Google CEO Forbids Political Talk After Firing 28 Over Israeli Contract Protest (yahoo.com) 54
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: Google CEO Sundar Pichai has weighed in on the debate over the relative values of political expression and workplace coexistence by ordering employees to leave their political opinions at home. A day after firing 28 workers for participating in a sit-in protest of the tech giant's cloud contract with Israel, Pichai warned staff that the office is not a place "to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics" in a company blog post.
Although Pichai didn't specifically mention the protests or the Israel-Hamas war, he concluded that the $1.92 trillion company "is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform." "We have a duty to be an objective and trusted provider of information that serves all of our users globally," Pichai continued. "When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that." The sit-in protest was staged against Google's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government. During the nearly 10-hour protest, employees wore "Googler against genocide" T-shirts and occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
The report notes how tech companies, "previously famed for their progressive culture where nap pods and abortion benefits were welcome," are increasingly restricting political discussions to avoid internal conflict. Pichai notes in his memo that Google has previously enjoyed "a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action."
Although Pichai didn't specifically mention the protests or the Israel-Hamas war, he concluded that the $1.92 trillion company "is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform." "We have a duty to be an objective and trusted provider of information that serves all of our users globally," Pichai continued. "When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that." The sit-in protest was staged against Google's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government. During the nearly 10-hour protest, employees wore "Googler against genocide" T-shirts and occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
The report notes how tech companies, "previously famed for their progressive culture where nap pods and abortion benefits were welcome," are increasingly restricting political discussions to avoid internal conflict. Pichai notes in his memo that Google has previously enjoyed "a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action."
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Re: Pichai is a Modi Supremacist Fuck... (Score:2)
Yes, they wear swastikas and shite.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Pichai is a Modi Supremacist Fuck... (Score:1)
Re: Pichai is a Modi Supremacist Fuck... (Score:2)
Excellent! (Score:5, Insightful)
Want to do activism, go do activism on your free time.
Re: Excellent! (Score:2, Insightful)
From the sound of things, Google was an "if you're progressive, share your ideas openly, otherwise we'll DaMore you" until it became apparent that roughly a third of progressives categorically hate Jews while pretending that it's all about Israel, after that they threatened to DaMore everybody.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Excellent! (Score:2)
That's racist too. Do better than that.
Re: Excellent! (Score:1)
Ah yes the whole "if you're against Apartheid, occupation, and genocide then you must hate Jews" line.
The world doesn't buy it any more, but please keep it up. It's amusing.
Re: (Score:2)
No but I am against mass murder, mass rape and mass hostage taking. How about you?
Re: Excellent! (Score:1)
Israel has literally thousands of hostages, has documented hundreds of cases of raping those hostages, has burned people alive, and is engaged in mass murder.
So, you're against all the things that Israel does then?
Re: (Score:2)
Citations.
Re: (Score:1)
Ask and ye shall receive!
Hostages:
BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
HRW: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/... [hrw.org]
NPR: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01... [npr.org]
Mass rape:
CBS: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/i... [cbsnews.com]
The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2024/... [theintercept.com]
NBC: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/w... [nbcnews.com]
Murder / Deliberate targeting of civilians:
B'Tselem: https://www.btselem.org/topic/... [btselem.org]
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
UN: https://www.un.org/unispal/doc... [un.org]
Among those link
Re: Excellent! (Score:2)
You've been spending too long on Twitter. You're mentally copypasting the bullshit that gets uncritically thrown around there.
Re: (Score:2)
a third of progressives categorically hate Jews while pretending that it's all about Israel
Stop with the bullshit. It's not about "hating" Jews, it's about hating Israeli genocidal policies, the most recent of which is to put Palestinians in an enclosed camp. Sound familiar? If people are okay with this, then there was nothing wrong with the Holocaust.
At this point, Jews are doing to others that which was done to them. If it's supposed to be wrong then, it's wrong now.
Re: (Score:3)
Old news (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
But we can still call each other a bunch of motherfuckers today.
Re: Old news (Score:2)
Indeed, and I think we'll be doing that a lot in the coming weeks. ;o)
Coexistence sticker? (Score:4, Interesting)
Notice how it's "coexistence" ON THEIR TERMS ONLY.
Leave these people to rot on the vine.
Easy one liner: (Score:1)
Don't be evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Would love to hear from the original crew how they feel about the shiatshow Google has become.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Don't be evil (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure that requiring workers to work is evil.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: banning speech. always a good look. (Score:1)
They are not randomly protesting.
They are protesting that their work is being used to support oppression.
That they lost their jobs, and that they probably knew that they would, shows that their were willing to put skin in the game.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I guess you're technically right.
But there's a broader question here: What do we as a society do about companies that engage in behaviour that runs contrary to morality? Do we allow profit to be the beginning and the end of company behaviour? Or do we say things like "we believe, as a society, that genocide is wrong, and we will not allow our citizens or companies to engage in it" ? If we do want to forbid companies from participating in genocide, how do we do that?
Re: (Score:2)
EXACTLY, hence their form of protest available to them is quit. Anything else they have to accept it may mean getting fired. This is all fair, speech was not banned like the OP claimed.
Or course free speech is being banned. It's just like when someone posts a lie online and people call out that lie. Their free speech was banned. /s
Re: banning speech. always a good look. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No one at works wants to hear your world view. You don't want to hear theirs, especially if it's different than yours.
How about you work at work and talk not-work when not at work?
Is it that hard? These people are not your friends. After this job you'll never talk to most of them again. Most just want to do their 9-6 and go home with a paycheck without the stress of dealing with everyone else's political trauma. Just leave them alone.
If you don't like management's decisions then quit. It's true everyw
Re: (Score:2)
No one at works wants to hear your world view. You don't want to hear theirs, especially if it's different than yours.
Except for today (November 6th) where all the Nazis will be joyously regaling their co-workers at how great things will now be while their taxes go up and tariffs destroy their business.
Re: (Score:2)
After 8 years of leftist bullshit, you can grant them one day of joy. Nazis just don't have that much fun anymore, except when taking over campus and declaring "no Jew zones".
Yes taxes will go up, and tariffs will uh oh wait Biden doubled down on tariffs while Harris said she'd let the Trump tax cuts expire.
You live in a bizarre and unreal universe.
Lawsuit for wrongful termination (Score:1)
Now it will turn to class action
Re: (Score:2)
They can file a lawsuit and lose, like they lost their jobs.
Re: (Score:1)
Political opinion is not a protected class. If your employer tells you to not discuss politics at work, there's not much you can do about it. Recently fired and now you think they should spend piles of cash on a lawsuit they'd lose?
Sex, Age, National Origin, Religion, etc.. Those are the things you can't be fired for.. Flapping your gums about politics isn't in the list.... Besides, any sane person knows better than to start dragging up politics at work.. All it does is cause problems and divisions.
So they are going back into China? (Score:2)
Are US CEOs.. (Score:2)
... actually starting to understand that it was a bad idea to let people become so "comfy" at work that they make it into their own extended living rooms and take their personal lives and political/emotional baggage with them, including taking it out on coworkers?
Seems so - and better late than never.