There are regular comments by declared employees of quite a few companies including Google on HN. The commenting and vote/flag brigadeering around subjects that center on one of these companies is such that many subjects are either voted off the homepage entirely or the participants in the thread get downvoted/upvoted to better support the company position or narrative.
Actually, I'd go even further: you don't really see comments from _any_ bigco employees except a few SV-based ones, Google might be the most well-represented here. Maybe that's because Google has/used to have a culture internally that promoted activism and openness of opinion,
Well, all I can say is that some Google fans, employees and shareholders seem to be just like Google, espouse openness etc. but be the first to quell free speech if it shows their company in a bad way. And there are a lot of such folks on here and looks like they form a Digg-style bury brigade.
I am hoping that this is a rogue group of local Google employees who are about to be smacked down by Google head office.
This kind of thing is going to happen occasionally with global organisations, but Google needs to do something public quickly to make it clear that this is against policy.
You should see how HN would react if Google has done anything remotely close to it. If it was Google your comment would be downvoted to oblivion instead of being the top comment. Not to mention you'd be disparaged for protecting your employer.
That was my take away from the Damore lawsuit. If the posts are at all indicative[0] of the type of allowed conversation at Google, then the inmates are truly running the asylum. Regardless of personal political affiliation, I would never want to work at Google given what seems like an insane lack of reason in their HR policies.
[0] - I realize the lawsuit would obviously want to make it look as bad as possible.
How many members of this very forum are straight up google employees, complete with regular internal propaganda efforts to reassure employees that aktually, google is the good guys protecting you from the evil, politically driven mozilla?
They could do something better than resigning: voice their concerns both internally and in public. I have yet to see a HN comment posted by a current Google employee that has criticized Google's data harvesting practices or monopolistic behavior.
Well, I think this why Google has been so good at controlling their employees to stay within the margins of Google’s business interests. It creates a vibrant illusion of consequential debate and “resistance,” while keeping all the real power in the hands of a few executives.
Don’t get me wrong, Google employees have ways to put a stop to things like this project. But they’re not to be found in these pseudo-battles of their internal forums. Employees have to organize outside of company channels, withdraw their labor, or quit like those who were already brave enough to do so.
Also, it's worth noting that no Google employee could say any view except this one in this thread without getting fired. (Likely even if the alleged terms weren't so egregious.) While you may be one of 65,000 who feels listened to, we can't know how many have been silenced.
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