
Four fired workers file charges against Google - CaptainZapp
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/03/google-is-no-longer-listening-four-fired-workers-file-charges-against-tech-giant
======
michaelt
_> At a public protest just days before her firing, Rivers told the 200
Googlers who rallied in opposition to her suspension that Google had wiped her
personal phone when it suspended her, erasing many months of photographs_

Ouch. Presumably this would have been MDM?

I've never understood why phone makers make this possible for non-device-
owners, as it seems like a gigantic foot-gun. To say nothing about the ethics
involved.

~~~
c0achmcguirk
This person chose to have their free phone from the company as their personal
phone too. This is completely optional at Google, a really nice perk, and it's
made very clear that anything under your work profile will be wiped if you
leave.

They will not wipe your personal phone or your personal profile on your phone.
This is completely avoidable and shouldn't come as a surprise.

~~~
missosoup
It's not a perk, it's a liability. This was an option at pretty much every
company I worked at and I never understood what moron would choose to put
their personal data/life on a corporate device (or connect their personal
device to the corporate network and its management policy) with typical
policies dictating that not only can the device be remotely wiped, it can also
be remotely snooped.

The only brief moment of this being acceptable was Samsung phones being able
to have completely split personal/corporate profiles across 2 sims in a single
phone and have 2 copies of each app, but that seems to have died.

If your employer is managing the device you're choosing to also use for
personal data, it's 100% your fault and 0% surprise when it backfires on you.

If you work in tech and don't have a separate work phone+laptop and personal
phone+laptop, you're either a founder or an idiot.

~~~
0xEFF
Over half of Google's workforce are contractors. Google does not provide a
mobile device to contractors. The options for TVC's are to let Google control
a personal device or take a significant productivity hit and opt-out of mobile
email, chat, and docs.

~~~
mekane8
That's a really crappy policy if I'm understanding it right - not provide a
mobile device but insist on completely managing one if they choose to use it
for company business? What a shitty way to treat people working for you.

~~~
zaroth
How else could corporate IT possibly do it?

A contractor can deduct work expenses from income, a phone is just one item on
a long list of things that will be deducted.

If there is corporate information on a device, it would be a breach of their
fiduciary responsibility not to manage that device and have the ability to
remotely wipe that data.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
> If there is corporate information on a device, it would be a breach of their
> fiduciary responsibility not to manage that device and have the ability to
> remotely wipe that data.

I don't think, in a legal sense, that's true. It feels like it comes from the
same mindset that corporations have a "fiduciary responsibility" to their
shareholders to always put profits above all else; in fact, there's nothing in
corporate law or financial regulations that requires that at all.

The IT department has responsibility for network and systems policies and
company-owned equipment, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to have the
ability to wipe data on that equipment or set policies that disallow personal
devices on company networks at all. But they have no requirement -- and I
would argue no business -- to wipe a _non-company device_ just because someone
added a corporate email account to it.

Does that make it marginally more likely that someone could keep corporate
email that they weren't supposed to? Sure. But there are other legal ways of
handling that which aren't destructive to non-company property. No one would
argue that a policy of "if you take physical work home, upon termination the
company can set fire to your house to ensure all copies are destroyed" is
enforceable.

~~~
zaroth
I’m pretty sure GDPR protection of “personal data” applies to _employees_ and
not just _customers_.

If my personal calendar and work emails are being copied onto your device, you
better believe the GDPR data protection regulations apply.

The house example is ridiculous. The point is if you commingle the data in
ways such that the endpoint protection software no longer supports delineating
the corporate data, then the user (employee/contractor) has opted into that
situation with eyes wide open.

> _Computing devices need to be protected from loss or theft through mobile
> device management capabilities, such as remote wipe and kill. A lost device
> could be the weak link in the data protection chain, leading to a data
> breach based on information stored on the device or accessible through still
> active user credentials. Enforcing certain settings in order for a device to
> connect to the network at all – such as local encryption, password
> complexity, the presence and currency of security software, and the removal
> of the local administrator account – will be an essential part of protecting
> the organization within the GDPR framework._

[1] - [https://www.actiance.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/WP-
GDPR-...](https://www.actiance.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/WP-GDPR-
Compliance-and-Its-Impact-on-Security-and-Data-Protection-Programs.pdf)

~~~
chipotle_coyote
The house example is _exaggerated,_ but as I wrote in another reply: just as
my personal physical property does not become company property if I am on
their physical property, my personal data should not become company data if I
am on their network.

> If you commingle the data in ways such that the endpoint protection software
> no longer supports delineating the corporate data, then the user
> (employee/contractor) has opted into that situation with eyes wide open.

You're assuming the user _has_ been given a clear understanding of the
situation, and frankly, I think you're letting the IT department off the hook
here. They need to either provide protection that can prevent "commingling" to
their satisfaction, to grant a comparable level of trust to users with
personal devices that they do in other aspects of conducting business (which
was the real point of the example you didn't like), or just to ban personal
devices.

~~~
zaroth
> They need to either provide protection that can prevent "commingling" to
> their satisfaction, to grant a comparable level of trust to users with
> personal devices that they do in other aspects of conducting business (which
> was the real point of the example you didn't like), or just to ban personal
> devices.

DLP (data loss prevention) software should be present on any personal
computing device that can store company data, which will be a requirement of
their cyber-security insurance policy, a requirement of the various audits
they surely undergo, and probably also a requirement of GDPR.

It's providing strictly more choice and flexibility to their employees and
contractors to allow them to host company data on their personal device, the
obvious trade-off being made when you install the DLP endpoint software on
your phone and grant it permission to remote-wipe your device if necessary.

If the company _required_ their employees/contractors to use their personal
device for company business, this would be an entirely different discussion.
In California, the employer is required to reimburse employees for using their
personally owned device for company business - i.e. required to pay for the
cost of a phone and the service plan.

Employees _choose_ not to buy a second phone and get paid for their service
plan on their personal phone for convenience, and to save themselves the cost
of a personal plan. Some choices are not strictly good, but include pros and
cons which are individual's responsibility to weigh.

I think it's a safe assumption that anyone choosing to install the DLP agent
on their personal phone, particularly at a company like Google, does so fully
informed of the _responsibilities_ that come with that decision.

------
whack
As a programmer, it's interesting to view organizational structure and culture
through the lens of software design. Specifically, how Google's culture and
organization is so radically different from Amazon's.

Amazon genuinely tries to embody the Unix philosophy. Two pizza teams that
have ownership over their slice of the company, and get to decide how their
team/org should operate. As a individual contributor at Amazon, there is zero
expectation that you'll have unrestricted visibility into what other
organizations are doing.

Google in contrast, breaks every rule in software design. There is no
information hiding - everyone can see everything else. Decisions aren't made
locally by the team in question - they are made centrally by people you will
never see. Or by a mob of random employees who have made it their hobby to
lobby against your plans. As a team manager, you cannot even decide which
members of your team can check in changes into the (mono) repository - you
have to get approval from someone who has been certified by the "readability
team", and they have almost year-long waits to get certified.

Amazon is microservices and Google is the majestic monolith.

The Google approach works great at smaller sizes, but as the organization
grows in size and complexity, I don't think the monolith approach can still
work. I'd wager that is exactly the growing pains they are now going through.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
I figure others would be curious about Google's side of it. Who is right or
wrong doesn't seem obvious to me. Apparently this is a memo about why these
workers were fired[0]:

> We’ve seen a recent increase in information being shared outside the
> company, including the names and details of our employees. Our teams are
> committed to investigating these issues, and today we’ve dismissed four
> employees for clear and repeated violations of our data security policies.

> There’s been some misinformation circulating about this investigation, both
> internally and externally. We want to be clear that none of these
> individuals were fired for simply looking at documents or calendars during
> the ordinary course of their work.

> To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were
> involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work.
> This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business
> information outside the scope of their jobs — repeating this conduct even
> after they were met with and reminded about our data security policies. This
> information, along with details of internal emails and inaccurate
> descriptions about Googlers’ work, was subsequently shared externally.

> In one case, among other information they accessed and copied, an individual
> subscribed to the calendars of a wide range of employees outside of their
> work group. The individual set up notifications so that they received emails
> detailing the work and whereabouts of those employees, including personal
> matters such as 1:1s, medical appointments and family activities — all
> without those employees’ knowledge or consent. When the affected Googlers
> discovered this, many reported that they felt scared or unsafe, and
> requested to work from another location. Screenshots of some of their
> calendars, including their names and details, subsequently made their way
> outside the company.

> We have always taken information security very seriously, and will not
> tolerate efforts to intimidate Googlers or undermine their work, nor actions
> that lead to the leak of sensitive business or customer information. This is
> not how Google’s open culture works or was ever intended to work. We expect
> every member of our community to abide by our data security policies.

> Fortunately, these types of activities are rare. Thank you to everyone who
> does the right thing every day — doing amazing work, while inspiring and
> maintaining the trust of our users, partners, and each other.

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-
fi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-fires-four-
employees-citing-data-security-violations)

~~~
vlovich123
As someone who worked at Google I'd like to clarify this corporate speak & I'm
really disappointed as I thought Google had higher standards.

Google has traditionally embraced an open culture so accessing documents
outside the scope of your job has traditionally been totally fine & is the
stated reason why every full time employee is considered an insider for
trading purposes, with legal restrictions imposed on when you can trade.

'm guessing from memory (& this would be from before my time so ex-Googlers
with a better memory please remind me), but the data policy was introduced to
deal with SREs looking at customer data they weren't supposed to, not about
the work product of coworkers.

In terms of people's calendars I'm totally confused - it's super-easy to
change sharing permissions even on a per event level. Sounds like it's a
pretext - the reasonable approach would be A) Improve training about the
available privacy settings B) Improve Google Calendar to make it easier to
manage those privacy settings since I'm sure other workplaces have a similar
problem.

So the calendar stalking is the bigger problem I think on the part of the
fired employees but the "accessing documents outside the scope of their jobs"
is total BS. The leaking "sensitive business or customer information" seems
like pure FUD - seems like a lawyer-approved way to slander about what
happened.

I'm really curious whose calendars were accessed "inappropriately" and who
reported feeling threatened. Moreover just accessing a calendar is not
something you're notified about so that would indicate this is either BS on
Google's part or these people were doing a bit of active stalking on the side.
Could come out that everyone is the asshole in this story but given how bad
management/labor relations have gone under Sundar, I'd wager that Google is
definitely engaging in really shady shit on their own here.

~~~
jartelt
Earlier this year Google e-mailed all employees and noted that accessing docs
outside the scope of your job responsibility is forbidden and a fire-able
offense. I think this policy change marked the end of the open culture you
speak of.

Whether this was a legitimate policy change or a change simply made to find
reasons to fire activists, I don't know. But, it was made clear many months
ago that digging around to access docs outside your spec could result in a
firing.

~~~
malvosenior
> _Whether this was a legitimate policy change or a change simply made to find
> reasons to fire activists, I don 't know._

From the outside it seems like a very legitimate policy change. If my co-
workers are stalking my calendar to find meetings they politically disagree
with so they can pressure me and/or leak it to the press, well that's super
creepy. I think this is a perfect example of why "full transparency" can
actually be conducive to a toxic working environment.

Even if it wasn't formally against the rules the intent behind that type of
stalking should get anyone who engages in it fired. It's literally harassment.
I think Google's change in policy is for the best here as it codifies common
sense.

~~~
joshuamorton
As an aside, can you explain what a meeting someone might "politically
disagree with" is, and how you could have such a meeting without bringing
politics into the workplaces?

More on topic, I'll note that nowhere did anyone use the word "politics"
except you.

~~~
malvosenior
From the article:

> _Rivers had said she was being targeted for protesting against U.S. Customs
> and Border Protection, which is testing a Google cloud product. Berland was
> active in protests against YouTube for its handling of hate speech
> policies._

As others have stated in this thread, they were apparently policing people's
meetings around these topics. If you don't like your company's legal clients,
quit. Do not stalk your co-workers, harass them and leak info about them to
the press.

~~~
joshuamorton
That's not correct. Rivers wasn't fired for anything related to calenders or
meetings.

None of the four employees in question have been accused of leaking anything
to the press.

Google's statement insinuates many things that aren't actually true.

~~~
malvosenior
> _Google 's statement insinuates many things that aren't actually true._

Do you have any sources that back that statement up? Google's accusations are
very explicit about what these people were doing:

> _To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were
> involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work.
> This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business
> information outside the scope of their jobs — repeating this conduct even
> after they were met with and reminded about our data security policies. This
> information, along with details of internal emails and inaccurate
> descriptions about Googlers’ work, was subsequently shared externally._

~~~
robrenaud
Read carefully.

The leaking was not explicitly blamed on the people that were fired.

~~~
malvosenior
Yes it is, from the Google statement:

> _We want to be clear that none of these individuals were fired for simply
> looking at documents or calendars during the ordinary course of their work._

> _To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were
> involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work
> [...] This information, along with details of internal emails and inaccurate
> descriptions about Googlers’ work, was subsequently shared externally._

~~~
joshuamorton
The passive voice of "was subsequently shared externally" does not apply to
the object of the earlier sentence ("these individuals"). If the individuals
were actually the leakers, Google could have used a more direct and natural
wording, like

"These individuals subsequently leaked some of this material."

But the statement doesn't use this very natural wording, it uses a strange,
highly passive, construction. One is left to wonder why. To be fair, you're
not the only person who fell for this trick, I know a lot of very smart people
who didn't notice this until it was pointed out, but it _is_ a trick.

Edit: replying to your other comment, You're asking me to prove a negative,
that these individuals didn't leak anything. Why should I do that when they
haven't even been explicitly accused of having leaked something? No one, not
the employees, and not google, as claimed they leaked anything. Google claimed
that some stuff was leaked. This is true. And yes, its hard to read Google's
statement and come to that conclusion. That's _intentional_ it was worded the
way it was very carefully. That's the point. They're being duplicitous.

~~~
malvosenior
I'm not asking you to prove a negative though, I'm asking if you have any
proof that what Google says is untrue since you say that it is. Using a
passive voice doesn't mean that it's untrue, I actually find the Google
wording to be more natural than your version.

Is there anything beyond the semantics of the Google statement that makes you
feel that it's false?

~~~
joshuamorton
> I'm asking if you have any proof that what Google says is untrue since you
> say that it is

To be clear, I believe that everything Google has actually stated is factual.
You're just drawing wrong conclusions from partial information. So in one
sense, no, because Google hasn't _lied_. I don't have any proof that I could
share. But yes, I have strong reasons to believe the things I'm stating.

As an aside, are you a native English speaker? There's some very interesting
cultural aspects when assigning blame. In American English, its the norm to
assign blame directly "John leaked the documents.", whereas in other
cultures/languages, a passive structure is more common "John had the
documents. The documents were leaked." This would be a common and correct way
of blaming John for leaking something in some cultures, but in English it
isn't.

Presumably Google and its lawyers are primarily English speakers.

~~~
malvosenior
I am a native English speaker, I just find the original statement to be more
natural and less forced.

Out of curiosity if you think that the statement is true, but constructed in a
way that hides information, what do you think actually happened? If I
understand your position it looks something like this:

1\. The four people mentioned setup watches on people's calendars, went
looking for information on people... the targets of their searches weren't
part of their every day work life.

2\. They shared that information with _someone_ (no one knows who) but not the
press or externally.

3\. The people who had the information shared with them _then_ leaked it
externally.

4\. Google found out and fired the original four people from step 1 and wrote
a memo deliberately masking step 2.

It's possible the above is accurate (please let me know if I got your position
incorrect), but I don't think the wording of Google's announcement alone is
enough to prove that. I'm apt to take it at its face value, especially because
step 1 is by far the worst part in my mind and that doesn't seem to be in
doubt.

That's why I'm curious if you have some inside knowledge or something (your
bio says you work at Google).

~~~
username90
Note that you set up a watch of someones calendar just by looking it up, so it
is very easy to accidentally watch a lot of calendars. I wouldn't read too
much into that statement.

~~~
malvosenior
Maybe so, but the Google statement does say that the employees in question did
all of this in a systematic way that was outside the scope of their job
responsibilities. I'd actually like to know a lot more about step 1, I suspect
it holds the key to figuring out what's going on.

~~~
username90
I feel like they got very little, since they focused so much effort demonizing
this calendar watching. I can understand when they say that you shouldn't
share photographs of others calendars or harass them over calendars, but I
don't see why viewing others calendars is a bad thing itself. It is kinda like
looking at their code or commits, you can see what they do and how they work,
it is very useful if you intend to transfer or just wonder how other teams are
doing things.

------
mc32
This should be interesting.

Maybe they’re both guilty of wrongdoing. In the end it’ll likely be difficult
for them to prevail over Google.

Plus, as many people have said over and over, leave your politics at home,
despite this “bring your whole self to work”. It just opens you up to more
scrutiny. Of course google is to blame for fostering this attitude. I’m sure
they regret their initial idealism and realize you simply cannot mould people
into your vision any more than a few societies have tried and failed at
raising the perfect citizen.

To be clear, there is a right to unionize. There isn’t a right to politicize
work and bring your personal politics into the work realm.

I don’t want to hear your take on 1A, 2A, reproductive rights, medical rights,
whatever, at work unless it’s a conversation we volunteer to enjoin in.

~~~
grumple
Life is political. "Leave your politics at home" has been a driver of
injustice and war crimes for ages. "I don't think we should murder Jews" was
political speech and verboden in the Reich.

Work is the most significant part of our lives in terms of how much time it
requires. It's a give and take - you can ask for concessions from your
employer just as they can ask for concessions from you. It's not just "accept
everyone and everything exactly as it was before", that's ludicrous.

And unionizing has been made political by corporations - it's simply a smart
and legally protected right to improve workers' negotiation power in the face
of huge corporations.

Hiring women and racial minorities at all, and then to particular positions,
was a political issue for a long time. It still is, in many places and
companies in the world (hiring a woman or minority to positions could get you
killed). The idea that politics and people and corporations are not intimately
intertwined is a reflection of privilege.

~~~
mc32
Sure life is political. We can have protests, vote for candidates, engage in
civil disobedience and all that.

What I don’t want is anyone making it a point to bring their personal politics
to work. We have other forums for that.

Don’t politicize every part of our existence. I wanna go to work and provide
some productivity to my employer. If I don’t like their politics I can vote at
the ballot box, donate to causes, volunteer etc. I don’t need to bring my POVs
to work. You may not like mine, I may not like yours. We don’t need this kind
of confrontation at work.

Unionization is political but it’s on a different plane. It’s worker vs
employer rather than potentially worker vs worker.

Do we really want to approach a time when one group of workers takes one side,
another takes another side and they protest against each other and cause
disruption to the vast majority who have no interest in getting personally
involved?

Presumably both groups would have this “right” though be their opinions
different.

~~~
ianleeclark
> What I don’t want is anyone making it a point to bring their personal
> politics to work. We have other forums for that.

The American life has been completely subsumed into corporate culture. These
other forums have either been rendered useless through an impossible-to-
navigate political system that swallows any real momentum, been disbanded due
to the nature of work requiring communities to fragment and move, or are
facades for community like you see in Reddit or HN--posting isn't politics,
people.

I have the same inclination with you that I don't want to hear other people's
personal politics at work (likely for different reasons), but it's unavoidable
when every company attempts to become your family. I don't really know what to
do about it, but I don't think it's as easy as HN believes it to be.

~~~
Jamwinner
In the 'old days', the maxim was to leave your politics with your club. The
gathering of like minded people used to be more common. Political parties,
were actual goups of people who regularly met to discuss and push their ideas.
Likewise, hundreds of other semi-formal groups pervaded the cities and towns.
There was local and personal dialouge that could not take place at work, nor
was it felt proper. The online happening changed that all. People felt like
they could be part of more than one group, but still clung close tribal
assosiation with it, even though their influence was no longer present. And
here we are.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _clear and repeated violations of our data security policies_

Who’s data did they access? What data was accessed? How was that data used?

Google knows they’re in a bind, because if a few SJWs accessed internal Google
data in a “bad way” (as viewed outside the Bay Area monoculture) then that’s
going to be a really bad look, maybe even worse than a hacker.

~~~
anonuser123456
Why is this comment down voted? The three questions here are SUPER relevant to
how Google operates. Everyone I know at Google says "The easiest way to get
fired is to access user data in a non-permitted way."

If they just subscribed to public calendars, it doesn't sound like such a big
deal (after all... the data is public). But if they used an internal API or
used their position to elevate their privilege, that's a big deal.

~~~
tialaramex
My understanding is that these employees were looking through people's
calendars and documents to figure out who was negotiating for Google with
outfits like the Border Patrol, so they could pressure these people to stop
and so they could let outside press know the status of any discussions.

So say Alice who is a Search Engine Data Analyst finds that Daryl over in
Corporate Finance has a meeting "CBP update Washington". Alice reasons that
CBP is US Customs & Border Patrol who she believes are inhumane and Google
shoudn't work wit them - and she pulls up all Daryl's other meetings and sets
an alert to tell her if Daryl books any other meetings with the word CBP in.
Alice gets fired.

The problem for this current plan is that sure it looks like Alice is being
fired for _snooping on corporate plans_ which historically wasn't against
Google's rules but is also not a legally protected activity. Sure, she was
snooping on those plans for the same reason she was organizing (to stop Google
working with CBP), but that doesn't make her fired for organizing.

The most senior person I knew properly at Google left citing this sort of
ethical problem as one reason, they felt that working on products that might
be used by people who had beliefs they disagreed with was unacceptable.
Weirdly they left to work for... a famous AAA video games vendor that
specifically brought them on to add obviously unethical monetisation features
to future games which prey on people with gambling addiction and other
problems. We have agreed to disagree on whether this is outright hypocrisy.

~~~
rtkwe
> We have agreed to disagree on whether this is outright hypocrisy.

At the very least the game company doesn't have the power of the state to
force their shitty loot box gambling on people where CBP et al do. That is CBP
/will/ use the tools Company X develops on anyone and the video game you can
not buy. They may be ruining a game you want to play but no one is forced to
play the Gashapon MTX Slot machine games.

------
gregd
Over and above the policy that a Corporation has over your phone (personal or
otherwise) when you access their stuff, nobody talks about the potential
liability that can open up to your personal device during an e-discovery
process.

You could potentially have to hand your personal device over to lawyers where
they can then put your personal device through an e-discovery process should
your employer be sued .

People need to really think hard before they relinquish that kind of control
of a device that you own.

~~~
pnathan
I have a policy of never allowing a MDM policy on my phone. I use the web
portals for calendaring, email. Notifications for calendar events are usually
parlayed into SMS notifications.

There's also questions about "IP" law here. If you're developing interesting
software at home, having separate hardware for that work is going to be
critical for the legal analysis to get funding, etc.

------
jdkee
“ The firings were announced less than a week after the New York Times
revealed that Google had hired an anti-union consulting firm.”

Those at Google who undermine the power of labor to organize are evil people.

------
netwanderer3
Google is facing a scaling problem. Scaling is not just limited to business
functions such as marketing activities, but it's also about managing their
employees as the number of staffs required will keep on increasing which
surely would introduce a host of brand new problems.

Google's management is having a hard time in dealing with this aspect,
evidently by the scaling back of their weekly town halls, internally
categorized as "TGIF meetings", mostly known by the public as those quick fire
chat Q&A sessions with management. The recent cancellations of many Google
products and services were probably an indirect result of this too, it was
also an attempt of scaling back. Its huge size must have exceeded the current
limitations of their operation structure, unless some of its core policies and
missions must be altered significantly. A few of these changes may have
already been carried out, the hiring of an anti-union organization and the
installing of internal web browser monitoring tool.

This begs the question though, when you have something that got scaled up to
such an enormous size which inevitably would accompany with more unique and
challenging chaotic scenarios, what are the possible approaches to resolve
these situations in a harmony and effective way? The solutions are not easy
and these problems are becoming increasingly common in our modern world. The
same issues that were once very simple have upgraded themselves to become much
more difficult to deal with and with many added layers of complexity.

I attended a recent startup event in Vietnam in which Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam,
chairman of Endeavor Vietnam, told the story of his personal experience in
facing a similar challenge in managing a large number of people. The numbers
were probably not at the same crazy level at Google's but the effective
solution for him in the end was to go and live in some rural villages for a
while where thousands of people manage to participate daily in a very large
but well-behaved community and all in harmony.

The challenge facing with an increase of diversity is alignment. The greatest
benefit of diversity is new innovations, but only if its chaotic nature can be
managed by correct alignment. Without this anchoring element, things will
quickly spiral out of control. To effectively aligning a massive group of
people, this anchoring element must be based on basic core values or
principles that naturally DO NOT or RARELY CHANGE over time. There won't be
any consistent alignment if those values change too often or just cannot be
applied effectively for long enough. I believe Google might be approaching it
incorrectly. Some of the methods reported by the media seem very similar to
censoring. That is not alignment, that is the equivalent of putting a dome
structure over everyone. It would slowly create an environment that inhibits
creativity limiting people's abilities. It's certainly an alternative method
but just not a preferred one.

Correct alignment is a much better and more efficient method for the long
game. Talents and technical skills can all change very quickly in modern time,
what binds people together are the common mindsets and personality attributes
that are always considered good under any environments and withstanding any
degrees of change. This alignment is applied even to the management
themselves, and not just to the engineers whom they manage, it is actually
more critical at the top level. What is the Google's personna? There should be
a mechanism in place for the management to detect when they are deviating too
much from the anchoring alignment as well. What we are seeing at Google is
probably an early sign of this deviation, or perhaps the values being used in
aligning everyone together just do not have as much longevity?

------
ryanmercer
While everyone in this thread are arguing about using your corporate phone for
personal or your personal phone for corporate I'm just sitting here thinking:

"I wish I had a job where a corporate phone was a thing, but I certainly
wouldn't give my employer access to my personal device, that's what the one
they provide in this situation is for".

------
franczesko
_" The fired workers said that they plan to continue their activism"_

Some people apparently forgot why they come to work.

~~~
drdeadringer
Why do they come to work? Why do you come to work? Is it something like "I
shut up and sit down for money" or something else? Are there activists who
earn money?

~~~
franczesko
I think that work places should be a neutral ground for everyone to do what
they were hired for - free of any personal ideologies or politics. If you
think, that work is is for activism of your personal beliefs, you clearly got
it all wrong my friend. Yes - you go to work for money for what you do.
Nothing more, nothing less.

------
goatinaboat
_Google had wiped her personal phone when it suspended her_

Everyone take note: BYOD isn’t for _your_ benefit.

~~~
post_break
Google offers two versions of this wipe. The whole phone, and only employer
data. Wonder if they did the whole phone on accident, malice, or they are
trying to say they "wiped" the phone but only removed employer data.

~~~
izacus
That only works on Android, if you have an iPhone, you always give your phone
over to the employer.

------
jeanlou
They are making it sound as if Google deleted the device because it was
documenting the transformation. Whatever. Serves you for having your personal
data on a company's phone.

