Google employees are free to speak up, except on antitrust(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Google employees are free to speak up, except on antitrust
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/technology/google-employees-antitrust.html
359 comments
...and diversity programs
FWIW, my employer probably also wouldn't like me commenting on imminent legal issues that risked affecting their bottom line, but they don't mind me talking about much else politically speaking.
This is a twist on the famous Upton Sinclair quote. Google has everything to gain by extending their "live at work" strategy to political conversations, until those political conversations affect them.
This is a twist on the famous Upton Sinclair quote. Google has everything to gain by extending their "live at work" strategy to political conversations, until those political conversations affect them.
It's commonplace for employment contracts to restrict your ability to represent the company to the press. Depending on the seniority and visibility of your position this may extend towards so-called "ethics clauses" where you will be in breach of your contract if you disparage the company or otherwise associate the company they don't want to be associated with.
Just look at Amy Cooper [1].
But it goes further than that. It's generally a good idea not to do anything that might lead to a heading like:
"Employee of X says [bad thing about X]"
When I worked at Google, I made it a point never to comment publicly on any issue or thread where I could possibly be quoted. That's just commonsense and (IMHO) completely reasonable for your employer. I'd suggest that if anyone chafes against such restrictions that they should probably seek other employment.
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/26/woman-fired-by-franklin-temp...
Just look at Amy Cooper [1].
But it goes further than that. It's generally a good idea not to do anything that might lead to a heading like:
"Employee of X says [bad thing about X]"
When I worked at Google, I made it a point never to comment publicly on any issue or thread where I could possibly be quoted. That's just commonsense and (IMHO) completely reasonable for your employer. I'd suggest that if anyone chafes against such restrictions that they should probably seek other employment.
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/26/woman-fired-by-franklin-temp...
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".
Once again, it seems the issue is less about Google (or any company) restricting you having a personal opinion about issues that affect the bottom line at work, but instead is about the disingenuous pretense that they don't restrict you.
Don't be evil. Unless it affects our bottom line. Think Different. Unless you're a monopoly, then think the same as every other monopoly has. Move fast and break things. Their things, not our things.
Cut the shit "Make us money" is the corporate manifesto.
Don't be evil. Unless it affects our bottom line. Think Different. Unless you're a monopoly, then think the same as every other monopoly has. Move fast and break things. Their things, not our things.
Cut the shit "Make us money" is the corporate manifesto.
> Google employees are free to speak up
Try to show up for work in a MAGA hat, and see if you're still employed by lunch. Google employees are, at best, free to support the dogma approved by Google.
Try to show up for work in a MAGA hat, and see if you're still employed by lunch. Google employees are, at best, free to support the dogma approved by Google.
> Ultimately, if the Justice Department or other regulators asked for those documents, Google would have the option of declaring them secret communication.
What if they just banned English from all company documents and let people use a smattering of all other languages the employees know? With some documents in Chinese, some in Swahili, some in Spanish, and the most confidential documents in obscure tribal languages, it would be fun to watch the Justice department try to piece things together.
For employee productivity they could just hand out AR goggles that translate everything in sight automatically to a language the employee knows -- they're Google, after all.
Or simply invent a company-specific language that uses the same words as English but with some words switched up, e.g. Customer -> Clown, Stock market -> Circus, Earnings -> Feast, etc.
What if they just banned English from all company documents and let people use a smattering of all other languages the employees know? With some documents in Chinese, some in Swahili, some in Spanish, and the most confidential documents in obscure tribal languages, it would be fun to watch the Justice department try to piece things together.
For employee productivity they could just hand out AR goggles that translate everything in sight automatically to a language the employee knows -- they're Google, after all.
Or simply invent a company-specific language that uses the same words as English but with some words switched up, e.g. Customer -> Clown, Stock market -> Circus, Earnings -> Feast, etc.
Anti-trust is a hack.. We need proper taxation. Large corporations like Google have TONS of advantages that small companies have so it's easier for big companies to get bigger.
Part of this is taxes... if we just taxed them properly they wouldn't grow large and wouldn't need to be broken up.
Part of this is taxes... if we just taxed them properly they wouldn't grow large and wouldn't need to be broken up.
Have you ever seen a current Google employee clearly denounce Google's privacy practices? It seems they are very loud and keen to organize when it comes to issues that closely affect them, but the mass surveillance of the general population usually takes a back seat.
Byline: "A company operating in the shadow of government regulators has some very particular rules about what workers can say about it."
I don't know where the reporter gets the sense that they're "very particular." It's pretty common sense: "You are not a lawyer; don't speculate on points of law in discoverable media."
I don't know where the reporter gets the sense that they're "very particular." It's pretty common sense: "You are not a lawyer; don't speculate on points of law in discoverable media."
A little over a year ago, while working at Google I needed to work from home for personal reasons. HR told me “we have done extensive studies and it doesn’t work so take a personal leave”. Okay. In another issue I suggested to my manager we stop using “blacklist” and “whitelist”. He said no one else had a problem with those names and of this was a personal issue take it up with HR
Google will never change unless forced to. I quit soon after.
Google will never change unless forced to. I quit soon after.
>Google employees are not shy about speaking up. In the last few years, they have openly confronted the company about building a censored search engine in China, the handling of sexual harassment claims and its work with the Pentagon on artificial intelligence technology for weapons.
I'd love to see what would happen to a Google employee who tries to argue that sexual harassment laws and policies are stifling normal social interactions, empowering the vicious and overly sensitive to destroy anyone who upsets their particular sensibilities, and creating an overall climate of fear and conformity.
I'd love to see what would happen to a Google employee who tries to argue that sexual harassment laws and policies are stifling normal social interactions, empowering the vicious and overly sensitive to destroy anyone who upsets their particular sensibilities, and creating an overall climate of fear and conformity.
To me this is the key paragraph:
> ...employees are told to assume that every document and email will end up in the hands of regulators, so they should refrain from using certain words or phrases. “We are not out to ‘crush,’ ‘kill,’ ‘hurt,’ ‘block,’ or do anything else that might be perceived as evil or unfair,” according to a slide used in the training, which The New York Times reviewed.
In my experience, these policies exist largely to avoid negative PR hits.
> ...employees are told to assume that every document and email will end up in the hands of regulators, so they should refrain from using certain words or phrases. “We are not out to ‘crush,’ ‘kill,’ ‘hurt,’ ‘block,’ or do anything else that might be perceived as evil or unfair,” according to a slide used in the training, which The New York Times reviewed.
In my experience, these policies exist largely to avoid negative PR hits.
It's unfortunate that the headline sounds like pure clickbait, because the story contains examples of Google's behavior being more suspicious than the headline suggests.
But, as far as the title is concerned, it seems common sense to prevent employees from talking about potentially very expensive legal issues, when every internal emails and chat logs can be potentially quote-mined by adversaries in future lawsuits.
(Disclaimer: worked at Google before.)
But, as far as the title is concerned, it seems common sense to prevent employees from talking about potentially very expensive legal issues, when every internal emails and chat logs can be potentially quote-mined by adversaries in future lawsuits.
(Disclaimer: worked at Google before.)
I don't see what the point of the article might be (except as click bait to get ad views, of course). I had exactly the same training when I worked at IBM, every year. "Never talk about dominating the market", yadda yadda yadda. It's sound legal advice that I would expect all corporate employees would get. VMWare won't want their employees to talk about how they dominate the VM indusrty; EMC wouldn't want their engineers talking about their enterprise storasge arrays "crushing the competition", and so on.
And at all companies, the standard line is, "never send in e-mail anything that you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the New York Times, or might cause you to be deposed as a witness in a courtroom." And it's not just about anti-trust; you also never want to talk in any kind of discoverable medium how an engineering short-cut in the development of your product (say, like a 737) is going to cause people to get killed.
All of this is not unique to Google, but applies to any company with half-way competent lawyers and a half-way competent HR department.
And at all companies, the standard line is, "never send in e-mail anything that you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the New York Times, or might cause you to be deposed as a witness in a courtroom." And it's not just about anti-trust; you also never want to talk in any kind of discoverable medium how an engineering short-cut in the development of your product (say, like a 737) is going to cause people to get killed.
All of this is not unique to Google, but applies to any company with half-way competent lawyers and a half-way competent HR department.
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It would be noteworthy if a company didn't restrict their employees from publicly talking about legal and regulatory matters. What they're doing here is standard practice.
Average employees aren't in a position to speak accurately about antitrust matters anyway. If they misspeak, it will certainly be used against the company regardless of the actual merit.
Average employees aren't in a position to speak accurately about antitrust matters anyway. If they misspeak, it will certainly be used against the company regardless of the actual merit.
I'm sure lawyers at Google have studied the Microsoft antitrust case, where one of the big lessons was that anything you write in an email will be used against you by the Justice Department [1] -- so this is not at all surprising. In fact, I'm a bit shocked there's no mention of the Microsoft case in the article.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/02/business/antitrust-case-i...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/02/business/antitrust-case-i...
This is normal and expected. Where I work we have rules about what we can say in written communication. Hyperbole and jokes will not be interpreted that way if an audit or subpoena finds it. A court might decide that we didn't mean exactly what we said, but we don't even want to deal with a court case in the first place. Not only because it directly consumes money to put up a defense but also because it can restrict our ability to make money and could tarnish our name.
We also have rules against talking to press. We can send them to a department that will handle that communication, but in general they won't get anything from us because it's easy to put a negative spin on anything we say.
We also have rules against talking to press. We can send them to a department that will handle that communication, but in general they won't get anything from us because it's easy to put a negative spin on anything we say.
Googler here. This is pure and simple click-bait. We are asked not to speculate on legal matters precisely so that it doesn't get misrepresented in the media or in lawsuits. I've worked at other companies with the same policy because why would you shoot yourself in the foot?
Since the NYT is denied the option of misrepresenting employee comments, it has settled for an alternate spin. What a great deal they have. Its a win-win.
Since the NYT is denied the option of misrepresenting employee comments, it has settled for an alternate spin. What a great deal they have. Its a win-win.
Yup that's just literally every company... speculating about how "we will crush our competition and dominate the market" can lead to legal trouble more so than talking about other contentious topics.
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Does the NY times use a shitty AI bot to write these taglines? I find it hard to believe someone who worked as a journalist and wasn't in a coma for the last decade would suggest that google employees are "free to speak up".
Generally speaking (and regardless of personal position on the topic) any company which has a dedicated "diversity" commissar isn't a place you can speak freely.
Generally speaking (and regardless of personal position on the topic) any company which has a dedicated "diversity" commissar isn't a place you can speak freely.
I don't think that's the only exception.
So that everyone is clear there's a very big difference between Google saying:
1) Use the right language concerning things like 'market dominance'.
2) Not wanting Googlers to have public opinions which are against the companies opinions
3) Suppressing voices over very material causes for concern i.e. whistle blowing.
The more nuanced issue is #1.
If Google legit doesn't believe they are a monopoly player, then they have to make sure that everyone acts and behaves in that manner, and uses the right language. If personnel go around talking about 'dominating the market' that could be effectively 'used against them' irrespective of the material nature of ostensible market domination.
A lot of this kind of stuff is vague, political, words have power etc. and things can be taken way out of context.
It's not wrong for Google to want staff to use the right words to describe market situations correctly.
Of course this means something different if in fact, objectively speaking they're trying to get people to actually misrepresent reality.
1) Use the right language concerning things like 'market dominance'.
2) Not wanting Googlers to have public opinions which are against the companies opinions
3) Suppressing voices over very material causes for concern i.e. whistle blowing.
The more nuanced issue is #1.
If Google legit doesn't believe they are a monopoly player, then they have to make sure that everyone acts and behaves in that manner, and uses the right language. If personnel go around talking about 'dominating the market' that could be effectively 'used against them' irrespective of the material nature of ostensible market domination.
A lot of this kind of stuff is vague, political, words have power etc. and things can be taken way out of context.
It's not wrong for Google to want staff to use the right words to describe market situations correctly.
Of course this means something different if in fact, objectively speaking they're trying to get people to actually misrepresent reality.
There's at least one other topic that Google employees won't talk about... anymore.
Or on sex differences or ideological echo chambers.
This is a pretty standard practice in big tech companies especially after the Microsoft v. U.S. case. When a seemingly naive internal memo can make the company broken up, then why would you allow your employee to write it down from the first moment?
Is this even legal? Can a company prevent employees from talking about the company breaking the law. I don't see how this could be enforceable. Assuming they are indeed found to have broken the law.
Rule #1: Never talk to the police without your lawyer being present
Rule #2: Don't create a paper trail that is going to make you look bad when it gets subpoenaed
I personally think that Google needs to be broken up into 10 different companies. And I would love to live in a world where companies face antitrust enforcement because of concrete actions. Unfortunately, we live in a world where a carelessly worded email is going to cause you more legal troubles than actual anti-competitive behavior.