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Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

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Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

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This is wonderful when your very existence isn’t political. So cis het white men. For the rest of us we don’t have this luxury. This is the pinnacle example of white and male privilege.

I know a couple of non-white/cis/het/male developers who are able to behave like mature, goal-oriented adults and do stellar work. It's not a luxury, it's called being professional.

I’m as “non white” as you can possibly get and I have no interest in talking about politics or any other hot button issue st work.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#782

This is an eye opener. > [Google] employees discussed at length [on internal message boards] whether Trump’s win meant it’s time for a violent revolution. “How do people cope with this?” one employee wrote. “I’ve never been part of a military or war effort before. … I don’t know how useful I’ll be.” It's about time Google tells people to take their political revolution talk somewhere else other than company internal…

This sounds like mobs in the French revolution. You don't agree with my political view, so you deserve the guillotine. And people do this all in the name of justice and righteousness.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#783
post #734

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People are rabidly dismissive of Project Veritas and another one of their "exposures" because of their attempts to "make evidence" by tricking people into admitting something, cherrypicking what "evidence" they do display, and having a "answer first, evidence second" mindset to their operation. If you want to show that Google has "bias against conservatives" or whatever, get it from a reputable source instead of the…

I've seen some of their videos. They seem fairly damning, and rebuttals have always been fairly weak. For example, a google exec was captured on video saying: “smaller companies don’t have the resources” to “prevent next Trump situation”. In what context does that statement not amount to silencing conservative perspective on their platform? I completely agree it is their right to do so, and probably benefits the nati…

Oftentimes the people they say are "executives" are just rank and file employees. I have a friend who is not an executive who got tricked into meeting with a Project Veritas scumbag. Thankfully they realized something was up and left the meeting.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#784
There is a reason you keep away from discussing politics and religion in certain places. We all get excited when discussing them and nothing gets solved. Work is the wrong place for it. Google should have known this by now. It's about time they start doing something about it.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#785

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Disclaimer: my comment below is directed at the culture of Google, and following in the train of thought from your comment. It's not directed at your comment or you. Reading this comment just makes me feel baffled. How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver…

> An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver products and services to consumers and advertisers playing politics on the world stage is laughable at best, and downright irresponsible at worst. Google is one of the largest technology corporations in existence, controlling the flow of information for huge swaths of the world's population. They have no choice but to "play politics" as many of…

What do you mean by they have no choice? Societies have different views and values, and the most intransient of these tend to be reflected in their laws. Companies can offer their product while avoiding politics by simply obeying the laws of a nation. For instance online pornography is a political topic yet the answer is clearly determined by nations: very illegal in Saudi Arabia, kind of legal in the UK, completely legal in the US. Companies can respect cultural views and values by simply gearing their behavior to obey the laws of the nations in which they operate. Since some people would prefer to avoid seeing pornographic results regardless of laws companies can offer an option to remove such results - which is exactly what they do. Nice, simple, no involvement in politics except perhaps determining whether 'adult results' should be opt-in or opt-out.

The last 'people' you want involved in politics are mega-corporations because they are one of the few groups that actually have the power to manipulate elections, corrupt politicians, and generally break democracies. In my opinion it's likely that the world will gradually 'progress' towards worldwide overt corporatocracy, but there's no reason we should embrace this in any way shape or form on the way there. If nothing else your post is a strong argument for why companies such as Google should be broken down. But, getting back to the original point, I think it's possible if not likely that that's already impossible -- thanks to their involvement in politics and the influence it has undoubtedly gained them.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#786

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I think Damore's fatal flaw was naivety. He thought his opinions would lead to a better Google and he thought Google wanted to hear arguments that would lead to an improved Google. He clearly lacked the awareness to realize he was not speaking to a receptive audience to the ideas he had. And he wrote something that lacked the... emotional awareness... to understand where the opposing view came from or how his memo wo…

I had a weekly improv class with him and while I don't think that's enough to get a good read on who someone truly is, I think you may be projecting on the naivete bit. In the midst of the chaos he was generating, he had ample opportunity to redact, change, apologize, debate, or even acknowledge other viewpoints, but he chose to broadcast adamantly. Even as he knew his opinion was generating controversy he didn't tak…

Yep. I don't know how someone can read him as "naive". He immediately went to new sources like Breitbart and PV.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

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Discussing politics at work is a huge liability. With the recent surge of outrage culture I’m not willing to put my job on the line to prove a point. I engage in discussion, but only online and anonymously.

This doesn't sound like freedom, look what the western society turned into. Interesting times we live in.

Similar argument to people that think they should be allowed to smoke anywhere. I can't stand people that talk about politics. It's worse noise pollution than that scene from Dumb and Dumber (hey Lloyd, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?)

I'm sorry, but I don't think having to listen to co-workers ram their ill-thought-out opinion down my throat is "freedom."

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#788
post #759

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And they never punished the woman who leaked that internal memo. I thought that memo was foolish and short-sighted. I don't agree with it. However, it would have been better solved by a manager first asking him "do you really think it's a good idea to post this at work?" and having him tone it down than trying to publicly shame him and get him fired. Google picked the wrong side on that. They should have made an exam…

He offended a broad class of people. Women shouldn't have to pick and choose who they feel comfortable working with around the office. Or worse, be forced to work with that guy. Once he expressed views like that, his fate was sealed. You don't punish the victims.

"Victims" of someone expressing opinions they disagree with? Oh the horror!

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#789

Don't debate politics, but please contribute to our corporate PAC that supports some of the worst politicians.

Exactly! They sent out regular email to all employees asking for contributions to NETPAC when I was there. But now don't discuss politics among rank-and-file - they just want to control the dialog and power among the execs.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#790

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I worked there for a similar length of time, but more recent (2012 - early 2019). The internal political discourse over that time definitely mirrored the rest of the world: becoming increasingly heated and divisive during 2016 and largely escalating since. On the whole, it felt like it pushed the company in a positive direction --- internal discussions mirroring #metoo led to more visibility of sexual harassment and…

Disclaimer: my comment below is directed at the culture of Google, and following in the train of thought from your comment. It's not directed at your comment or you. Reading this comment just makes me feel baffled. How much arrogance does it take for a bunch of Googlers to assume the belief that they know what is "just" for the rest of the world? An organization(in this case, a for-profit company) created to deliver…

I think the logic is backwards. In today's world government policy is the shadow of business interests, not representative government of the people like it is supposed to be. So I am glad for political discussions inside these large organizations, it seems like an escape valve for a broken system. The biggest problem with it is that it is not representative, as organizations are often unfairly hierarchical (and hence some people get an unfair amount of influence) and the workers in these organizations aren't often a representative cross section of society.
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