In my personal estimation as someone who actually has actually read these new rules and is currently working under them, these policy changes represent little substantive change from the previous policy. I won't be quoting the text directly because I don't think it's public, but most of what was changed represents a codification of practices that were already floating around as best-practices. They also added concrete examples of what constitutes harassment, all of which strike me as things that any reasonable person would actually consider harassment. Nowhere do I see anything that might be construed as "curtailing employee debate."<p>All of which is to say how surprised and thrown off I am by this article: it and previous ones [1] try to portray Google as a place that's roiled by political fighting where the leaders are struggling to keep control over a irresponsible and politically radical workforce. Under this narrative these new policies are just the newest, desperate attempt to restore order to the snowflake cagematch that is Google.<p>The reality, at least as far as I and practically everyone I've spoken to is concerned, is the exact opposite: people share their views openly, a wide range of opinions are respectfully shared, most people have the right to get into and stay out of political discussions, and the institution does the best it can to set the boundaries of what is appropriate at work while permitting a otherwise anything-goes approach. If this reality is anywhere close to being accurate, the picture this article paints is simply nonsensical.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-vs-google-how-nonstop-political-arguments-rule-its-workplace-1525190574" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-vs-google-how-nonstop-po...</a>
They could have solved the problem months ago by firing the people engaged in that sort of behaviour. The leaked screenshots that came out around the time they canned Damore were full of bad behaviour, but it appears none of those people were fired. Instead they were allowed to continue calling their coworkers nazis and fascists.<p>Almost without question this policy will be used to silence people objecting to their "diversity" programmes, not the people actually attacking their coworkers.
Employees at most companies (including other large multinationals) deal with this by only discussing political opinions among close colleagues or not at all, but it seems this way or working is not common at SV tech firms.
The fact that they even have to contend with this kind of toxic environment makes me pretty glad to be at a smaller company where there's really not much room for that behavior.
It seems volunteer moderation may not scale well at a company this size.<p>When I consider that the logs of these intranet conversations are a legal liability, and moderation actions may cause legal challenges as well, it strikes me that perhaps google should hire professional moderators that report up through their legal division.<p>I imagine a lot of employees might balk at this, but having developers losing sleep over how to respond to intranet drama may be considered undesirable as well.
I know that my view is far from the mainstream, but does anyone else get the feeling that Google's effectiveness per-employee is lower?<p>I know that by the numbers, their per person revenue is off the charts, but what if they just have a few awesomely automated money spigots and like half of the employees are not really as wonderful as we've been told?<p>I mean, the Google images AI that classified black people as gorillas hasn't actually been fixed yet, for example: they just removed the ability of the AI to classify any images as "gorilla"... As one example.<p>If people are complaining about the busy message boards and there are a lot of different boards that are used, how much work is really getting done?
".....oversee discussion groups about anything from animal rights to sexual expression."<p>Why are there even discussions about this on a work forum? Why in the world would anyone want to talk about this stuff with the people they work with? Is it a side effect of the company being so large it's impossible to know everyone?<p>I go out of my way to not discuss anything that comes within a whiff of a controversial topic with the people I work with. I go to work to pull a paycheck and because I enjoy the work that I do, I do not go to work to make friends or to hang out with people. If I end up making friends with some of the people I work with, great, however, we hang out as friends outside of work and we don't discuss things as friends via any work channels. Is making your co-workers your friend group a new thing? Is it a side effect of working so many hours you don't have time to hang out with anyone else?
To use the facebook trick if you're getting paywalled: <a href="https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/google-sets-rules-to-curtail-employee-debates-1530115201" rel="nofollow">https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/google-sets-rules-to-curtai...</a>
This is a cultural shift. First gen corporate workplaces 60-80's were much more top down, arbitrary and controlled.<p>Second gen was already loosening up on individual freedom but there was a strict border between the private and the work persona.<p>Now it seems this border is breaking down and there is one persona. Delicious to find most commenters here on the wrong side of a generational divide. Soon you will be dismissed as grey beards with out of date ideas.
This is a reaction to the rise of the trolls. Trolling your coworkers and engaging in bad faith argumenting has no place at work. It represents a profound disrespect of your colleagues, it is counterproductive, and is distracting.<p>It’s not unreasonable to put these restrictions on - which btw are content neutral - workplace tools/discussions. It’s not an attempt to quell dissent but to focus it in a useful manner.<p>I believe, that damore was arguing in bad faith, attempting to trigger and troll, and do so in “polite” language, which doesn’t excuse him at all. You can’t write a meandering argument that isn’t well founded, filled with incorrect suppositions, and bury that all your female coworkers are not as qualified and expect that to end well.