
Some Employees Chafe as Google’s New Internal Rules Take Hold - jbegley
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-01/some-employees-chafe-as-google-s-new-internal-rules-take-hold
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SpicyLemonZest
Is this really a new rule? I know Google sells itself as having a strong
culture of openness, and it used to be even more open than today. But it's
hard to believe it was ever acceptable to attack other employees by name or
publicly demand that they should be fired.

~~~
whack
Believe it. People were mercilessly mocked for making unpopular or
disingenuous statements. When GCP hired an Oracle executive, he faced immense
criticism purely on the basis of his reputation. And none of this was
moderated in the past

~~~
mlthoughts2018
This is the level of discourse you get from people who reverse binary trees
all day.

~~~
i_am_nomad
People are downvoting this comment because they are missing the clever jab at
the hiring process.

~~~
solipsism
How can you be so sure?

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peapicker
Regardless of the issues, a job at a company in the USA is at the discretion
of the employer. I can’t understand actively taking part in anything that
makes oneself as an employee marked as a pain in upper management’s ass and
getting on the list “most likely to be riffed first in the next economic
downturn.”

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campfireveteran
_During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary
act._

\- George Orwell

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smitty1e
Technology and governance (interesting that we use 'program' in both contexts)
are excellent insofar as they enhance our liberty.

If they gadgetry advances the "be your own President" concept, it is useful.

David Wheeler famously said: "All problems in computer science can be solved
by another level of indirection."

But all of that indirection implies more bureaucratic policy, state (or State,
depending on whether it's technology or governance) and an encroachment on
individuality in the name of a single, narrow vision.

Topics such as corporate policy, voting, transportation, and medical gadgets
get at the trade-offs involved in maximally automating and extinguishing the
entropy from everyone at the expense of individual liberty.

PREDICTION: these over-managed efforts become Towers of Babel, as is human,
and promptly collapse, as is human. The effect of technology may be to support
a higher tower and shallower collapse, but the tension between the individual
and the group is the only consistency.

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roenxi
I hope they wouldn't accept that applying extra-legal pressure on tax
collectors is ok. Or pressuring people who craft talking points for raising
taxes. The situation would get a lot uglier than a few grumpy voices at
Google.

This is a silly position, and presumably the number of employees involved is
very small. It isn't like he is going to be involved in border policy issues
while working at Google.

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RickJWagner
Diversity of thought is important.

Making silly stands against people with opposing political views will
eventually prove short-sighted. It's always best to assume good intent and
treat people as you'd want to be treated.

~~~
trianglem
"Diversity of political thought" is not important to a technology company. I
love how the right tries to paint themselves as victims using this statement.

~~~
username90
The main benefit of diversity is that it causes people to fight each other
instead of fighting those in power. Upper management at Google has a real
problem of the lowly workers organizing protests and pressuring management to
change, forcing more diversity would fix this. Then they could finally become
Microsoft where nobody raises an eyebrow when they help China spy on their
citizens, take on military contracts or hire republican politicians.

By the way, you might not have noticed but the measures described in this
article are intended to achieve just that, as it mostly silences the loud left
within Google when they try to push back.

~~~
campfireveteran
Right/left is the best divide-and-conquer wedge issue found so far, exploited
by media corporatists to atomize people further from each other in the name of
money, while the real division is between the have-way-too-muches and the
have-little-or-nones.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/XkqVl](http://archive.is/XkqVl)

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jdlyga
Posting memes critical of the company you work for is banned? Bruh

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Well for like 20 years they've allowed it and they've done pretty well.
Actually it's a way people can privately (within the company) vent about
confidential things and reach others who feel the same way. If they can't vent
when some middle manager makes a bad call, or some exec agrees to aid some
murderous government's surveillance, what will they do instead? Stage more
walk outs? Leak to the press? Unionize?

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Meekro
The employees "chafe" because they're prevented from personally attacking and
name-calling coworkers? Pretty much every workplace has similar rules.

~~~
TheDong
Framing the issue like that is incredibly unproductive. It's a more
complicated topic than that.

Anyone can create a strawman like that and easily set it alight. What takes
real insight is actually understanding the issue, why sides of it are unhappy,
and how to address it reasonably.

~~~
peter_l_downs
Responding like that is incredibly unproductive. It's a more complicated topic
than that.

Anyone can create a strawman like that and easily set it alight. What takes
real insight is actually understanding the issue, why sides of it are unhappy,
and how to address it reasonably.

Do you see how unactionable this comment is? When you're responding to an idea
or post you don't agree with, try to explain why and offer an alternative
idea. Yes, you're not obligated to do this in general, but IF you're going to
post why not make it constructive and informative?

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mc32
>”some employees say the new rules smack of censorship.”

Wait, wait, haven’t I heard that companies by definition can’t be accused of
censorship because they “are not the government” when people protested
Google’s censorship in YouTube and its search arm?

But, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, yeah it’s censorship! Good
one.

~~~
mvid
People don’t claim companies can’t censor things. They claim that you can’t
have your first amendment rights violated by a private organization.
Censorship would be part of a first amendment violation, but the two are not
equivalent

~~~
slavik81
> People don’t claim companies can’t censor things.

I did a quick search because I recalled seeing that in the past. It's
certainly not the prevailing consensus, but people do make that claim.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18676417](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18676417)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19929107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19929107)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9967543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9967543)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2500298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2500298)

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rdiddly
I want to go meta here for a sec: Why does it seem like publications are
tripping over each other to publish another article on complaints by Google
employees? And why do I keep clicking on them? The complaints, by the way, are
almost always about some decision made by people far above their pay grade.
Are all Google employees expected to share in and guide all corporate
decisions now? It's weird. I'm aware of zero companies that size, that do
that.

~~~
skybrian
You're seeing it more often because employees are talking to the press more
often about internal politics. It's published because Google is famous and
powerful enough that stuff that happens at Google is newsworthy by default.

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maroonblazer
_Karan Bhatia, Google’s global policy chief, told employees in a staff meeting
last week that Taylor wasn’t involved in the Trump administration’s policy of
separating children from their parents at the U.S. southern border. But on
Oct. 28, BuzzFeed News published emails showing that Taylor had in fact shaped
talking points for Nielsen on the administration’s detention of migrant
children._

Shaping talking points is quite different than crafting policy. Did no one on
the Google message boards recognize that?

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notafraudster
I know the posted title is generally preferred when linking articles but in
this case I think the title doesn't accurately describe the article. I clicked
not really realizing what the article was about.

The gist is Google is imposing new internal rules to restrict harsh or
personal criticism of other employees, in this case to prevent employees from
criticizing an executive hire who was involved in the Trump Department of
Homeland Security. I gather the controversy is related to DHS's involvement in
child separation at the border. A secondary controversy involves internal
employee criticism of presumed anti-unionization efforts because removed from
company message boards.

Maybe go with: "Google Employees critical of moderation designed to restrict
internal dissent"?

~~~
burgerandfries
Your suggested title is more misleading than the current title. Not allowing
employees to personally attack other employees isn't restricting internal
dissent. Employees are free to voice their dissent all they want as long as
they keep it professional. Posting memes and trolling another person is
unprofessional and childish, and would likely get you written up or even fired
at practically every company in existence. The fact this was ever deemed
acceptable in the first place is actually the more shocking news.

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kd3
So now the censorship they have on Youtube is basically taken internally.
Maybe now they'll see from experience what the consequences are of censorship.

~~~
burgerandfries
If your definition of censorship is not allowing employees to use company time
and resources to make personal attacks against other employees, then every
single company in existence engages in censorship. The fact this article is
even news shows how ridiculous things have gotten.

~~~
kd3
My definition of censorship is suppression of any kind of speech.

