Thread: Twitter Engineers Fired for Correcting Musk

https://twitter.com/caseynewton/status/1592539948745650176

by cbtacy • 4 years ago

31 62 4 years ago

twitter.com

snvzz9• 4 years ago

Employees criticizing the company they work for get fired, news at 11.

Can't have employees working against the company public image.

mikkergp7• 4 years ago

Overnight, it is estimated more than 10 employees (maybe 20?) were fired for complaining in slack, which I interpret as _privately_

snvzz9• 4 years ago

Creating discord within the company at a critical time such as now is rightfully not welcomed.

Pfhortune3• 4 years ago

That's a remarkably dystopian take. Also, what about Elon's supposed commitment to free speech? Is criticism not speech?

Note: I'm not talking about free speech in the context of the first amendment, as that does not apply to private entities, obviously. I'm talking in the more broad sense, as in one should not be punished for speech, which is what I interpret Elon's take on it as.

cmsj4• 4 years ago

That would be the same Elon who made parody a bannable offence immediately after people started getting blue checkmarks on accounts making fun of him :D

He doesn't care about free speech or Twitter, this is just a way for him to insert himself into the zeitgeist yet again, and throw around whatever engineering mastery he thinks he has.

faefox• 4 years ago

The purge continues. At least if we all know one thing it's that the most successful way to run a company is to instill a culture of fear and to surround yourself with sycophants.

lazyeye5• 4 years ago

Id say its just as much about culture change as it is about saving money. Musk wants to shock people out of their complacency. They need to understand its a different company now. Results now matter.

And publicly disagreeing with the owner of the company, whilst working for the company shows this guy is not particularly bright. So probably no great loss.

microtherion3• 4 years ago

Maybe it shows that the guy values integrity higher than his job, or that he thinks he has alternatives to putting up with any BS a capricious owner wants to put him through.

dilyevsky• 4 years ago

I’m not sure this wasn’t how Twitter was run before. I’ve been in a few companies in the valley where this was the case just not so brazenly and out in the open.

mongol2• 4 years ago

It is interesting to read the termination notice referring to "violating company policy". For that to be true, there needs to be an explict policy prescribing a behavior they have violated. More likely,they were fired because Musk felt like it. Or did he really review and communicate a new policy since he took over?

mikkergp7• 4 years ago

I guess something I don't know about employment law, everyone says in a ~right to work~ (Correction: At-will employment state), you can fire someone for any reason, but can you lie about the reason? Do you have to be able to prove that reason was true? Certainly I suppose you might want to be able to in case of a wrongful termination suit.

mongol2• 4 years ago

Exactly. It is one thing to say "because Musk wants you out", another to refer to some policy in ambiguous wording. Lying about such serious matter as why you fire someone is is my book very bad. This is the first time I consider leaving Twitter. Not sure I want to have anything to do with it any longer.

dragonwriter2• 4 years ago

I guess something I don't know about employment law, everyone says in a right to work state, you can fire someone for any reason

”At-will employment” (every state except Montana) not ”right-to-work” (which California emphatically is not.) The latter is a restriction on unions.

but can you lie about the reason?

Lying publicly about the reason might be defamation, but this wasn’t public, and lying doesn’t itself establish that the reason was illegal, which is necessary for wrongful termination in an at-will state.

Thread: Twitter Engineers Fired for Correcting Musk

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