Tiger sniffing note: Since September this year, Facebook Chinese engineers have committed suicide after jumping off the building, and they are concerned about the working status of Chinese employees on Facebook. Recently, foreign media interviewed several Facebook employees and former Chinese employees, trying to decrypt. This article is from Tencent Technology.
In the past few years, the technology giants in Silicon Valley have undergone tremendous changes. The innovative inventors who have changed society have been accused of monopolizing. The four technology giants (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple) have all been countered. Monopoly investigations, public opinion also expressed dissatisfaction with a series of scandals of Facebook and other companies that violated the privacy of individuals. At the same time, there were discordant voices inside these Silicon Valley companies, such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other employees. Some practices have expressed protest.
According to foreign media reports, inside the Silicon Valley social networking giant Facebook, the relationship between a large number of Chinese employees and Facebook management has also become tense as a Chinese employee jumped from the building.
Some Facebook employees complained that management did not allow public discussion of the suicide, especially if the company’s corporate culture led to suicide.
The growing criticism of Facebook Chinese employees is actually just the latest case of how large technology companies’ employees become active protesters. They protest employers’ business dealings with the federal government and complain about gender inequality, sexual harassment and others. problem.
Matt Sheehan, a researcher at the Paulson Institute in the United States, said: “We have seen the emergence of technology company employees as a force independent of the company. Civil society is emerging in these technology companies as employees. As a component, Chinese employees have also become a role in this evolutionary trend.”
A person familiar with Facebook’s management thoughts said that some senior executives are worried that the growing disagreement between Chinese employee groups and companies, and even personal attacks, as well as tensions between groups and management, are weakening the company’s Valuable ability to open and transparent culture. They worry that this situation may further damage Facebook’s image.
It is well known that a series of scandals that violated the privacy image, such as the “Cambridge Analysis Incident in the UK”, have caused the image of Facebook and the head of Zuckerberg to plummet. The “Uninstall Facebook” campaign has been launched on the Internet. Zuckerberg resigned.
Chinese staff large community
According to interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, Facebook’s Chinese workforce has been expanding in recent years, most of whom are software engineers, data engineers and research experts.
The statistics of the total number of accurate Chinese employees are unknown, and there may be thousands of people. As of December 31 last year, Facebook employed nearly 36,000 people.
According to the analysis of federal regulatory documents, Facebook has more Asians than Apple, Google or Microsoft. According to the documents, in 2018, about 42% of the company’s US employees were Asians, up from about one-third in 2014. In Google, the ratio in 2018 is 37%, and Apple is 23%.
Since 2013, Facebook’s share of assisting Chinese employees in green cards (that is, the number of green cards assisted by all Chinese employees) is also growing year by year, in the nine months before the end of June 2019. The proportion of Facebook’s assistance in handling green cards increased from 25% to 44%.
Incumbent and former employees said that Facebook’s internal organization “China@FB”, which is set up by Chinese employees, has more than 6,000 members and is the largest of its kind.
A former Chinese employee who worked on Facebook between 2015 and 2019 said that there are too many Chinese employees, so that he sometimes only speaks Chinese at work. Other former employees said that sometimes their managers are working in Chinese and they are asked to pay attention to people who don’t speak Chinese.
Some Chinese employees say they are attracted to Facebook’s results-oriented corporate culture, and Facebook is willing to quickly assist employees in obtaining permanent residency in the United States.
According to current and former employees, many Chinese employees hired 10 years ago were promoted to directors and vice presidents, which led to more Chinese employees being hired.
But with the increase in the number of Chinese employees, Facebook has to rely more on mainland China as a newThe source of talent.
A decade ago, many of Facebook’s Chinese employees were employees with a master’s degree from a US university. They spent many years adapting to the culture of the country.
Several incumbent and former Chinese employees said that by contrast, many of the new generation of Chinese employees are not studying in the United States for a long time. They still get news from the Chinese media and use Chinese social media. Domestic friends and family keep in touch.
The above researcher Sheehan said: “A decade ago, if you left China’s technology industry and found an ideal job in a famous Silicon Valley company, you rarely have the opportunity to return to your country. There is little pride in science and technology. Now, many of the friends and classmates of these Chinese scientists have created very successful companies, and you feel a certain degree of pride in their work.”
The right to speak expands
In late September, after a Chinese employee jumped from a building in Facebook headquarters, the tension between Chinese employees and Facebook management became even worse.
A few days later, dozens of people, including Facebook employees and local residents, gathered near the company’s office park to express condolences to the Chinese colleague, who also protested the company’s aftermath.
A photo on the local news site shows that people are holding the slogan “We should get the truth” and another placard draws an inverted thumb image.
Shan Huang is a Chinese software engineer who worked on Facebook from 2016 to 2018. In a public post on a Chinese question and answer website, he criticized Facebook’s handling of suicides. “What is missing from the company’s announcement? Sincerity, humanity and company self-reflection,” he wrote in Chinese. “People guess that suicide is related to his work. Whether it is or not…
Facebook should reflect on itself from a different perspective, including its corporate culture. Huangshan said in an interview with foreign media that he did write this post, but he is not willing to comment more.
Facebook did not respond to requests for comment from foreign media.
In an earlier response to the nervous relationship among Facebook Chinese employees, a spokeswoman said the company is working hard to make the company a popular and respectful job.At the venue, all employees will feel external support here.
The spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail: “Facebook’s culture is based on openness, so we thank our employees for expressing their ideas on important topics, as long as it is respectful to others.” /p>