WhiteHatJr got the twitter account of a suicidal employee blocked for tweeting about the working condition.

[iPwnz]

I don't know if you guys will have heard of it but Byju's and WhiteHatJr have been in quite a bunch of controversial news lately:
1. (Forbes) WhiteHat Jr and the curious case of disappearing dissent
2. (r/IndiaSpeaks) WhiteHatJr is doing marketing fraud
3. (Inc42) WhiteHat Jr Told To Remove Misleading Ads After Social Media Furore
4. (FreePressJournal) Advertising body ASCI asks WhiteHat Jr to pull down ads for violating norms: Report

BUT this one is beyond f'd up!
These scums need to be dealt with.

(Edit) Context: What happened here was one employee of WhiteHatJr made some tweets about the stress of working in WhiteHatJr. From her tweets she also felt suicidal. Someone on WhiteHatJr caught a hold of this and immediately shared this in their company private group. Then some of the senior executives instead of addressing this problem and assist the employee chose to "hide" it and told everyone to report the tweets. Since they were mass reports Twitter removed the posts and restricted the account.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1327232281686257667

 

[NotMyRealName]

BUT this one is beyond f'd up!
These scums need to be dealt with.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1327232281686257667

Is there someplace i can read about what actually happened/is going on?

Trying to figure out a story by reading tweets is madness...

 

[calvin1719]

Wasn't aware of this, thanks for the links.
+1 to what Julian said though. Some more context would be helpful.

 

[princeoo7]

That is just sheer madness and they do thing which shall not be done to either kids or employees.

 

[cute.bandar]

From what I have read - there have been several posts on social media - think facebook, reddit, twitter, by those who claim to be employees or exemployees of whitehat Jr, byjus. They are very very critical of these 2 companies.
The people claim being made to work for 15 hrs, being underpaid, employed on false promises. That their work is to scare parents into buying ridiculously expensive packages. Those employed as teachers have to hoodwink parents into staying etc..
The issue that is arising is that these people claim they are being relentlessly silenced on all platforms. youtube, twitter, Even reddit! posts deleted, accounts banned (even reddit!) .
These are just claims I have read online. I do not endorse the above comment. Spare me byju lawyers

 

[Rezep]

From what I have read - there have been several posts on social media - think facebook, reddit, twitter, by those who claim to be employees or exemployees of whitehat Jr, byjus. They are very very critical of these 2 companies. The people claim being made to work for 15 hrs, being underpaid, employed on false promises. That their work is to scare parents into buying ridiculously expensive packages. Those employed as teachers have to hoodwink parents into staying etc.. The issue that is arising is that these people claim they are being silenced relentlessly on all platforms. youtube, twitter, Even reddit! posts deleted, accounts banned (even reddit!) .
These are just claims I have read online. I do not endorse the above comment. Spare me byju lawyers

Oh lol, there was a post on r/bangalore once where a user linked a yt vid of a whitehat class where the teacher didn't know the difference between javascript and java, and opened a browser and searched google for the answer. That vid got taken down minutes later apparently.

 

[iPwnz]

Is there someplace i can read about what actually happened/is going on?

Trying to figure out a story by reading tweets is madness...

The person who made the video also made many other videos abaout WhiteHatJr.
The problem? WhiteHatJr DMCA'd everything and removed them all and even got 2-3 accounts banned.
The Forbes article has some info about this.

Anyway, what happened was one employee of WhiteHatJr made some tweets about the stress of working in WhiteHatJr. From her tweets she also felt suicidal. Someone on WhiteHatJr caught a hold of this and immediately shared this in their private group. Then some of the senior executives instead of addressing this problem and assist the employee chose to "hide" it and told everyone to report the tweets. Since they were mass reports Twitter removed the posts and restricted the account. This is just the latest incident. There have been several other incidents showing the shady side of the company. One person who posted a negative feedback about the company, his post was also removed. And another kid's parent who posted a poor review saying the teacher they gave his kid had little knowledge. The kid was blacklisted.

Oh lol, there was a post on r/bangalore once where a user linked a yt vid of a whitehat class where the teacher didn't know the difference between javascript and java, and opened a browser and searched google for the answer. That vid got taken down minutes later apparently.

Yeah this one too. The video was also DMCA'd I think.

 

[puns]

sad part is all social media companies including youtube are not doing anything cause these companies are spending a lot on ads for promotion.
ASCI did come hard on them sometime back but they are blatantly bypassing guidelines for advertising and misleading people.

 

[NotMyRealName]

Since they were mass reports Twitter removed the posts and restricted the account.

So they will delete posts based on the number of reports and not the actual content? Sounds like mob rule.

In the cancer that is social media, people now try to portray twitter as a white horse. I laugh when i remember how it started. People vomiting frivolous drivel in 140 characters. Ditto FB.

 

[iPwnz]

So they will delete posts based on the number of reports and not the actual content? Sounds like mob rule.

In some cases like youtube, they used their lawyers. And Twitter India has always been complete shit when it comes to policing. No one knows how they work and if the actions are automatically taken up by bots or manually by the employees.

 

[dpandey]

Anyway, what happened was one employee of WhiteHatJr made some tweets about the stress of working in WhiteHatJr. From her tweets she also felt suicidal. Someone on WhiteHatJr caught a hold of this and immediately shared this in their private group. Then some of the senior executives instead of addressing this problem and assist the employee chose to "hide" it and told everyone to report the tweets.

Note to youngsters. Do not complain about your employer on a public forum. If you must, use an anonymous account.

Another thing. Your boss might 'assist' you if you approach privately and ask nicely. If you post your complaint on social media, you are asking to be fired.

 

[iPwnz]

Another thing. Your boss might 'assist' you if you approach privately and ask nicely. If you post your complaint on social media, you are asking to be fired.

Okay what if the employee already had approached the people in charge and was ignored? No one is simply going to rant on social media. Its almost always the "desperate times need desperate measures" action.

 

[NotMyRealName]

Lol, seeing byjus ads on TE itself.

It's true that they've become too big to fail. Can't touch them now...

 

[dpandey]

Okay what if the employee already had approached the people in charge and was ignored? No one is simply going to rant on social media. Its almost always the "desperate times need desperate measures" action.

If she had approached the boss and got no meaningful response, it simply indicates that she wasn't important enough to the team. A smart person would take that as a hint.

What desperate measures do you want? Start govt meddling which will inevitably lead to shutdown and make everyone else jobless? What if the other employees are ok with the arrangement? I don't know much about them, but I am assuming it is a young company trying to find a foothold. Long hours are common in startups. If startups didn't do 80 hour weeks, you wouldn't have any of the good things you see around you.

EDIT:
I would be very suspicious of anyone with 'Stand for change' in his/her twitter handle.

 

[calvin1719]

If she had approached the boss and got no meaningful response, it simply indicates that she wasn't important enough to the team. A smart person would take that as a hint.

What desperate measures do you want? Start govt meddling which will inevitably lead to shutdown and make everyone else jobless? What if the other employees are ok with the arrangement? I don't know much about them, but I am assuming it is a young company trying to find a foothold. Long hours are common in startups. If startups didn't do 80 hour weeks, you wouldn't have any of the good things you see around you.

EDIT:
I would be very suspicious of anyone with 'Stand for change' in his/her twitter handle.

That's just defending a toxic corporate culture tbh. X thing may be common, but that doesn't mean it's ok to do it.


What's in question here are the shady af tactics these guys are employing by misusing DMCA takedowns, the shoddy/corrupt moderation processes social platforms have in place, and the employer's practices

The people claim being made to work for 15 hrs, being underpaid, employed on false promises.

If startups didn't do 80 hour weeks, you wouldn't have any of the good things you see around you.

Completely untrue. You don't need to have all employees putting in 80 hour weeks to get a startup off the ground.

 

[Chaos]

If she had approached the boss and got no meaningful response, it simply indicates that she wasn't important enough to the team. A smart person would take that as a hint.

What desperate measures do you want? Start govt meddling which will inevitably lead to shutdown and make everyone else jobless? What if the other employees are ok with the arrangement? I don't know much about them, but I am assuming it is a young company trying to find a foothold. Long hours are common in startups. If startups didn't do 80 hour weeks, you wouldn't have any of the good things you see around you.

EDIT:
I would be very suspicious of anyone with 'Stand for change' in his/her twitter handle.

I hope no one has you as a boss or else he or she is screwed for life. And no long hours is a toxic work culture that needs to be shunned and it means the management isn't doing a good job. I would never let employees who work with me burn out by putting 80 hours a week. It is unproductive, bad for health and in the end everyone loses. If employees are not motivated to do their jobs and don't bring in their best, the startup is ****ed either way.

 

[iPwnz]

If she had approached the boss and got no meaningful response, it simply indicates that she wasn't important enough to the team. A smart person would take that as a hint.

What desperate measures do you want? Start govt meddling which will inevitably lead to shutdown and make everyone else jobless? What if the other employees are ok with the arrangement? I don't know much about them, but I am assuming it is a young company trying to find a foothold. Long hours are common in startups. If startups didn't do 80 hour weeks, you wouldn't have any of the good things you see around you.

EDIT:
I would be very suspicious of anyone with 'Stand for change' in his/her twitter handle.

You can't be serious.
Even if she wasn't important to the team as you said, there are contracts involved when working for a startup. And I'm pretty sure it has a "NDA" on it. See?

 

[dpandey]

Even if she wasn't important to the team as you said, there are contracts involved when working for a startup. And I'm pretty sure it has a "NDA" on it. See?

Can you be more specific. What part of the contract? The papers you sign while joining are mostly legalese about protecting the company and the business (non-compete, who owns the IP you create etc.). All of them will have a sentence like:

"You will be subject to rules and regulations of the company which we can change whenever we feel like."

I have never looked up a 'rules and regulation' book (you usually ask someone in HR). But I am quite certain it has been designed to waive the company of any liability.

The girl needs help and I hope she gets it. But before you decide to take the activist route, you should think about the harm your action can do to those around you. I am sure many of her coworkers depend on the job to feed their family. If babus from secretariat get involved, you are not looking at a happy ending.

 

[iPwnz]

I don't know why you are even bringing up babus. You don't need politicians to fix your shit company. Your company can change itself from the inside.
Also your replies make little to no sense. First you said its normal and then you wish for the girl to get the help she needs. You may accept it as "normal" or a trivial thing but its not to the rest of the world.

 

[Mr.J]

From what I have read - there have been several posts on social media - think facebook, reddit, twitter, by those who claim to be employees or exemployees of whitehat Jr, byjus. They are very very critical of these 2 companies.
The people claim being made to work for 15 hrs, being underpaid, employed on false promises. That their work is to scare parents into buying ridiculously expensive packages. Those employed as teachers have to hoodwink parents into staying etc..
The issue that is arising is that these people claim they are being relentlessly silenced on all platforms. youtube, twitter, Even reddit! posts deleted, accounts banned (even reddit!) .
These are just claims I have read online. I do not endorse the above comment. Spare me byju lawyers

Just gonna leave this here without any comments.

submitted by pooniahigh

IIT BHU Varanasi, ex Cisco. WhiteHatJr got my first accounts (u/whiteHatSr) permanently suspended for 'harassment'. Then my second account...

old.reddit.com