Azure Dream
Member
Funding racist hate groups is not like "Oh, people don't like him because he's
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Oculus holds "diversity luncheon;" refuses to address Luckey questions. CEO needs mom
- Thread starter FinaruDensetsu
- Start date
Funding racist hate groups is not like "Oh, people don't like him because he's
FinaruDensetsu
Member
Not necessarily. It all depends on what their employment contract and employee handbook states. We'll likely never know.
Moreover, if he's at-will they can fire him for pretty much anything barring something discriminatory. Depending on the state law political beliefs may or may not border on being a protected class. Beliefs regarding racism and hate are definitely not protected.
eyeball_kid
Member
Wonder what the Zuck thinks about all this. Facebook is a pretty gross company, but they don't want that kind of image. The path for change at Oculus is probably going to come from getting FB execs aware and involved.
They should get rid of him. He hasn't contributed anything positive to the world of VR, and can only hurt the image of Oculus (And thus all VR) moving forward.
If they want this thing to gain legs, they need as much positive PR as possible. Luckey has proven he can only do the opposite.
If they want this thing to gain legs, they need as much positive PR as possible. Luckey has proven he can only do the opposite.
TangoAlphaLima
Member
Nope. California, like most states, is an at-will employment state. An employee can be terminated for any reason or no reason at all. They just can't be terminated if they're part of a protected class and are fired for that reason (i.e. race, gender, religion, etc.). Firing someone because he's an asshat troll isn't covered. (Although it's quite likely that Palmer has an employment contract that could require just cause for termination, we'd really need to know the specifics of the contract to know how it is implemented, though.)
That being said, Facebook/Oculus probably don't want to make a big spectacle out of everything, so they'll just push Palmer out of the limelight for now, and may let him emerge again once the heat has died down.
Pejo
Gold Member
This part made me laugh way more than it should have too.
Pretty much - the way they have been handling the situation is quite bad.
Then again even without the Palmer BS - Vive and PS VR are more appealing products for me.
Gozer the Gozerian
Member
Hearing about the meetings with disgruntled employees wanting Oculus to respond to this makes me feel really bad for them. Being stuck in that situation of not wanting to work for your company when they handle shit this way but also, like, needing to support yourself and your family financially... That's a tough place to be in.
Discotheque
Banned
Exploratory
Banned
Wow. Whatever I didn't need an Oculus Vive is better and PSVR is the one I can use with my PS4.
"I have to go find my mom, sorry" even sounds like an excuse Gavin might use in his lowest moments
Iva Demilcol
Member
I just hope the press keep talking about it and the gaming community don't forget that by buying an OR part of their money is going directly to the funding of hate groups.
Seth Enosh
Member
At will employment doesn't give license to violate the law. Lawful political activity is protected in CA by law, you can't be fired for it.
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/empspeech.pdf See page 313
FinaruDensetsu
Member
Yeah I feel bad for them too, but just as they have to make decisions about their principles vs their money, we as consumers have to make those decisions too.
Definitely a rock and a hard place for all the employees who don't support any of this. I have compassion for them, and at least there will definitely be people who still support OR regardless of the Palmer mess, so they're not likely to be out of jobs or anything.
Honestly, I found this article a bit of a relief. Facebook isn't ignoring Luckey's actions, they're just not talking about it to the general public. Things are being done to correct the massive wave of Stupid that Luckey unleashed on them, but it's happening in-company and with developers. Facebook's public lack of communication is badly handled, sure, but actions like this don't happen if a large part of the company isn't taking things seriously.
Also, Facebook really needs to work on its PR.
Also, Facebook really needs to work on its PR.
FinaruDensetsu
Member
Yeah but if you go to page 314, you'll see this:
Even under the broad California view, though, some courts have held that activities aimed at improving labor conditions at the particular employer and advocacy of forcible or violent conduct do not qualify as "political".
There's an argument to be made that the alt-right group he supported does advocate forcible and violent conduct toward minorities.
It's definitely something that would be a contested issue.
And again, their employment contract could override all of that. If let's say he does something that is detrimental to the image of the company and that's listed as a cause for termination in his contract, that would override this. For someone as high ranking as Palmer, I doubt he would be simply an at-will employee. I'm sure he has an employment contract of some sort.
Stilton Disco
Member
At this point Oculus just needs to fuck off entirely. They've just fucked up at every turn with the rift, and the entire company seems to be infested with arseholes.
The Vive is a superior product that isn't trying to turn VR into a walled ecosystem, and PSVR covers the entry level into the market, so they're already more or less irrelevant anyway.
The Vive is a superior product that isn't trying to turn VR into a walled ecosystem, and PSVR covers the entry level into the market, so they're already more or less irrelevant anyway.
i'm sure someone would try to sue, i'd be interested to see how arguing about funding sexist and racist groups goes for him
That title needs to be fixed. I think I have a headache, haha.
Yes, the title of the Article itself sounds like my 4 year old came up with it. Would help if the OP's title is changed too, lol.
Yes, the title of the Article itself sounds like my 4 year old came up with it. Would help if the OP's title is changed too, lol.
FinaruDensetsu
Member
...but that's the title of the author's article.
Or are you saying the author needs to edit his title? If so yeah I agree. Should be something like "Is Facebook Trying to Pretend Palmer Doesn't Exist"? or something.
http://www.polygon.com/virtual-real...y-not-palmer-luckey-at-oculus-connect-keynote
If the shitstain were to resign or be fired it would have happened already. I have a hard time believing they would let him stay unless they somehow thought the ramifications for letting him go would be worse.
I'm still sticking with Oculus for this gen of VR. Despite the ignorant response from the executives I don't believe Oculus should be held responsible for Luckey's actions.
Though I totally understand why people would boycott them over this.
If the shitstain were to resign or be fired it would have happened already. I have a hard time believing they would let him stay unless they somehow thought the ramifications for letting him go would be worse.
I'm still sticking with Oculus for this gen of VR. Despite the ignorant response from the executives I don't believe Oculus should be held responsible for Luckey's actions.
Though I totally understand why people would boycott them over this.
Veritigo_X
Member
Interesting take on the article.
What indication is there that they are doing anything internal to deal with this? The only real reason to deal with this is because of public perception and the PR shitshow he caused. Their unwillingness to answer anything about this to the press or general public shows their level of commitment to dealing with this. They are committed to sweeping it under the rug.
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
They may not be able to oust Luckey based on the agreement they had with him at the time of sale. Would be unfortunate for facebook if that is the case.
Seth Enosh
Member
The entire Donald Trump campaign is a sexist and racist group. Donating money to Trump is arguably worse than the $10,000 to Nimble America and making a post on the_donald.
Do you think it would be legal under this law to fire all the republicans in the state who have donated to the Trump campaign? I really doubt it.
Oculus is between a rock and a hard place here. If you guys are so eager to see people fired, work toward getting a ballot initiative in California to allow employers to control their employees' political beliefs. I'm sure that will work out well.
TheBrainninja
Member
It makes sense that they can't just fire him (though I'll not give them a dime while he's on their payroll), but they could go a long way towards eventually regaining goodwill by putting out a statement condemning his views, and making some kind of financial contribution towards a diversity-focused initiative/charity/whatever. Like what Intel did after GG scammed them into pulling ads!
MisterShine
Member
I feel like they're pretty much just going to hide him for 6~ months or so til after the election and inauguration has calmed down then just kind of pretend like nothing happened.
It doesn't seem like there's a ton of pressure to do much worse is there? Superhypercube is like the only major project that was lost due to this as far as I'm aware. Facebook is weighing its financial and tech options and it seems like ditching Luckey is a bad move from their calculus.
It doesn't seem like there's a ton of pressure to do much worse is there? Superhypercube is like the only major project that was lost due to this as far as I'm aware. Facebook is weighing its financial and tech options and it seems like ditching Luckey is a bad move from their calculus.
Azure Dream
Member
I'm still sticking with Oculus for this gen of VR. Despite the ignorant response from the executives I don't believe Oculus should be held responsible for Luckey's actions.
Though I totally understand why people would boycott them over this.
The problem is that after the news first came out, Oculus people and key supporters started circling the wagons with "He can have whatever political views he likes," muddying the issue to seem like it was about his Trump support.
It is true that there's a lot of Oculus people that don't deserve the ire. But the company as a whole, as respresented by their higher-ups, needs to have a better response to this.
FinaruDensetsu
Member
But the article actually pretty clearly states that even in private they are not willing to talk about it with the devs that actually care about this.
This is Ben Carson "My Luggage" tier of dodging, my lord.
Zepp Twofist
Member
What could Carmack have said though? He's the CTO. He gets in trouble when he talks about technical stuff even. This should be handled by people like Iribe or Zuckerberg.
Weltall Zero
Member
Probably more like "we're counting on people's attention span being measured in seconds to pretend this person never existed". And unfortunately, outside of GAF, it's very likely to succeed.
Bulletproof reasoning. "B is arguably worse than A (for values of 'arguably' and 'worse' I just made up), and B is legal, so A is legal".
FinaruDensetsu
Member
I mean let's not even debate about whether they could or couldn't fire him.
The bigger issue is that they couldn't even come out and condemn what he did, or even tell him he wasn't welcome to attend the event (they said he voluntarily chose not to go).
Both of those actions would have meant a lot to people, and Palmer would have had no recourse.
They could not even do the bare minimum to show they don't support his shit. Bare minimum actions that would have subjected Oculus/FB to no legal liability whatsoever.
Spiral Insanity
Banned
Misleading headline, since they're obviously not.
gamintilldawn
Member
Are people saying that he should be fired because he supports Trump?
DarkConfidant
Member
Fuck these guys.
Does this stuff apply to company founders though? It seems like if you're on a board of directors or a CEO or something similar in business it can be difficult to oust you.
I'm sure when he sold the company for billions of dollars, there were all sorts of contract things.
Could you imagine if the only way he could get his money was if he was fired for non-company related reasons? Maybe he's doing the crazy shit as some kind of weird legal maneuver.
FinaruDensetsu
Member
No, because he supports hate groups.
Also Palmer himself says he supports Gary Johnson.
Gotta keep up with the times man.