In a world where sociopolitical issues have gotten increasingly controversial, saying something mistaken about gender identity or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could end in you becoming a victim of cancel culture—or being fired out of your job.
Now Google CEO Sundar Pichai has waded into the talk over the relative values of political expression and coexistence within the workplace by ordering employees to depart their political beliefs at home.
A day after firing 28 employees for participating in a sit-in against the tech giant’s cloud contract with Israel, Pichai warned employees that the office was not a spot “to argue about troubling issues or debate politics.” an organization blog post.
Although Pichai didn’t specifically mention the protests or war between Israel and Hamas, he concluded that the $1.92 trillion company “is a business, not a spot to operate in a way disturbs colleagues or makes them feel unsafe.” the corporate as a private platform.”
“We have a duty to be an objective and trustworthy information provider that serves all of our users worldwide,” Pichai continued.
“When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world’s information and make it widely accessible and useful. This trumps everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects this.”
Assets asked Google for comment.
“Googlers against genocide”
Last week, employees at Google offices in New York City, Seattle and Sunnyvale, California, protested for nearly 10 hours over the corporate’s involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government cloud contract .
Some employees were spotted wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Googlers Against Genocide” and occupying the office of Thomas Kurian, the top of Google Cloud.
Google’s security chief Chris Rackow wrote afterwards in an internal memo that the protests “made employees feel threatened,” before warning those tempted to violate the corporate’s policies in the long run to “change their minds.”
“We will continue to apply our long-standing policies to address disruptive behavior – up to and including termination,” Rackow warned.
The 28 “disruptive” employees fired by Google – including nine who were arrested for refusing to depart – belong to the organization No Tech For Apartheid, which criticizes Google’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
“Sundar Pichai and Thomas Kurian are genocide profiteers,” the group leading the protests wrote in a press release.
“We cannot understand how these men can sleep at night while their technology has enabled 100,000 Palestinians to be killed, reported missing or wounded in the last six months of Israeli genocide and counting.”
Cultural change within the tech sector
Tech firms were once known for his or her progressive, napping cultures Abortion advantages We are welcome.
Even Pichai notes in his memo that Google has previously “enjoyed a culture of lively, open discussion that enables us to build amazing products and turn great ideas into reality.”
But what was once a driver for innovation is now causing great tension in lots of firms.
Thanks to social media, agreeing to disagree isn’t any longer fashionable — and that is sparking fear amongst employees across the board of either being canceled or labeled a snowflake.
For this reason, bosses are increasingly deciding to ban political conversations within the office entirely.
In 2020, Silicon Valley-based cryptocurrency company Coinbase said it will now not allow discussions of politics and social issues within the workplace – and that employees who do not like it will accomplish that too free to go.
Meanwhile, Meta took all controversial discussions, including gun rights and vaccines, off the desk when it unveiled its Community Engagement Expected (CEE) policy in late 2022.
“This comes with the trade-off that we will no longer allow any form of expression at work, but we believe it is the right thing to do for the long-term health of our internal community,” Lori Goler, the corporate’s chief human resources officer on the time, wrote in an internal memo seen by Assets.
