Are you really confused? Leaving the law & federal funding requirements aside, Universities seek to have successful graduates & thus it is in their best interest to provide an environment that equips their students to learn. Being harassed undermines these goals, so regardless of the law, it is in their best interest to prevent such disruptions.
I'm not sure I understand the bird analogy. Is the point that Universities can't control birds? Well, Universities can & do already actually demand that their students not harass other students as a condition of their attendance.
Once, yes, but I wonder if that is true anymore in these days of $60k+/year fees. Do universities make more from undergrads or alumni donations these days? Because if their goal really is successful graduates then they are not setting their students up for success by policing every dispute. It would be completely different obv if YikYak was the "official" app on campus, but the university administration is nothing to do with it, and wouldn't have the power to block it even if they were. What are you expecting them to do exactly?
If a crime has been committed, go to the police, the real police.
Successful graduates become alumni who make donations.
To be clear, no one is suggesting that Universities should be "policing every dispute." I am stating that Universities can and do seek to create the most effective learning environment for their students--and that harassment undermines this goal. This is why Universities, as indicated in the article, blocked (aka geofenced) YikYak (& though it is not mentioned, other apps as well).
Not sure I understand how that's relevant, but most University rules are not laws--but, while breaking them may not be criminal or even illegal,it can still get you thrown out of school.
At this point I could take this to mean that you're arguing for safe spaces. While creating an "effective learning environment" sounds noble, some students seem to be interpreting this to mean they shouldn't have to hear viewpoints they disagree with [1].
Coddled students don't make successful graduates, as evidenced by the interns that were fired last year after writing a petition about the office dress code that they thought was unfair [2], failing to understand that their job was not a democracy.
Of course, there are times a university should get involved, such as if the harassment is coming from a professor or university-owned email address. But at some point, the most I think should be expected from the university would be a referral to a therapist so the student can work through things and learn coping strategies. It may sound callous to say, but like it or not there are plenty of things that can be upsetting, hurtful, or emotionally damaging to someone without actually being illegal or even reasonably preventable. The university could help to make their graduates successful by making sure they are capable of coping with this fact of life.
No, I'm not arguing for "safe spaces" here at all. Nor am I suggesting students shouldn't "have to hear viewpoints they disagree with."
I am arguing that, along with legal duties, Universities have an interest and an incentive to prevent their students from being harassed. To be clear, being harassed is not being disagreed with.
I don't see the relevance of this anecdata & punditry to the issue, nor do I know what "coddled" really means or why such a generalization would apply to every University. Regardless, pattern recognition over decades of experience tells me that people who are new to the workforce inevitably behave as if they are new to the workforce. And also, that with each new generation, pundits offer some variation of "kids these days." On the plus side, if we've moved on to "coddled", maybe people will stop complaining about those damned millennials!
Anyway, even if we disagree, I am glad that you do think that sometimes the University should get involved & that mental health services are useful.
If people are being harassed and threatened over an app, that is no different to them being harassed by POTS - the police can deal with that.
But if people are going to their university and saying hi, I installed this app that you didn't write or tell me to install, and I don't like it, sort it out for me, then that's an unreasonable ask, IMHO. It's like getting angry with a bakery because they won't repair your bicycle.
You bring up "interest" but original post is about "duty".
They aren't the same thing. Universities might have an "interest" in protecting students from online harassment. That doesn't mean a lawsuit alleging the university has a "duty" to protect students from online harassment has merit.
But, yes, Universities also have legal duties to their students. However, these vary significantly based on too many different factors to speak usefully in generalities (eg based on city & state, public or private, is it a research university, is there some kind of consent decree, etc) and of course, the facts of each case.
More simply: whether a University has a legal duty to protect students from online harassment will depend on the specific situation, but, in all cases, the University will have an interest.
The important question is actually "should there be legal duties", which you can determine from the original point: "I am just shocked at the amount of control, influence, and involvement into their students' lives universities are expected to have."
I (for one) believe universities should not have a legal duty to prevent online harrassment, even though it may be of interest to universities.
Kindly, I don't think that is the important question because that's not how legal duty works. Basically, there are always legal duties, some of which are codified & some of which are common law.
I'm not arguing there is always a legal duty here, nor that there always should be. I'm stating that whether there is a duty will always depend on the individual fact pattern & the laws/regulations that apply to that specific University.
Not only do Universities operate under different jurisdictions with different rules & laws--but their level of "control, influence and involvement" varies along too. This changes what duty there is--as do the specific facts.So such generalizations are not applicable.
If street corner pay phones and phone books were introduced today someone would sue because of the anonymous harassment they enable. It's hard to see where we are now as societal progress.
Thanks for saying this. Threads like this baffle me, make me sad and wonder if its time to just stop visiting this site.
If you don’t mind being bullied, harassed, or threatened, that’s great, but it harms people. Whether you think it should or shouldn’t is irrelevant. Personally I don’t know anyone who has experienced it that wasn’t harmed. YikYak specifically was also horrific for Professors. (& of course, it also had disparate impact on women and people of color). So, either you don’t actually believe it does harm or you don’t care.
Please don’t @ me about free speech or censorship; not only is it irrelevant to startups because they are businesses & not the government, but moderation & boundaries are what make communities endure.
We make choices about what we build & what behavior it will enable. Choosing to permit or even encourage such behavior is not a matter of principles—it’s a choice of who can and cannot participate, which, as YikYak, Secret 4Chan etc show, directly correlates to the viability of the product as a business.
>Please don’t @ me about free speech or censorship; not only is it irrelevant to startups because they are businesses & not the government, but moderation & boundaries are what make communities endure.
"don't @ me" about completely relevant challenges to your opinion that are based on axiomatic political principles is cowardly and foolish. free speech and avoiding censorship are not just legal rights, they are principles that ought to be defended. those who would argue for a world where the de facto standard is censorship because they are capable of a narrow legalistic interpretation of freedoms are hideously short-sighted. if you endorse the erosion of these principles in the venues where you are strong, your enemies will use your exact arguments to erode them where you are weak.
>(& of course, it also had disparate impact on women and people of color)
is there a term for this akin to 'draping oneself in the flag'?
> free speech and avoiding censorship are not just legal rights, they are principles that ought to be defended. those who would argue for a world where the de facto standard is censorship because they are capable of a narrow legalistic interpretation of freedoms are hideously short-sighted. if you endorse the erosion of these principles in the venues where you are strong, your enemies will use your exact arguments to erode them where you are weak.
Although I agree with your general sentiment, I think you're being a bit bullish. It's important to understand what, exactly, we mean by "free speech". John Stewart Mill's On Liberty is the starting point for any such discussion.
In the essay, he discusses "freedom of thought" in this very famous paragraph:
But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
The idea of freedom of speech isn't simply that "anything goes." In fact, the Supreme Court has upheld this position many (many) times: see Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire for the canonical example. Preventing shitposting on 4chan or on Yik Yak is not (I repeat: NOT) an infringement of free speech. There are no veritable opinions there. There is nothing that deserves the invokation of Mill's freedom of thought. In other words, there is nothing of value.
Note that this distinction contrasts with something like Bill O'Reilly's The Factor or your annoyingly conservative grandfather, whom you may disagree with, but who also might have some insight.
But there are some things which we've resolved: we know that Nazis had it wrong, we know that racism is immoral, we know that we landed on the Moon. So not giving a platform to anti-Semites, racists, or flat-Earthers is not an infringement of free thought, as Mill described it.
Popular speech doesn't need to be protected. It is never in any danger of being censored, almost by definition.
The only purpose of freedom of speech and thought is to protect unpopular, evil, and straight up false speech.
That's fine if you use your platform to exclude those that you don't like.
But we aren't talking about that. We are talking about platforms that explicitly ALLOW this shitposting, and yet other people who don't own the platform are trying to stop it.
Sure, fine, businesses can do whatever they want with their own platform. So how about we allow that? Those that want to censor can censor, and those that don't can not do so.
And it turns out that there seems to be a huge demand for a platform that doesn't censor and allows people to post anonymously. (yik yak only died because it went away from what made it good).
So how about those procensorship people just leave it be and let those of us who disagree with them go to our own platform?
> The only purpose of freedom of speech and thought is to protect unpopular, evil, and straight up false speech.
This is patently false. Did you even read the paragraph I quoted? I'm not sure if I even need to get into details here. There are hundreds of historical examples where non-hateful, and non-evil speech was censored. But you're being incredibly disingenuous by lumping in "unpopular" with "evil" -- the two are not even remotely the same.
You're trying to put an equal sign between, e.g., Communism (unpopular) and an anonymous post doxxing a rape victim on social media (evil). Give me a break.
> So how about those procensorship people just leave it be and let those of us who disagree with them go to our own platform?
hypothetical: I've just told all your neighbors that you've got a criminal conviction for raping 8 year old children. It's just words, what's the harm?
If we live in a culture where people understand the concept of "people on the internet could be lying", especially with regards to specific, highly serious, allegations against specific people, then someone posting something like that about me wouldn't be a big deal, because nobody would believe them.
There certainly could be "harm", but I'd argue that on average, the harm would have a very low chance of mattering, and I'd rather live in an open society.
The more people are able to talk, the more they are able to get to the actual truth of the matter.
> If we live in a culture where people understand the concept of "people on the internet could be lying", especially with regards to specific, highly serious, allegations against specific people, then someone posting something like that about me wouldn't be a big deal, because nobody would believe them.
We don't live in that culture. We live in a culture where paediatricians are attacked because a group of people was too fucking stupid to know the difference between paediatrician and paedophile.
To be clear: I support free speech and oppose censorship by government. I don't know how or why one would want to enforce these principles on businesses--let alone how it would not run contrary to the most basic principles of private property & capitalism.
I said don't @ me because I've been in this conversation before & recognize there's little point in arguing when we are clearly defining the concept of free speech very differently.
Maybe I'm missing something, but weren't the majority of targets of harassment on YikYak as I described? Is it not ok to recognize this? Why? If we don't, it won't change.
Its ok that we disagree obviously, but I can't help but note that we are doing so on a privately owned platform that moderates its comments. Maybe you would, but I certainly wouldn't be here otherwise. Which maybe you'd also prefer:)
As soon as a senior executive becomes aware of any kind of illegal activity, malfeasance or behavior for which the company could be held liable, it becomes their responsibility.
When Fowler reported her harassment & HR's failures directly to Thuan, he became obligated by fiduciary duty to deal with the problem. Thuan could not just hand it off to HR because HR (which was Graves' responsibility) had already failed Fowler--which is why she reported it to Thuan.
Uber has never disputed Fowler's report, which points directly at Thuan & Graves. We'll see at the end of the month, but this kind leak from Uber suggests that the publicly released version of Holder's report will be PR puffery that'll blame it all on Thuan & Graves & attempt to vindicate Kalanick. Expect Huffington as the media messenger. She'll be outraged when anyone dares to suggest Travis knew. And ask if the interviewer is actually questioning Holder's integrity.
I'm not sure who'd believe that Kalanick didn't know about any of it regardless.
How people feel is irrelevant; but based on federal law, the US Constitution, whatever local laws there may be & decades of judicial precedent, what you describe would expose any US employer to an enormous amount of liability. Its not normal or legal--& it can be very expensive.
You're right ... it's a very clear extension of the frat-bro phenomenon. You don't need to defend Thiel as I wasn't attacking him. He was simply a convenient adjective since I thought most here would know about his fellowship program (and I had to apologize for stereotyping high school nerds in another sub-comment).
If you work in the US, you are describing what lawyers will call a 'hostile workplace' when your employers are, based on your description alone, successfully sued for discrimination.
This is not perfectly normal in any professional setting. More and more often, it has real professional and legal consequences.
Sure, Sam Altman is impressive, but seems like you are underplaying Brown's actual experience--and I am not sure why it'd comparable anyway?
As the son of a beloved governor, Brown not only grew up in state politics, but also devoted his career to law & government. After winning a few Democratic party elections, he ran for & served on LA Community College Board (which had just been created...coincidentally, his father actually created the UC system when he was governor) & then ran for & won the statewide office that would best prepare him to serve as governor.
Altman has no law degree or legislative experience, no background or education in government, and has never run for office. Founding a company and running an incubator is fantastic, but not sure why it'd be comparable to the legal, government or legislative experience Brown had when he first ran for governor.
Wow. I’m so confused by this. Sure, it makes sense that Altman would seek advice from Willie L. Brown Jr.—but why would Altman allow Brown to announce this in his newspaper column? And, even more bizarre-- why would Brown suggest that Altman’s candidacy is so threatening that it’d make Gavin Newsom suicidal? Seriously?
Sam Altman is obviously an impressive, wealthy & ambitious guy. However, he is 32 & has literally zero experience in CA state government & politics. Sure, Altman has raised money for Hillary, but, no one knows better than Willie how far a distance it is from a Hillary fundraiser at his home to a pancake breakfast at a labor union in Sacramento. Brown even acknowledges that it’s been an unsuccessful pattern for wealthy tech guys. Why would anyone who knows anything about California politics (let alone Willie Brown) recommend that a virtually unknown wealthy 32 year old with no relevant experience run for governor of any state, let alone California? Has Brown signed on to be a paid advisor for Altman’s campaign?
Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, is also wealthy & young(ish) but has decades of experience. As Brown well knows, Newsom could face actual competition from Kamala Harris, Antonio Villaraigosa or even Tom Steyer--none of whom are political novices.
That said, its fantastic that Altman has political aspirations. And I hope many people do encourage him to pursue public service. But why wouldn't Altman start out by running for State Assembly or Congress?
I hope Altman asks himself why Willie Brown didn't say exactly this to him--& that actually, thankfully, in his experience, California is beyond unlikely to elect a 32 year old with no experience as its governor.
Frankly, deciding to run for governor as a wealthy 32 year old with no experience in government or politics, suggests that Altman, at least presently, lacks the judgment being governor of CA requires. Its concerning that Altman himself would not know as much --let alone think that in the age of Trump, that such a campaign could be successful in CA--and even more so that he'd surround himself with folks that wouldn't tell him as much.
To be clear, my criticism is not cynicism or hate. I am critical because I admire Altman (& separately, differently, Brown) & think he can do better. But, it'll take surrounding himself with folks who challenge him, not those who benefit from agreeing with him. Maybe this'll help him learn as much?
No VC would invest in this. Beyond it not being monetizable, this is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, but nonetheless, such apps do actually already exist!
These apps are pointless because, legally speaking, sex is actually not contractual (& prostitution is illegal, so no contract enforcement there either). People can, do, and are legally permitted to change their minds about what they do and do not consent to during the course of sexual activity. We may agree to sex, but we all can change our minds at any time for any reason. No matter how we felt 10 minutes ago, we are all allowed to decide actually we don't feel like it, your sheets are too gross or what one partner thought was sexy, the other thought was demeaning, or whatever--no matter what we agreed on beforehand.
TLDR: evidence of prior consent is not a trump card.
I don't think any of this is true (eg some cities have medallion systems, some don't; some are more & less corrupt). But for argument's sake, lets say all of it is true. So what?
If Uber's big innovation was being able to order a car via an app, its neither that protectable or even all that innovative. Afterall Google was the 11st search engine. Given that each of Uber's rides is significantly subsidized by VCs, it remains unclear if such a service could ever be profitable. And now every competitor, be it Lyft or taxi companies, offers the same service, with exactly the same drivers & exactly the same cars.
Are you suggesting that no matter what Uber & its execs do, folks are supposed to be loyal to Uber because a few years ago it was a hassle to get a taxi?If Uber disappeared, do you really think their competitors would suddenly stop using apps?
> If Uber's big innovation was being able to order a car via an app
That's like saying that it would be trivial to set up a rival to the post office or a rival airline industry.
> its neither that protectable or even all that innovative
Correct, which is why the medallion industry had to get in bed with local politicians to protect itself. Once this was in place (the protection) innovation was irrelevant as anyone who has ridden in a medallion cab pre-Uber can attest.
> Given that each of Uber's rides is significantly subsidized by VCs, it remains unclear if such a service could ever be profitable.
Are you expressing doubt about whether people will need taxi style transit? I'd say it's one of the most proven business models in the world. The "subsidy" you mention allows Uber to grow more quickly than it otherwise would, but late stage investors are not stupid and would not pour money in if the economics were not sound.
I don't actually care whether Uber ends up profitable in the long term or not. I'm not an investor, though I am a happy customer. But I do want a fair fight, and the DOJ picking on Uber is a major misallocation of resources.
> Are you suggesting that no matter what Uber & its execs do, folks are supposed to be loyal to Uber
Not at all. I myself am not "loyal". A few months ago I made a post on HN in which I reached the conclusion that Travis probably ought to go. But making that argument does not mean I don't have tremendous respect for the company he built and the obstacles he overcame to make it happen. Travis is clearly an amazingly talented person who seems to have some blind spots as a manager. But let's not pretend someone like Eric Schmidt would ever start a company like Uber.
Seasoned, wise managers are relevant when a company has generally plateaued. This does not justify the harm caused by bad HR practices and poor judgment in dealing with the treatment of women at Uber, but let's not forget that one of the problematic hires (perhaps scapegoats) at Uber had come from Schmidt's google where he'd had many years of success but had not disclosed the disciplinary circumstances of his departure from Google.
> Uber disappeared, do you really think their competitors would suddenly stop using apps
This is farfetched, and not what I was arguing. My point is that Uber came up with a way to fight against one of the most entrenched industries in the world and win. This is generally what startups are supposed to do... create Schumpeterian growth which leaves a trail of destruction of the old edifices of power.
It may be that Uber simply won the first round of battles but that the war will eventually be won by the cronies and insiders who cozy up to local politicians and held the taxi industry hostage for so long. They have not given up easily. In some cities they are still strong and don't plan to go anywhere.
Before you decide to jump on the bandwagon against Uber, think about the many areas of life in which entrenched and backward systems oppress us and hold back progress. You are helping them drag us back into the darkness.
Like many others, I am critical of and will not financially support Uber's unethical & criminal corporate behavior. If this is what you consider "jump(ing) on the bandwagon" and "drag(ging) us back into the darkness,"--and Uber's behavior doesn't trouble you, so be it.
Thankfully we have choices, so, even if the feds seize Uber tonight, exactly the same drivers with exactly the same cars are already and would still be available on Lyft & the taxi co's apps. And only time'll tell whether Uber matters.
Yes we do. I think we likely agree on the overall benefits of Uber, but you are more inclined to focus on Lyft as a better instantiation of the idea and I'm just sort of defending Uber because it's fun to do so when everyone hates it.
I'm not offended; its just the opposite of persuasive. And "jumping on the bandwagon" is kind of a conversation ender: if that's how you understood my reply, we're unlikely to understand each other & its not worth the effort to be clear.
I hear you on being a contrarian, but only when there's a compelling argument. Here, I doubt we do agree on Uber--I don't think there are overall benefits.
As I've said, I am not convinced Uber is some huge innovation but it wouldn't matter if it was (aka Google was the 11th search engine), and regardless, democracy and the rule of law are more important.
At any rate, my version of this being fun is being understood. Alas, some fun is incompatible with other fun.
> "jumping on the bandwagon" is kind of a conversation ender
Has there not been a very profound anti-Uber bandwagon effect going on? Several incidents snowballing into a major backlash? I think there is some sort of organized labor sponsorship of a smear campaign, fwiw.
> I don't think there are overall benefits
I'm curious how you reach this conclusion. Is it as a consumer, comparing Uber to traditional taxi offerings in your area? Or based on some other viewpoint?
> I am not convinced Uber is some huge innovation
I think innovation is the wrong word as well. Uber is a political and economic achievement of breaking a very entrenched system that had oppressed many people so that a small number could extract profits at the expense of society as as a whole.
> democracy and the rule of law are ... important
Absolutely. I view corrupt laws and crony capitalism as antithetical to the rule of law even if the laws which happen to be on the books support specific arrangements. The taxi market was a golden goose being plucked by corrupt officials and a small number of fat cat owners at the expense of everyone else.
These sorts of crony/entrenched arrangements are a form of organized crime, as are the regulators who enforce unfair laws meant to funnel money into the coffers of specific crony firms.
> my version of this being fun is being understood.
I think I understand your points. But I'm not sure how you weigh your various points against each other in terms of their influence on your overall view. I don't disagree with any of them outright, but I think you weigh literal compliance with law too highly.
Also, on the subject of Uber's corporate culture, Uber has been punished significantly already for the revelations about its culture. As much as I admire Uber's accomplishments, I would very likely not want to work there.
One time I got a coding quiz easter egg in the Uber app and scored well and was invited to apply, but after what I've heard I would be unlikely to consider it, since I personally view the tolerance of sexual harassment behavior by companies to be one of the biggest indicators of larger culture problems and a "law of the jungle" environment where social dominance trumps merit when it comes to how decisions are made.
I'm not sure I understand the bird analogy. Is the point that Universities can't control birds? Well, Universities can & do already actually demand that their students not harass other students as a condition of their attendance.