acloudguru Drank the Woke Koolaid

I signed up for LinuxAcademy back in 2013 - 2014 to learn Linux and AWS. I ended up going down the networking path, but I kept a subscription active because I enjoyed their content even though I wasn't really using it. Looking back I probably should have just cancelled the subscription and saved the money. It seems like the subscription platforms always deep discounts throughout the year anyway.

I'm looking to get some cloud certification and I logged back in for the first time in a few years and I have to say I'm not really sure ACloudGuru is an improvement over what LinuxAcademy used to be. I find their whole "Forums" / "Rooms" concept atrocious. It seems like they have hundreds of different rooms, probably one per course they have. On one hand it makes sense to have a room per course, but it makes it really hard if you have to post something general that isn't related to a specific course. Not that you'll get a reply to your question. It seems like a lot of the questions go answered.

When I logged in three weeks ago I was prompted to agree to their new terms of service otherwise they would cancel my grandfathered plan. I ignored the pop-up and continued with what I wanted to do. I expected them to prompt me to agree the next time I logged back in, but it didn't do that tonight. I went to their policies to see if there was some place to agree, but I couldn't find any.

I happened to read through their Code of Conduct and there are some doozies listed. It sounds like it was created by someone with really fragile self-esteem who has no business being connected to the internet or society if they're that fragile. Here's the parts that were super ridiculous:

"Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop

Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:

‘Reverse’ isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions"

Am I the only person who thinks it's ridiculous that typing "hug" or "backrub" to someone "without consent" is considered harassment by them? I'm of the mindset that "reverse racism" isn't really a thing because it's still racism, but directed at caucasian people. However, something tells me that they won't respond to complaints about racism towards caucasian people like they would racism directed towards "marginalized" people as they put it. I'm really surprised they didn't have something in their that said "all white people are racist and there is nothing they can do to change it."

I find it funny that tech companies want to push diversity and inclusion except when it comes to view points that are of the wrong political persuasion or when it involves including "privileged people".

I though CompTIA going through and changing their vocabulary was bad. I really feel like cancelling my acloudguru subscription. Anyone know of any good alternatives?

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Comments

E Double U

The day that I can no longer offer virtual backrubs is the day I say farewell to the internet

thomas_

I would never think to offer virtual back rubs in the first place, but the fact they consider offering virtual back rubs “without consent” harassment just blows my mind.

I definitely agree with not offering physical back rubs without consent since you’re invading someones personal space and it’s easy to be abused by people.

It almost sounds like its intended for acloudguru employees, but why wouldn’t they have a separate code of conduct for virtual learners?

SteveLavoie

It look like a requirement from one of their big customer who have this kind of culture. But being a white, mid-40, educated and business owner, cis man, I may not be allowed to have an opinion on this without being "cancelled". Seriously, I am not a racist, not sexist, or whatever but the woke movement is so lame.

**** Wow it is my 1000th comment and this comment can get me bad listed ******

JDMurray

Sounds like their lawyers and public relations people are "playing it safe" given the current Western societal attitudes. They also would not want to offend any potential customers who look for such "Dolphin Safe" labeling on products.

p-coder

I can understand how a virtual hug or back rub could be considered offensive, but the thing that threw me off is the consent. How would that work? I imagine someone asking a question like how to set up an Nginx server and then saying “by the way, I consent to virtual hugs and back rubs” and then everyone chimes in to give virtual back rubs. Personally, I would be offended by that and leave the service. On the other hand, if all I had to do was check a consent box without a change in the content or user experience, it wouldn’t bother me.

JDMurray

I assume that means a "hug" emoji or similar text sent in a messaging application. Sounds like the the business is legally responsible for the messaging service(s) it uses to have an opt-in setting for user's to allow the reception of *hugs&kisses!*

UnixGuy

I've never ever read code of conduct statements

if you like their content and it helps your career who cares then?

E Double U

UnixGuy said:

I've never ever read code of conduct statements

So that explains why you are always violating them

Mooseboost

Yeah, this definitely comes off to me as "We want business from woke-oriented startups who are looking to sink a lot of money into like-minded vendors". The truth is, this will probably not impact the vast majority of standard non-enterprise subscribers who will never read conduct statements or any kind of EULA but it will win them business with companies who go out of their way to identify vendors who have policies like that in place.

PC509

Is it a problem, though? Do those things actually come up? Maybe they do here, too? Who knows, I'm not sure what people DM back and forth and what mods see. But, if the terms and conditions hurts you that bad, cancel. If the materials, knowledge, and the platform are otherwise working for you, are you going to let the legal terms and conditions bother you? Even if there were no problems other than those words on the legal terms you're agreeing to?

I'm not sure if they were fragile or if it was the end user... Just accept them and move on. 99.9999% of the time, you won't be impacted by those theoretical examples they listed.

EKaiser

I've heard some of my mates in the industry say they feel like they've got to walk on eggshells, worried about saying the wrong thing or not being "woke" enough. It’s kind of taking the fun out of work, you know?