before they read a mean article in the NYT.
Wonder how they think / thought that this will play out?
That internal email is nothing but "NYT bad" and what seems like pretty cheap promises... if you have to send those to your employees in the first place.
Then I don't think it will help Coinbase itself much with the potential backlash of a NYT story with what seems like multiple employees coming out including receipts that will get published.
And it doesn't seem really helpful for employees to defend themselves from some potential inquiries/harassment either?
> if you have to send those to your employees in the first place.
And if they didn't, they'd be criticised for not doing do.
> Then I don't think it will help Coinbase itself much with the potential backlash of a NYT story
It depends. Backlash should be against provable actions of discrimination. From the article, it sounds like the issue was someone disagreeing with BLM.
Being called 'Black Lives Matter' doesn't make criticism of BLM racist any more than the DPRK being called the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' makes criticism of North Korea anti-democratic.
> If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. Cardinal Richelieu
There’s no need to lie in a hit piece. You can select your material, shade the truth and quote people who hate your subject on their opinions. Lying leaves you open to libel and slander too.
"Hit piece" is in and of itself a framing that clearly has a bias toward one side. Was the reporting from multiple outlets on Theranos a series of hit pieces? They were all negative, but that doesn't mean they were wrong.
Coinbase has preemptively presented their side of the story in an effort to make us all say "oh, yeah, that's the hit piece we were warned about," but we haven't actually seen the other side of the story yet.
All framing has bias. That’s standpoint theory in four words. It’s entirely possible the NYT reporter working on the piece about CoinBase feels they are being scrupulously honest and that anyone who reviewed their notes, interviews and background work would come to the same conclusions they do in the article. Not everyone would actually agree. People have divergent experiences and beliefs and will come to different conclusions based on exactly the same evidence because their prior beliefs are different.
If your best criticism is something that is old enough to finish college right around now, and ignores that the Times ran plenty of opposition to that war, maybe they aren’t as bad as you make them out to be?
Well, the whole press release / internal email smells of a company desperately trying to spin what they expect to be a very, very bad article. But this line jumped out at me twice:
> To be specific: Although the story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase.
This is the kind of thing that really leads me to distrust everything Coinbase is saying. Reading between the lines, I imagine that the complaints workers claim to have filed were ignored by management at some level of the process, or not filed on the right paperwork or something.
And so Coinbase can probably claim on a technicality “they didn’t file a complaint.”
But being “technically correct” is only what you reach for when you don’t have any other leg to stand on. It’s a really telling move that they repeated this line multiple times.
I’m speculating, obviously. The article isn’t out. But this isn’t my first rodeo, and this kind of corporate speak isn’t new. This kind of desperate spin only serves to underscore the fundamental truths of whatever the NYT is going to publish.
Otherwise... why bother dignifying it with such a response?
> Although the story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints
This is funny in a literal sense because three is most certainly "a number".
>This is the kind of thing that really leads me to distrust everything Coinbase is saying. Reading between the lines, I imagine that the complaints workers claim to have filed were ignored by management at some level of the process, or not filed on the right paperwork or something.
You're too kind. I suspect what usually happens: the employee was fired by management soon after hearing some loud rumblings, then the employee filed an official complaint. Filing an official complaint while employed is extremely difficult, you not only have to weigh whether you have a justified complaint, but also expect some tension and possible conflict with your employer. I don't like how Coinbase tried to play off official complaints from fired employees.
Yeah, my first thought reading this was "Exactly how bad is it gonna be if they feel like they need to start damage control even before the article is out?"
Agreed. The entire post is filled with vague language, such as talking about what the story will "imply".
Also, I think it goes without saying that there are plenty of very understandable reasons why people don't file complaints even though they have very legitimate grievances (which allows companies to stand on such technicalities). So we'll see.
To be fair, The Times is notorious for crafty implication. For the casual reader, these implications can ring far louder than the actual facts, without the piece being false, per se.
Not sure I agree that the NYT is particularly notable in the sense that they're a news organization with a perspective, and that perspective often comes through in the articles they publish. Every news org indirectly implies things in terms of which pieces of evidence they present, what order facts are presented in, what other content they cite etc. I don't think the NYTimes is secretly trying to influence their readers in a crafty or underhanded manner.
Can you expand on that? Reading through the comment threads on this piece, I’ve noticed this idea of the NYT being intentionally misleading in various forms (“they lie,” “they mislead,” “they make implications,” etc).
That isn’t my perception of the NYT at all - but I’d like to hear more of what you’re saying. Has any research been done on the overall veracity of the claims the NYT makes in their articles, or on the ways that they may or may not mislead people through implication?
These aren’t exactly what you are asking about but some recent examples of what I consider to be disingenuous and manipulative:
1. The New York Times published a scathing critique of Google’s 4000 word privacy policy, neglecting anywhere to mention that their own privacy policy was 25% longer and sketchier.
2. The entire handling of the Caliphate podcast and subsequent backpedaling and retroactive reframing.
3. Similar to 2., the doubling down but silent adjustments to the 1619 project historical inaccuracies.
4. The maddening insistence on handling of Slate Star Codex author’s identity and hypocrisy as compared to Chapo Trap House.
5. The submarine propaganda piece about CP on the dark web, which was clearly an attempt to build societal consensus for mandatory backdoors in E2E messaging.
You can go back farther into obvious hits like the second Iraq War and WMD madness of course..
I thank you for your reply - I phrased my question the way I did because I was curious if anyone had more than just anecdotes, but I do still find the anecdotes interesting on their own.
I suppose - absent more consistent evidence (they do a lot of reporting after all) - it’s not entirely convincing to me. A lot of other outlets made the same mistakes (especially stuff about the Iraq War, since you mentioned it - but I think that’s actually a different class of problem if I’m being honest).
I mainly try to judge on the overall pattern of behavior because focusing solely on the high-profile mistakes quickly leaves you with no real sources of news left. But, of course, that’s just how I see it and I respect that these examples convince you!
The long story short is: thank you, I genuinely do find the examples interesting.
I agree, it’s pretty easy to end up in a place where you don’t trust any source of news. Not sure that’s really a bad thing.
I still read the New York Times (though I’m no longer a paying subscriber). I don’t think they are as untrustworthy as like, Newsmax or Info Wars or what have you.
I just typically prefer the Washington Post or WSJ (sans crazy WSJ op-eds) since it’s hard to unsee the NYT slant in everything lately and I find their shrillness and shamelessness exhausting.
Yeah - I think “not trusting” is healthy as long as it stays in the realm of skepticism ... and doesn’t cross over into “I now get all my news from random Youtubers.” Which... sadly happens sometimes. :(
I don’t have much of a preference between the NYT and WaPo as far as “trustworthiness” goes, but the point about their different voices is interesting to me. They absolutely do have very different voices. I actually don’t care for either one of them!
But ... thinking about it - I feel like perhaps some have trouble with a news organizations “voice” and general perspective on the world - and can’t distinguish that voice or perspective from the reporting. My gut says that this is a critical reading skill that is perhaps not as common with some people, and it leads them to think a source isn’t trustworthy.
> sans crazy WSJ op-eds
What?! The op-eds are where you go when you want to read crazy things for entertainment! Where else can you get that kind of fun?! (I jest, of course).
> ... quickly leaves you with no real sources of news left
Or, you can start taking different sources with appropriate grains of salt accounting for their biases. If I see an NYT piece critical of Conservatives / Republicans / Corporations, I am going to assume some bias in reporting. Similarly, if I see a piece commenting on an event related to Democrats / Racial Justice / Immigration / Public spending, I am going to check a few right wing sources for their take on the same issue.
#1 NYT's own privacy policy is irrelevant in context. Google's privacy policy affects most of the internet, aka, most of the world. The NYT's privacy policy affects the significantly smaller (and comparatively insignificant) number of people who read the NYT on its website.
#4 NYT published the identities of Slate Star Codex because it was newsworthy. The identities of the Chapo House Guys was not, because they were, and this part is crucial: open about their identities. Both of these blogs spread ideological filth, but the CHG didn't cower behind anonymity to do it like the SSC guy did.
#5 This is not submarine propaganda. CP exists on the dark web, and in fact the use of the dark web to spread CP is why so many Tor nodes chose to shut down. (This is also unrelated to putting mandatory backdoors in E2E messaging, which the NYT...opposes...)
#6 The federal government lied about the weapons...not the NYT...And WMDs did exist. Iraq still had a very large stockpile of chemical weapons when we invaded (during Bush II). They simply were intended for use against the local population, not the U.S. (See a non-NYT source: https://theintercept.com/2015/04/10/twelve-years-later-u-s-m...)
For 4. I haven’t seen any evidence that Virgil Texas is open about his real identity. Certainly seems harder to assess than Scott Alexander, at this point. What am I missing?
The NYT article linked to is from March, and predates your link by 6 months. All of the changes in the Quillette article were similarly announced by the NYT at the time they were made, though as smaller changes didn't get their own frontpage articles.
As the 1619 project was itself described as an "ongoing" project it's bizarre and unusual for people to complain about it being corrected. That's the writing process: draft, and re-draft as necessary based on feedback re grammar, language, factual errors, etc.
In fact your complaint seems to be that the NYT corrects its articles on its website, which is a good thing. If you want archival copies of the incorrect versions, you can access those through other means, such as through databases like Lexis Nexis or through hard copies of the paper.
> All of the changes in the Quillette article were similarly announced by the NYT at the time they were made
The changes to the framing of the project were not announced. The only way that anyone noticed them is that the lead author, Nikole Hannah-Jones (NHJ), started claiming that conservatives were misrepresenting the project. She specifically said that the project did not claim 1619 as America's true founding date.
People then went back and found all of NHJ's tweets explicitly stating that this was the purpose of the project (NHJ deleted her entire Twitter history shortly thereafter). When people went to look at the 1619 Project website, however, they noticed that the intro paragraphs that explicitly stated that 1619 is America's true founding had been edited to no longer state that.
> In fact your complaint seems to be that the NYT corrects its articles on its website, which is a good thing.
The claim about 1619 being America's true founding was the central claim of the project, the thing that it had heavily publicized and used to gain attention. The NY Times spent months defending the project and attacking critics, only to edit out the central claim of the project without so much as a notice. The lead author then started going around denying that the project had ever made the claim, and calling the whole idea a conservative conspiracy theory.
Whatever problems the NY Times has had, this is not how people expect the newspaper of record to behave. If this were The Daily Beast, then it wouldn't be that surprising, but its the NY Times, the Gray Lady
It's important to clarify what qualities are attributable specifically to NYT vs. the news media generally. For instance I consider The Times notorious for deceptive implication but only insofar as the news is guilty of this in general. For what it's worth I consider The Times to be top-tier. Yet, this is all the more disappointing that even the best engage in such deception.
> I wouldn't ever use the words truth and NYT - especially when it comes to cultural topics. And also geopolitical topics. Or anything of national significance. Or war. You get the idea.
Can you expand on that? It feels like you’re saying that the NYT lies (to greatly and possibly incorrectly paraphrase). But I don’t generally believe that to be true; and I haven’t seen much evidence to indicate they’ve been engaged in that kind of behavior. Certainly not often, if at all.
> Why is the NYT writing a hit piece on coinbase?
> When it comes to propaganda, it always helps to get out in front of the "story". I'm guessing that's what coinbase is doing.
Did the NYT write a hit piece on Coinbase? I haven’t read the article yet, since it hasn’t been published. No one has.
What I believe to be absolutely true is this: Coinbase desperately wants everyone to believe that it’s a hit piece. That’s obvious from the timing, tone, and things they actually wrote in the letter.
But at least in theory, the NYT higher goals and aspirations in life - to uncover and publish truth.
Coinbase doesn’t, and they live and die entirely by customers choosing to trust them with their business. They have every rational incentive to fight for you to trust them regardless of whether the NYT piece is true or not.
And what if it is true? Whatever it turns out to be (again: it’s not published).
To me, when a company launches into this kind of PR Hail Mary, it’s not a sign of integrity.
I think it’s reasonable to debate the quality of the NYT (and I have serious issues with a lot of what they publish - and dear lord, don’t get me started on how I feel about their opinion columnists).
But I do think that calling the NYT “race-baiting propaganda” is a gross mischaracterization of what they do.
It's a bit melodramatic to characterize their primary output as race-baiting propaganda
However I think it's interesting to compare and contrast how they handled Andrew Sullivan's racist comments from 26 years ago, Sarah Jeong's racist comments from 5-8 years ago, and Quinn Norton's use of slurs around 8 years ago.
Andrew Sullivan is notorious for believing in some version of The Bell Curve theory — that differences in academic achievement can be at least partly explained by measurable differences in average intelligence between different races. He promoted that view in his role as editor of a major news magazine in the early 90s.
That sets him apart from Quinn Norton, who nevertheless used some racial slurs on early internet message boards. I think her article discussing her friendship with a neo-Nazi was more damaging, though. FWIW I think The Times overreacted there.
Sarah Jeong made some bad taste jokes at white people’s expense while being harassed by actual racist trolls. Only the truly cynical would call those tweets racist, when viewed in context.
I think it's also interesting that (at least in part) Norton's firing was due to using a slur that refers to a group for which she belongs. Imagine if there was a similar cancellation when Barack Obama used the n word on Marc Maron's podcast. She was also pretty upfront about the moral conflict of befriending a person like weev who she considered despicable.
I dont think Sarah Jeong actually wants to follow through with her violent racist tweets, but I also don't think that Norton actually hates LGBT people or non-whites. It seems like a double standard to me.
wrt Sullivan, the NYT was still happy to publish Professor David Reich's op-ed in 2018 which cautiously espoused the same controversial ideas. Even HN's beloved Scott Alexander wrote a Slatestarcodex article about how some aspects of intelligence might be inheritable.
The thing about speaking truth to power is that there are two components to the statement. It isn't met only by attacking a group perceived to be affiliated with "power"-- it also has to involve the truth.
I’m sorry that has happened to you. Journalists are fallible, like all of us. But in the aggregate I believe the Times is a force for good in the world, and helps illuminate a good many things that people in power would rather be kept murky.
jimmygrapes two comments up stated that he believed coinbase expected the NYT would not be "being factual" and that he expected the article "written as an exaggerated hit piece full of emotional appeal rather than, well, news".
To which muglug replied extolling the irrefutable virtue of speaking truth to power-- which is an insultingly irrelevant response to someone accusing them of being non-factual.
I’m not an expert debater, but if you’re going to accuse an organisation of being race-baiting, it’s always good to at least provide an example or two. Since the commenter didn’t, I sort of zeroed in on that.
In order to provide examples of "race-baiting propaganda" as I called it, we would have to first agree on what constitutes race-baiting and propaganda. I assume we can agree that propaganda is material designed to sway an opinion, yet labels itself implicitly or explicitly as something other than "opinion".
As for race-baiting, my definition is anything that brings race into the conversation when it is materially irrelevant, or when it is introduced solely as a means of depicting one race (or a representative member thereof) in a positive or negative fashion, to the exclusion of further context, nuance, or counter samples.
The 1619 Project itself is a prime example.
I am on mobile and have difficulty linking, but you can search on NYT's website for the word "racist", filtering out anything other than world/U.S. news, within the last month, and you will see a bevy of articles written to highlight how "good" or "bad" somebody is for even hinting at race being a factor in something (such as a descriptor) - not going to go into the hypocrisy there, but it's hard to miss if you apply the same standards NYT uses to depict someone as "racist" to their own staff.
A simple recent example, for the person in a cousin comment asking me to expound, is in the recent news article about Honestie Hodges, a young girl whose handcuffing by police caused "outrage" according to NYT, and who recently died apparently of COVID-19 related causes. In that article you can read through and see several points where race was introduced, not as a relevant point, but as a way to introduce further division between two races in an article where those facts are immaterial.
It is through their omissions and irrelevant insertions, through their implications and labels, that NYT is race-baiting; the propaganda part comes from using the reach of the organization to spread such content as pure unbiased fact, when in truth it is manipulative.
I’m white, and I read those same articles (I read pretty much everything in the 1619 project and the recent story on that poor girl’s death).
I did not see any race-baiting in either. I did not see the introduction of “further division between two races”. I saw articles that covered some uncomfortable facts. If you’d rather ignore that reality you’re free to not read the Times.
Edit: just looked at your comment history. I'm sorry your experiences with nonwhite people caused you such animus.
Fair enough. I think it's unfortunate though that discussions like this will seldom produce a good or convincing example as much as I agree it would be good to have them.
The issue as I see is that people with balanced and nuanced views and an appreciation of the complexity of the matter will just not bother participating in the discussion. Instead, we'll hear from people with the most extreme or emotionally driven views and they'll tend to pick unconvincing examples-- even if there are better examples to be had.
> Reading between the lines, I imagine that the complaints workers claim to have filed were ignored by management at some level of the process, or not filed on the right paperwork or something.
Reading the lines (instead of between them) tells you that two of the complains were investigated by a third-party which found no evidence of wrong-doing.
What you’ve said and what I’ve said are not in conflict. Coinbase clearly states that they believe there to be three complaints and that they’re generally in the clear.
My point about reading between the lines is that the explicit, specific repetition of the claim and the way they’re saying it implies that the NYT is going to allege there were more complaints.
So then: what of the missing complaints? What Coinbase is saying, essentially, is that whatever else is alleged either didn’t happen (eg, the NYT is outright lying), or that they weren’t really complaints.
That’s what I’m getting at. It’s highly unlikely that the NYT is lying. I would be shocked if they did not verify in some way that the complaints alleged were indeed made to Coinbase. And I also do not think that Coinbase would accuse the NYT of lying either. It’s not a particularly defensible position.
So - that’s the reading between the lines. To me, the most plausible explanation is that the NYT will allege multiple complaints, and Coinbase is trying to say “no those don’t count.”
It seems plausible to me that The Times could use very similar language to "a number of people," and giving 3 examples while implying that the number is far more.
That’s a fair point, and it’s definitely possible. We shall see, sometime before Sunday!
That implies a high level of intentional deception on the part of the NYT, though. It has certainly happened, of course; and the opinion columns are full of it (like they are at all papers).
I don’t believe that the NYT generally engages in intentional deception, however - so I’m inclined to believe that they aren’t intending on it now.
But as you said, it is possible. And a healthy skepticism of the papers is not bad.
I'm talking about what we have in front of us. You're defending the NYT's article without even having seen it. I can't argue against magical articles that haven't been published yet.
Also, if you think the NYT doesn't 'lie', then how about you read up on their reporting of the Duke lacrosse team case, or their hundreds of others examples of complete disregard to journalistic integrity.
Coinbase isn't perfect. But NYT lies. A lot.
But EVEN if the NYT doesn't lie, you haven't read the article yet.
What we have in front of us is a very poorly executed attempt at damage control - over an article that has not been published - and we really must remember that. If we simply accept what Coinbase has published as truth, then it frames everything differently. But we must read what they’ve written as an attempt at controlling the narrative. They’re asking the world to discredit an article that (as you’ve mentioned) hasn’t been published yet. That deserves an extreme amount of scrutiny and skepticism.
> You're defending the NYT's article without even having seen it.
I believe you misunderstand my motives. How could I possibly defend an unread article? It’s impossible and illogical.
What I have been saying (in more diplomatic language) is that “this smells like a crock of shit from Coinbase,” and I’ve been attempting to illustrate why their own attempt at damage control actually predisposes me to distrust them. It’s an incredibly amateurish PR move on their part, honestly.
But I’m also trying to poke holes at the corporate speak, and trying to understand what they’re saying and what they’re not saying.
And of course, it’s partly speculation! But what else could it be? They published a spin piece proclaiming innocence regarding the contents of an unpublished article. Of course we’re in the realm of speculation; the whole game started there the moment they published this letter.
> their hundreds of others examples of complete disregard to journalistic integrity.
Alleging hundreds of examples of a complete disregard to journalistic integrity requires proof, honestly. It’s a pretty hefty claim that I wouldn’t accept at face value (nobody should). If it’s your opinion, that’s fine - but it’s not fact unless you can point to some evidence. Extraordinary claims put the burden of proof on the party making the claims.
> But NYT lies. A lot.
Friend, this is not enlightened discourse. That’s an opinion, and not a well-substantiated one.
Do we? Your opinion that is poorly executed doesn't actually mean that it is.
> But we must read what they’ve written as an attempt at controlling the narrative.
And...? God forbid their wanting to control the narrative about... Themselves? I'm not seeing the problem there.
> They’re asking the world to discredit an article that (as you’ve mentioned) hasn’t been published yet. That deserves an extreme amount of scrutiny and skepticism.
But the NYT should be inherently trusted, unless I read your original comment incorrectly.
> How could I possibly defend an unread article? It’s impossible and illogical.
You literally called it "fundamental truth" in your original comment, so I'm actually a bit curious about your answer to your own question.
> I’ve been attempting to illustrate why their own attempt at damage control actually predisposes me to distrust them
Reading your comments, it seems more like a bias in favor of the NYT et al what is predisposing you to distrust them.
Of course, nothing wrong with that. If you feel like they properly represent the truth of your views, not supporting them would be incongruous. But that doesn't mean that someone who disagrees about how well they represent the truth of the matter has to share your opinion. Indeed, sharing your opinion would be incongruous in that case.
> It’s an incredibly amateurish PR move on their part, honestly.
This is not enlightened discourse. Again, just because you think it is doesn't mean that it is. Specially when using vague non-descriptions like "amateurish".
> But the NYT should be inherently trusted, unless I read your original comment incorrectly.
Yes - I believe you did read it incorrectly. I am personally inclined to trust the NYT more than the words of a CEO of a tech company; I personally put more trust in the former rather than the latter.
As you’ve eloquently laid out - that’s a personal choice I make, and I own that. But I am not declaiming in my comment that the NYT should be inherently trusted by all.
Now - if you want to ask me that question directly: I do think that the NYT is more trustworthy than Coinbase. And if you want my opinion on the matter, yeah - I think you should trust the NYT too!
But: that simply wasn’t what I said in my original comment. I don’t think that’s a fair reading of it at all.
> You literally called it "fundamental truth" in your original comment, so I'm actually a bit curious about your answer to your own question.
I would answer it by saying you’ve missed the forest for the trees. I was not alleging that the article will be “fundamental truth” - in the sense that every word it says will be true. Rather, my comments in context imply that I trust there will be at least some truth in the article - and that the words Coinbase published serve to highlight the presumed core of truth in the article.
What you’ve said here is nitpicking at a word and ignoring how it’s used in the context of my words as a whole, and doesn’t move the conversation forward.
> This is not enlightened discourse. Again, just because you think it is doesn't mean that it is. Specially when using vague non-descriptions like "amateurish".
You’re right; this is devolving into name-calling. And I stand by my usage of “amateurish”. That is a perfectly acceptable word to use in a discussion here, and it’s not even as imprecise as you claim. If you have questions about what it means, of course, do ask.
I’m not going to engage further on this thread. You’re nit-picking at words here in a really unkind way.
Tells you very little. If you pay a third party to investigate you they have a material interest in not finding wrongdoing and not reporting it if they do find it.
It doesn't tell you what standard was applied when finding no wrong-doing. "not legally actionable" might be the criteria, which doesn't mean that everyone will say "oh, there was nothing wrong there."
Lies are countered with facts, not generic dismissals. The post is textbook PR pointing to some unspecified inaccuracy which is supposed to cast doubt on the substance of the story. Then self-investigation and self-exoneration. Every company trying to cover up wrong doing writes the same thing.
Their response contains specific facts, such as information on the number of and their handling of reported complaints.
That isn't much-- I agree-- but I doubt that they know enough about the time's intended allegations to respond more specifically. And if they did respond too specifically presumably the times would shift their allegations to different specifics in any case, making a general response the only durable one.
Interestingly, other commenters here characterized Coinbases' message with language such as "incredibly thorough prebuttal" and suggested that this indicated that the story was devastating. You seem to be arguing the opposite, that it is perfectly generic and is thus indicative of a traditional cover-up approach. From this it seems to me that regardless of what approach they took it would be characterized as evidence against them.
Those "facts" are about as relevant to dispelling the allegations as is the "fact" that a table has four legs. The facts are there to support an argument. The fact that only 3 people filed a formal complain isn't strong support of the argument that there wasn't more widespread discrimination, particularly when set against the specific statements of multiple alleged victims that will be published in the story.
As many of my HR friends have said (I’m sure most of you have heard this too, HR is in the business of protecting the company and not the employees.
I’ve been at plenty of startups and have witnessed people doing the right thing or rocking the boat and being let go. I myself have been in that boat for reporting sexual harassment on behalf of a friend/peer at work who was too afraid to report the manager. I caught the heat from it and was let go over that.
This is going to be an interesting who said what and what really happened in the next few days.
I think the specific pre-emptive denial of claims by specific ex-employees reads as righteous and dismissive. Who knows what is going to be published in the final version? They later state that only 2 of the four claims were investigated by third parties.
"likely quote three former Coinbase employees and a former contractor by name, and include photos of some of them....The story will likely imply that Black employees were discriminated against during this process; this is false."
That's one of the downsides of using Medium to host a blog.
Looking at the footer links: "9 Fantastic Signs That Your Partner Is Madly In Love With You" and "The Elites Are Preparing a New Currency to Replace the U.S. Dollar"
A lot of people are talking about the PR considerations of this, but I think there's an important factor that should be noted. There's been a growing perspective in SV, particularly among executives and VCs, that traditional media outlets are competitors to the tech industry rather than neutral reporters on it.
And lot of the puzzling aspects here make a lot of sense when seen in that context. This is exactly the kind of response you'd expect if, say, you discovered some famous short seller were going to release a report on you.
It's really really hard to prove your not racist. If anyone has any clue as how to do so, please share.
They could have waited until the story was published I guess to share this statement, but publishing it preemptively makes sense too I believe (it's an always open entity that is incredibly easy to switch away from).
But truly, when you get accused of racism, what can you even do?
Denying the charge or defending yourself simply digs you deeper into the hole.
What you're supposed to do is admit you're a racist, fall down on your knees, abjectly beg forgiveness of your accusers, and list all the new things you'll be doing to stop being racist.
Then your accusers have the power to forgive you. But you really, truly have to go all the way in submitting to their demands.
And they still might not forgive you. After all, you're racist scum, the lowest of the low.
It's an incredibly toxic and destructive way of handling the issue of racism.
I know I'm not a racist -- I interact with people of all races. I don't let race enter into my interactions. I sleep well at night, because I know I'm not a racist.
Defending myself against ridiculous allegations of racism is a game I refuse to play. For the good and simple reason that if you play the game, you can only lose.
I agree that getting blamed of racism means you lose no matter what you do.
However, the statement "I know I'm not a racist" is slippery. Perhaps you're not, but guess what, most racist people think the same too. I've seen explicitly racist things told to me with the same statement prefixed to it. How do you absolutely know you're not racist? Perhaps we all are at least slightly racist and should strive every day to just reduce that part of us?
This is similar to 'I know I am not a bad person' - the majority of the people subscribe to this hypothesis and I believe that is the root cause for many ills in society. I subscribe to an alternate hypothesis - "most of us are kinda bad people" - I mean most people here have burned tons of CO2 on plane trips for personal pleasure, or bought fancy cars or thought we deserve luxury when many in the world continue to suffer - all of this is bad in some definition anyway so even if we all don't promise to be saints let's at least acknowledge that we all ain't angels as a first step?
> The point is, if you want to face reality rather than live in a comfortable fantasy, you have to confront the possibility that the racists are right about one thing: It's possible that some races really do have less intelligence than others.
It is very rude of you to completely neglect the reasonable discussion surrounding that cherry-picked quote and present it in this way that implies they are "racist" -- this is exactly the sort of behavior that needs to stop.
I'm not implying he's a racist, I'm implying he's a bit dense. Someone was wondering why he's getting called a racist, and I took a shot at providing an answer.
You just can't go around making statements about race and intelligence, however delicate and nuanced, and not expect people to raise an eyebrow. Do you think he'd make that same statement in a room full of black people?
In case it isn't obvious, not-racist people with a smidgeon of social awareness don't even engage in those sorts of discussions on the first place, because they understand that nothing productive can come of them.
They're his words, and I linked to the full thread to provide context. If you find "this behavior" "very rude," I think many others here would disagree with you.
There is no amount of context that makes a statement like "the racists are right about one thing: It's possible that some races really do have less intelligence than others" redeemable.
Honestly, I think the only real solution is to sue these accusers for defamation. If there's actual evidence that you are racist, then you can just take your lumps and don't respond to them.
However, if you want to accuse someone of racism, you better have evidence of you're going to pay.
> I know I'm not a racist -- I interact with people of all races. I don't let race enter into my interactions. I sleep well at night, because I know I'm not a racist.
I’m pretty sure many racists think the same things... You don’t need to be in the KKK to be racist. You don’t need to be saying the n-word to be racist. There are a lot of more “subtle” things you could be doing that /are definitely/ racist.
Btw, the fact you don’t let race enter your interactions probably means you’re not accounting for what people experience as part of their race. So, you’re probably racist for not considering their position.
Counter whatever evidence is presented with facts. The same way you make any argument. "You can't prove a negative" is mostly an imaginary problem, you don't need to prove anything, you need to convince people that your argument is better.
Saying something to the effect of “we’re not racist, we have ONE black person that works here” isn’t a good idea. Especially if you’re the premier cryptocurrency exchange and still rely heavily on outside funding.
> Is that something that's going to make them reconsider sharing details in future stories?
It's a fair question, but I doubt it. While getting a hot scoop and dropping it with a bang is something that feels good (and sells papers, so to speak), it's not the driving force behind how a professional news org works. The NYT is a professional news org. One of the things a professional news orgs does is fact check, get statements, and give its sources a chance to respond.
> The New York Times is one of the most respected news organizations in the world
Not anymore. The web advertising industry strongly effected the quality of their work. Now they're just another slightly larger news organization with a spotty track record.
Being as transparent as possible and investigating complaints as they come up.
> three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase. All of those complaints were thoroughly investigated, one through an internal investigation and two by separate third-party investigators
You don't pay a third party to find damaging stuff about your company. Do you really think this third party would ever find something that made Coinbase look bad?
To be fair, you're using a corporate blog post sharing an internal email responding to a story that hasn't been published yet, to jump to a series of unrelated conclusions. Namely, extrapolating that unobserved reactions to a story no one has read are a 'mob', and the 'mob' is 'outraged' instead of being concerned about 'the truth', and it'd be better for Coinbase to ignore it.
It's also striking that this reaction could be addressed at itself.
Stealing this from other posts above, apologies friends: under those assumptions, the disagreement you have with Coinbase's choice to address it is sufficient to negate your conclusion - if there is no mob, and no story, and the corporation is trying to get in advance of it, it's likely the story is damaging enough that they need to, it's not pleading with a 'mob'.
I've played this game before. Why should I expect it to be any different from the usual political social media cancel culture nonsense it always is? I'd love for my assumptions to be wrong though.
It's worth discussing but I'm not sure how to move in with the entrypoint, it feels like 'i know, its a strawman, but its not because the strawman is always real'
Say you're, I don't know, the person who gives driving license tests. You fail a <race> person, person claims you are racist against <race>. How do you make sure no one has examples like that? Just always pass literally everyone no matter how bad a driver they are in case they're going to later claim discrimination?
You can avoid explicit examples with evidence attached ("he called me a n-word and fired me, see <youtube link>") but I don't see how you can reliably avoid claims of bias. And while the nyt article isn't out yet, I'm willing to bet that these (like most) claims is one of bias. Moreoever most actual legitimate instances of racism are also going to be of that form, because most people aren't stupid enough to make illegal things they are doing obvious.
You can provide the reason for your decision. If you routinely evaluate driving tests, you will have based your decision on factors that you have applied without bias.
And if you feel so inclined, you can express your understanding to that person who feels that they have been wronged because of their background. Chances are they have been right far more often than they have been wrong and it's very stressful having to deal with an ever-present potential for unprovoked adversity.
It should be a very small burden on you to acknowledge their situation.
To return to the topic, Coinbase doesn't lose a breath acknowledging their Black employees who did file complaints. If they had any sympathy for these employees — which they should have even if they were not wronged for being Black — why didn't they express it in the statement?
That kind of thing would not hold up in court without a strong pattern proved or additional explicitly discriminatory behavior. Discrimination is surprisingly hard to prove, in fact.
Well, I think people have to decide for themselves. If you accuse someone of bias without sufficient evidence, there’s no reason you should be believed. As for most instances of racism merely being bias, I don’t think this is the case, at least for allegations that make it into the NYT. Typically there is also evidence of a hostile environment provided. When there isn’t then the evidence of bias needs to speak for itself.
That is unlikely to work. You may have heard of implicit bias [0]? A case can be made that you were born a racist and you have to prove that you have shaken yourself free from your racist beginnings.
I personally think it is a silly case, but 'well, just don't be racist' is a silly defense - so maybe they'll work well together.
Implicit bias is extremely hard to argue in the absence of other examples of racist behavior. In the court of public opinion, well. I think you're doing well as a baseline if the only arguments someone can make are about implicit bias. An accusation of implicit bias is far easier to defend against than one of racial abuse.
Not sure that's true. An allegation of racial abuse you defend against by saying "I did not do that", hopefully with evidence on your side (other people were at the meeting, maybe).
But how do you defend against implicit bias? "No, I'm not"? In the current climate, I'm not sure that saves your public image...
You can always claim not to have acted with bias but if there’s strong evidence that you did then I’m not sure how one is supposed to defend against it, in an informal sense (IANAL). I would just admit it, make amends, and try to move on.
But if there's strong evidence that you acted with bias, then isn't that evidence of explicit bias? I'm not even sure what strong evidence of implicit bias would look like.
Anybody can accuse you of anything, it’s true, but accusations of racism without specific allegations of racist behaviours or actions are rarely reported in NYT.
The NYT? After the Trump presidency? Here is a helpful attack article they wrote about an issue that turned out not to involve any particular racial undertones [0] - although you wouldn't figure that out from the NYT reporting. They aren't known for being careful before calling people racist with light evidence. Another good example of 'nobody has any examples of you being racist' being nowhere near enough to keep a reputation intact too.
As a non-white person, I generally regard people that wear those hats the same way I treat people who wear confederate paraphernalia - from a safe distance far away.
Announcing a policy where you’re saying “we’re above politics and we’ll pay you to leave if you’re not” is quite definitely not an example of “trying to not get involved”
And "above politics" is the same as "not involved in politics". Call it a side/position/stance/perspective/angle or whatever else. It's still means they're not involved.
It means they’re involved in preserving the present state of affairs in politics. We can call this being apolitical if we’d like, we just need to be clear about what we mean.
Well, this particular policy change appears to have been at least partially in response to labor action that the company didn’t like, and if that’s not political than nothing is.
> It's really really hard to prove your not racist. If anyone has any clue as how to do so, please share.
If you have been accused of racism that's because somebody has an example of you being racist. If you did not have racist intent you can clarify your intent. Simply claiming you're not a racist won't do because pretty much everyone accused of racism makes that claim (example: central park dog walker, or any other person in the news accused of racism).
Edit: I am talking about instances where the facts are not in question. For example, you did not hire Xyz, and you're accused of racism.
That’s not accurate to say. A person may be accused of racism due to a misperception (or even fabrication) from another person’s perspective, and in such a case that’s not “an example of being racist”.
Anyone can accuse anyone of anything; that’s not sufficient to suggest that the accused must be guilty on some level.
You misread (I think). I believe they meant an example of an event that can be interpreted as racist, even if it wasn't. Thus the proper reaction is to supply an alternative explanation.
If you get accused of racism, what you should do is take the accusation seriously, assume that it is the result of genuine tension within the company, and then figure out places in your process where you were not being proactive enough about looking out for your employees and team chemistry.
Happy employees don't accuse their employers of racism. If you are being accused of racism by your employees, surely something went wrong and there are things you can identify to improve, and then commit to improving those things as part of rebuilding your integrity.
> If you are being accused [...], surely something went wrong
This is "guilty until proven innocent", when exactly did this mentality catch on? Well, in any case I hope the trend reverses because it's directly opposite to how the law works.
Some things are bad enough that you don't even want to be in the grey zone. To be not that big and different people (from a likely already-small group) keep bringing it up... . People like to think of themselves as the hero, but if they keep getting misunderstood as the villain... well...
How is this apropos to my comment? I didn't say anyone was. The only way I can see how this might fit as a reply to my comment would be the implication that it's okay to throw accusations around, and accepting accusations as automatically true, just because the accusation is not of a crime. That's exactly what we shouldn't do. That's my point and I for one am not gonna start doing such anytime soon, and I also try to keep contact with people who do that at a minimum.
For that matter, I would love if you elaborated on how an accusation must surely mean that a wrongdoing actually happened instead of replying with uncharitable interpretations of my comments.
Innocent until proven guilty is a standard used by law which places a very high burden on the accuser. Such a standard is in place because the consequences are both formal and very significant.
Such a burden is also unreasonable in many informal situations, as being required to establish formal and indisputable evidence of wrongdoing would prevent many people from being able to speak out about wrongdoings (especially lesser wrongdoings) within their community.
Coinbase here had 3 formal racism complaints filed internally and Coinbase is stating in their article that they found that all of these claims were incorrect and baseless. To which I say... really? Even model citizen companies are able to trace down elements of racism within their organization when they look hard enough, because racism is a natural bias cooked into many of us, and overcoming that bias requires proactive effort.
You are asking me to give you charitable interpretations, while at the same time refusing to give charitable interpretations to the folks lodging the racism complaints.
No company is perfect, and especially over 1,000 employees I don't think it's unreasonable to have issues within certain parts of the org. But after those issues surface, it seems problematic to me that you would try and assert that actually everything is just fine. Especially in an industry that is overwhelmingly white and male.
> Such a burden [innocent until proven guilty] is also unreasonable in many informal situations, as being required to establish formal and indisputable evidence of wrongdoing
Not automatically thinking that an accused is guilty is... Unreasonable.
I honestly have to ask if I'm reading that correctly because I'm really hoping I am.
> Even model citizen companies are able to trace down elements of racism within their organization when they look hard enough
Interesting, some people say this a lot, and also say the analogous regarding sexism. Yet when Google (a company that basically has "be evil" now as its unofficial slogan) actually "looked hard enough", they found they were actually paying women more than men.
So allow me to doubt this claim you're making.
> racism is a natural bias cooked into many of us
No, no it's not. Not only it is the naturalist fallacy (and without any solid evidence, unusual for this one), it's fundamentally cynical. People are not "naturally" bigots in any way, and even if the argument were for nurture (or "social conditioning", if you prefer), this claim would still be extremely suspect.
> while at the same time refusing to give charitable interpretations to the folks lodging the racism complaints.
I'm being charitable to both accusers and accused; there's no reason not to be, specially in this case where the complaints were investigated and found to be unfounded. You seem to prefer to be entirely on one side, and not only for this particular example; your original comment was far broader.
> it seems problematic to me that you would try and assert that actually everything is just fine [emphasis mine]
Is that what I said? Well, that you would twist my words this much in order to find them "problematic"—and that you would find such a claim "problematic" in this case—does explain why you think the existence of a complain surely means that a wrongdoing happened. Thanks for clearing that up.
What I learned from diversity training is that you need to accept the fact that society is systematically racist, and as a white person you benefit from this. So all whites are profiting from racism already. They have to come to terms with this, acknowledge the role that their ancestors played in furthering or creating racial inequality, and do everything in their privileged power to right this wrong: hire more black people. Promote more black people. Mentor more black people. Pay reparations to black people. Be a vocal supporter to black people. And realize and appreciate that you are different, and will never have to share what black people go through every day. What more can you do?
> society is systematically racist, and as a white person you benefit from this. So all whites are profiting from racism already
American society, certainly. Some white Europeans are a bit miffed at being lumped in with America’s problems. Europe has race/diversity problems of its own, but not on the same scale as the US’s.
My first European colleague was a male-to-female person. She had worked at a major company for years, got a bad performance report, and attributed it to her transition. It went to court and the company settled, instead of defending not promoting her (with or without regard of her transition). Very good programmer. She worked there for 1 year more, doing only things that the company laywers agreed to.
In America I see similar things. I think it is seductive to be swept up with identity politics, and suddenly that promotion that went to a white person, feels different, feels racist. Or you employ a neurodiverse low-social skill person who makes an edgy unfunny joke, because he is nervous. That's "racist humor on the work floor" when going to a lawyer or journalist. It is a dangerous world out there. Current climate not helping.
I don’t believe neurodiverse people make racist jokes as a matter of course. At least, that hasn’t been my experience.
I think journalists are also able to tell the difference between “some dude made a poor-taste joke once” and “dudes were always making poor-taste jokes targeted at one specific minority when the employee was present”.
I’ll also say that, at my reasonably woke US company, I’m not aware of any neurodiverse person getting in any trouble for making a bad-taste joke.
The journalist won't get to talk to the neurodiverse person. Usually someone lacking a thick skin or easy to take offense, goes to HR to complain (anonymously if need be) about offensive, awkward, sexist, racist, far-right, ... speech. The neurodiverse person will (rightly) get a warning, an internal investigation finds no systemic harm done, and that's that, you won't even hear about it, as it juridically not smart to be transparent about such cases.
Then the offended person changes jobs, complains on Twitter about sexist humor driving her out of her previous job, a journalist searches for leads on their next story, and suddenly you are in the news with "multiple people complained about sexist and racist humor on the work floor, but nothing was done about it, and no complaint or investigation resulted in any action. We asked the company for a response and they replied that these internal investigations turned up nothing and that they don't accept discrimination of any kind".
Nearly every company has incidents of sex between co-workers, or people taking illegal drugs on a company get together. Depending on who you get to talk to that's "it seemed like every other week I saw a used condom in the stair ways" or "management regurarily used cocaine during company parties". You won't talk to anyone relativating it, and company PR is shy to even admit that stuff.
I'm a white American, and at least one of my ancestors died to end slavery. My father was named for him (middle name).
Now, it's also true to some degree that I benefit from society in a way that blacks don't (at least not to the same degree). And the right thing to do is to work for a world where blacks share in the benefits of society to the same degree that I do. (Where they don't have to be any more careful in a traffic stop than I do, for example.) But "acknowledging the role that my ancestors played"? I do, with pride.
I don't think any response they could make would change anyone's mind about anything.
They've taken a stance that has generated a polarized response, and people are going to respond to any and all problems that arise at the company based on their now-existing polarization.
I'm fairly certain Coinbase is a leading target for Bill Ackman's SPAC ($PSTH), so this is interesting timing for all here. Coinbase is likely particularly sensitive to negative stories and possible regulatory action right now.
And exactly what made said struggle so overpoweringly morally correct in every possible way that you can qualify it as a pure struggle for human dignity that can't be subjected to any valid criticism? Or claim that nobody has a morally sound right to stay out of it or claim it's too tinged with politics? Pray tell.
strictly a thought exercise: is it possible to have reasonable discussion when one side considers not having an opinion on a subject or not wanting to discuss a subject with coworkers to immediately be equivalent to "you're equivalent to a white supremacist"?
Note that this is not my own thoughts on the subject, but I'm legitimately curious how you can have discourse in a situation similar to this: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-fires-employee-who-... - what would you do when someone asks? What would the expected result be?
Not really. They're just trying to own the narrative with this post here. Streissand effect only applies when someone tries to cover up an already-published piece of fact.
From the link:
> The Streisand effect is a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information, often via the Internet.
It’s not so much about whether a piece of information has been “published” or “publicized,” (although obviously that is typically the situation!) - but rather the act of trying to control the narrative causes the narrative to spin further away from your control.
Anyways, pedantry aside, to me this neatly fits the definition. There is information that Coinbase really doesn’t want out there: and their attempt at controlling the narrative has ensured I will be looking for this article and make time to read it as soon as it is published.
No, Coinbase's preemptive post has simply drawn more attention to the allegations of racism than the (as of yet unpublished) NYT article on its own would have, which is the very definition of the Streisand Effect.
The fact is that they think the article is so damaging that they must do preemptive damage control speaks volumes.
"There is no such thing as bad publicity", eh? You can count on NYT to publish any story at the intersection of Silicon Valley and Racial Justice, so a story about Coinbase itself won't be a big deal since public will forget it in 5 minutes. But by proactively publishing this blog post, Coinbase seems to be extending the news cycle around this.
In an HN thread the other day someone mentioned Coinbase as a positive example of a company that decided to separate employee political activism from the workplace (which IMO is the only rational option unless you like volunteering for lose-lose landmine situations).
As soon as I saw NYT in the I assumed it would something along those lines. It’s not clear what the grievances were yet so I’ll hold back judgement for now.
There are always consequences to trying to run an apolitical as. It’s always seems easier to just give in, especially on the surface layer, with the social media grievance machine, but upholding values through out your company is worth the effort. Not being racist should be common sense by now. Engaging in political campaigns is another matter.
Pretty much. They're going to pay the price for not being on-board with the woke agenda. We all knew this was coming. I do not expect any good faith coverage from the NYT (on any wokeness related topic they have no remaining journalistic integrity), although I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
>Overall, we expect the story will paint an inaccurate picture that lacks complete information and context, despite our best efforts to fact-check details of the story with the reporter.
Probably the most important line from this; those that have been through it before know it better than anyone. Likely best to apply healthy levels of skepticism to both parties.
Hard to judge without the story published, but it also sounds like the company is frustrated it didn’t get line-editing power. This is in contrast to even showing gratefulness for being alerted about the story’s imminent publishing and probably being contacted for sources from all views. The company has invited more scrutiny; like a kid running up to parents saying, “Whatever my brother says, it’s not true.”
I don't think any service was done as far as alerting them something would be published because it's generally obvious: anyone even slightly-relevant to the story is contacted by a journalist and asked to share information beforehand, and of course some fraction will share this occurrence with others.
But it's also true that they'd like to do as you claim, I think it's only fair skepticism is applied equally to both sides.
Sure, I cannot claim to defend Coinbase when I know nothing of the matter. But since news is inherently cherry-picked (after all, one cannot report on literally everything), there will generally be an inherent slant to the information provided, and such an inherent slant will likely tend more towards an optimization of metrics (clicks, engagement, ad revenue, subscriptions, etc) rather than perfect statistical representation of the baseline (which it turns out people are not excited to read about!).
This is enormously unfair to the journalistic profession. There are quite a lot of leaps from "it's not possible to report every fact" to "all journalism is slanted for metrics." Journalists like getting a big scoop but the good ones do their due diligence and go to great pains to report fairly and accurately.
I think there may be a mis-understanding; what I mean is that in the very essence of reporting a scoop, they have already chosen to report that event above other events. So the reporting about the given scoop may be 100% fair and honest, but there is still, in the bigger picture, a large statistical bias, since only some types of things qualify as 'worthy of reporting' and get converted to scoops to begin with.
e.g. imagine one news outlet that only reports about homicides, another than only reports about theft, and another that only reports about covid deaths. All three can be perfectly factual, but they still present radically different views of what is wrong with the world to their readers.
Sure, but I for one was not talking about this story as a marker of the general prevalence of racism, and whether or not it's a representative sample of such. I read you as impugning the integrity and consistency of individual stories in isolation, which is legitimate as well, it just requires more evidence than you presented.
Yeah apologies if it seemed like it went too far, I definitely don't intend to claim anything about the story since it hasn't come out (and even when it does, I know little of the matter), thanks for the addition.
Journalists exist to push a narrative. They don't exist to present facts. Only naive children believe in that fairy tale. Anyone paying attention realizes now that journalists are partisan political activists and should be treated as such. That's all they've ever been really. Just a quick overview of the history of the news industry would reveal as much.
It’s frowned upon in the public relations community because now the NYT can make changes to their story based on CB’s prebuttal. Which will be even more damaging.
It is odd to me that they would preemptively go loud on this, drawing attention to a story that might not even get that much traction. It seems like it would have been much easier to just let that story go out and respond with a simple "We've investigated this before and dispute the claims, except for these few unfortunate stories we can confirm happened, and here's how we will prevent them in the future." What on earth do they gain with a preemptive memo like this? Are they really scared of their employees leaking this? Would anyone even pick up a story of "someone's about to publish a bad article about Coinbase"?