Based on past incidents, I'd venture that Google employees are free to speak up only as long as they speak up with the "right" opinions on a vast range of topics. "You can say whatever you want, as long as it's this".
This kind of training is not unique to Google, either. I got very similarly themed training at Eaton (a manufacturing conglomerate). In both cases, I was left with the impression that the employer had been burned in the past due to otherwise-irrelevant employee communication in some lawsuit.
Here's the trick: In the event a lawsuit goes to discovery, who decides what's in scope to enter evidence?
Hint: it's not the corporation. Nor is it the employee who made the (in context, at the time) innocuous statement that used the wrong keywords in a way that can be taken out of context.
Indirectly, to protect the individual employee, because if a lawsuit going south harms the business prospects, the company might have to downsize, cut benefits, cut bonuses, &c.
I left this part out of my other post because I was a little fuzzier on the details of what they said, but this was the gist.
Edit: clarity
The snapshot feature is even sold as part of ~~G Suite~~ Google Workspace under the Vault product.
As `shadowgovt` pointed out: Its a judge and the lawyers who get to decide what does and doesn't get covered by the process.
So policies like "require annual, mandatory training for anti-harassment training", and "how to communicate with care", etc., are going to be remarkably similar across companies.
I mean, look at all the recent BLM support from large corporations. I mean, on one hand I'm glad to see them doing this. On the other, I know the only reason they are doing this is because it's pretty easy for them - it's largely already supported by their employees and the bulk of their customers see it positively. I can guarantee if it could negatively affect their long term prospects they wouldn't have done it.
For example, I remember quite clearly that in the late 80s and early 90s you'd hear nary a peep of support on LGBT issues from corporations, and even some of the more progressive companies had to do it with coded language (language gays understood but straight people were oblivious to). It was only when gay rights were already largely supported did corporations jump on the bandwagon.
Again, I'm not saying this is totally a bad thing, but I do think it is a cheap, easy thing. And if you know a company is never willing to do the hard thing, why put any weight into its opinions on these topics in the first place?
Social movements that succeed tend to take this into account, and frame things in ways that are not zero-sum. I lose nothing by letting gays marry; my heterosexual marriage is still just as legitimate. I lose nothing by allowing abortions - as a male, I'm not going to get one anyway. I lose nothing when YC seeks out qualified minority & female applicants; I have plenty of advantages of my own, I don't need that extra attention. I lose nothing when Black Lives Matter - my life still matters too, we just need to fix the institutional systems that let a black person get shot dead with no repercussions to the killer. (Personally, I think the left has made some very large tactical errors recently by ignoring this principle - fights over things like affirmative action, political correctness, and white privilege are all because the debate has been framed as "You must lose something in order for life to be fair", which isn't a great way to persuade people.)
As for BLM anyone can see the riots, looting, arson, and destruction that has affected places like Portland, Seattle, Kenosha. The riots have cost over two billion dollars in damages. Those are not damages to the government. Those are damages to ordinary people and business owners. Housing values go down, police protection is eroded, and some people were beaten or lost their lives.
Minority votes are being suppressed, they make less money than their white counterparts, they have less access to higher education, less access to nutritious food, and they’re disproportionately dying during a pandemic.
But sure, let’s ignore reality and talk about your narrow view on housing prices and police “protection”.
[citation needed]
If you don’t see the issues there, you’re part of the problem.
Kenosha is right next to the state border; he lived close to Kenosha on the other side of that border. What does it matter that he crossed state lines?
> kills two people and injures a third
All of whom were violently attacking him (one of them with a gun), as can be seen from numerous videos of the incident.
> ties to white supremacy and neo-Nazis
[citation still needed]
> you’re part of the problem
I'm proud to be part of the problem if the opposite of "problematic" is to accept provocative claims without evidence.
Are Asians not in the minority anymore?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/29/the-a...
To pick a specific example, you're completely correct when you call out that a lot of companies only started visibly supporting LGBT causes quite recently, when the social momentum was obviously moving that direction, and there was a direct profit incentive to pridewashing things. I know many members of the LGBT community who are against corporate involvement in pride events for precisely that reason, and I know many LGBT people who find it very disingenuous that companies might be profiting off rainbow marketing while not (or only recently) having non-discrimination policies, or offering equal coverage for health insurance to their LGBT employees.
On the other hand, I would contend that the pride washing and corporate push into LGBT rights is a large reason why they haven't backslid as quickly during the last 4 years as they might otherwise have done, and why there's still broad public support for marriage equality even in the face of a possible reversal of Obgerfell after the inevitable SCOTUS appointment. The activists did the work, but a few years of corporate pridewashing, seeing rainbows on every t-shirt, cereal box, soda can, and brand of tennis shoe normalized things for a group of people who wouldn't have ever listened to the activists who are pushing on things. There's real social value in signaling "Supporting LGBT rights is the cheap, easy thing that we're obviously going to do because everyone agrees it's the right thing". It won't change the mind of the active bigot, but there are a whole lot of people who will just go along with the majority opinion on social issues, and corporate signaling is perhaps the defacto way to signal the majority opinion on social issues.
They're not effecting any change in this way. The change has already been done. They're just riding on its coat tails.
Yes it's "trendy", but there is REAL value in LGBTQ+ representation in media, goods, and more.
I suppose this does devalue the activism, but I'm not really sure activism is the point. It's more about solidarity with the change, and cementing its place in "normal" society.
Some of those rants remind me of "spontaneous" pro party demonstrations of children wearing red neck scarves in North Korea.
Worth noting, of course, is most Google employees actually believe in the party line. Like, it's not an act... They are at will employees working for an employer they believe in. Google doesn't tend to retain long employees who stop believing in the mission or the execution of the mission (because having Google on your resume opens a door to them basically taking any other job).
But some of the worst Twitter cases are from people who got into Google early and ostensibly adopted the party line in the last 8 years.
These would perhaps get any other job, but whether they could keep it is another story.
You mean gender representation. There was one incident.
If Google's competitors didn't have a Justice Department that blatantly serves their own interests of investigating Google, then Google would have no incentive to keep their employees from discussing anti-trust law.
Government cronyism is why corporations can't simply let us have nice things.