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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

#751

Post by caseysoftware »

ssalazar wrote: post #696
LordFast wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Private corporations acting in quasi-government ways is risky at best and terrifying at worst. While some of the checks & balances in civil+legal society have been broken, many are still there and there are repercussions when they're broken.

A corporation doesn't have the same mechanisms - public rules (aka laws), processes, appeals, accountability, etc, etc - built in and there's limited recourse when their definition of "right" and others' conflicts.

Frankly, it's begging for regulation.. and that's not even considering the potential monopoly angle.

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

#752

Post by hrktb »

manigandham wrote: post #522
nostrademons wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the Founder's Letter included with Google's IPO in 2004 - "Google is not a traditional company. We do not intend to become one." It looks like they became one. The other interesting takeaway for me is how long-term equilibria can leave holes that may be exploited by short-term-focused actors . When Google was young, it's say-anything culture was a big competitive advantage: it let them hire people who were…

Every company becomes a "traditional" company because only traditional companies have survived. If alternative structures worked well then we would've seen them by now. Also I'm willing to be that a startup's lack of bureaucracy and momentum lets it experiment and move faster rather than just a carefree internal attitude. I've been in midsize companies on both sides of the free-culture spectrum and have never noticed…

I kinda of see what you are pointing at, but by definition every alternative structures we’ve seen survive long enough is now part of our tradition, so “traditional”.

I don’t see this as just a play on word, there is a wide variety of existing models that worked, and I’d also totally see a new model emerge and become “traditonal” when adopted widely enough. The world changes, companies should to.

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

#753

Post by kupiakos »

lostgame wrote: post #25
DannyBee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your attempt to argue this is somehow vague or a slippery slope is silly - most workplaces seem to have not a tremendous amount of trouble with this, even though it is not rigorously defined.

Agreed. I am transgender, lesbian, asexual and polyromantic, and none of these things have I ever had so much as a discussion about at my office, nor have they sparked any 'political' discussion. (I work at one of the major 5 banks in Canada).

I'm a trans lesbian as well. I've had discussions about it at work. When coming out, I asked my coworkers to use she/her pronouns. I might mention my partner, or I mention to my manager that I'm going to need to leave work at X for electrolysis. I consider my being trans as an "open secret", where I won't open conversations with it, but I will mention it when I find it naturally relevant to the conversation. This works well for me because I have the privilege of passing as cis.

All of these are regular everyday things for me, but I've had people tell me that even asking for basic respect is "disagreeing with their political opinion". The real problem is where the line is drawn, or whether a line can even be drawn.

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

#754

Post by tomp »

Excel_Wizard wrote: post #486
einhverfr wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the EU, freedom from discrimination on the basis of political opinion is considered a fundamental right, and is mentioned as such in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. Private conversations about politics thus is entirely outside the scope of what the company is allowed to care about. Public comments, for example on global email lists, would be a different topic.

Political opinion is a very strange protected class, and protection of it seems unenforceable to me.

No stranger than religion, when you think about it. Both are completely arbitrary (a personal choice), people get very emotional and defensive about them, and they seem irrational if you don't share the beliefs.

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

#756

Post by lagadu »

gm678 wrote: post #680
tunesmith wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people can handle civil discussion with people of differing values, and some people can't. I wonder what the difference is, I mean beyond just painting someone who can't as a jerk. I think it has to do with learned skills of emotional self-regulation... someone with those skills is better able to hold their perspective while allowing that of another. But how does one learn that? It might have to do with safety.…

While I absolutely agree that there are people of all political beliefs who have major problems with remaining civil, I think we sometimes have an unfair standard. If someone is dealing with people who just want to spread hate and have no interest in having an open-minded discussion or ever changing their views, and that person then betrays even a hint of frustration, they are often immediately slammed for becoming i…

It boils down to whether they believe that all ideas are worth having, discussing about and of equal value to a "free" society and should therefore be openly discussed or whether only their specific subset of ideas are allowed and everything else thought-crime.

Hell, believe it or not, I've heard people say that it should be illegal to be fascist for example. Of course these people should be ridiculed.

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

#757

Post by barbecue_sauce »

gwbas1c wrote: post #603
threeseed wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to bring up controversial anecdotes like this the onus is on you to actually have clear facts behind it.

This isn't that kind of message board

I think Hacker News is probably the only message board that IS that kind of message board.

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

#758

Post by cosmodisk »

oppositelock wrote: post #187

I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people. There were definitely groups meant for discussing politics, and loudmouths like me willingly participated in those - however, it was very uncivil. There was a majority view in the company, and if anyone didn't agree with the majority view, the…

I'd say the same would happen in pretty much every other company. Political discussions are very hard to have outside work and it is 10 times worse at it. Most of the time it's either echo chamber or free ride for all without any considerations.

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

#759

Post by JaRail »

fortran77 wrote: post #455
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression has not been that the memo is when political discussions turned toxic, but merely the first time it very publicly breached the sacred wall of non-disclosure with the outside world. Prior to that, most everyone seemed content to be upset with each other internally.

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.

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

#760

Post by lagadu »

xvector wrote: post #429
oppositelock wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely the latter - people trying to convince others that their views on war, or abortion, or taxes, or political party are the correct ones. These are also people who are intelligent, educated, and quite arrogant, so the fireworks were pretty spectacular.

And this was common workplace discussion!? This seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t know why you’d want to introduce the divisiveness of politics to your workplace.

That's only a US thing. In the rest of the world (well, I can only speak for a few european countries) discussing politics is normal office chat. Why wouldn't you want to discuss current and thought-provoking issues with your peers?
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