"And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
This is Google telling ME to not be evil not Google telling itself to not be evil. Big difference. Its sounds more like "if you see something, say something" snitch culture. That's evil.
Thank you for the correction. I see now that Google dropped the 'Don't be evil' clause from their code of conduct, but left in one instance of the phrase itself.
Thankfully (for Google), that phrase is completely vapid and meaningless.
Also thankfully (for Google), self-enforced codes of conduct are vapid and meaningless.
Edit (in an effort to be more constructive): I think it's important to distinguish corporate posturing from actual, meaningful intent. I see no reason to consider Google's CoC as anything but the former.
Google doesn’t really have a “motto” or “corporate philosophy” publicly available anymore. It’s just the Code of Conduct now. “Don’t be evil” used to be in the preface, but it was moved to the end of their Code of Conduct. However, it does feel less salient and it kinda feels inconsequential now though.
> And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
>Many perceivers, for instance, miss the distinction between "Don't be evil." and "Don't do evil.". The former is a mindset, strategy, and intention, while the latter is impossible for a corporation with 50k employees.
No, we perceive the disctinction just fine. Some of us just believe Google does "evil" with mindset, strategy, and intention...
The other subtle, yet important, difference is that its an unofficial motto. Everyone assumes its Googles official stance on everything, yet they never said that[1], so really, they can be as evil as they want without going against anything they've ever stated. Quite clever of them, really, to make everyone assume that this is their official motto, when they can later turn around and say,w ith a straight face, no, we never claimed that.
[1] Please correct me if I'm wrong. I searched but found no evidence saying otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil doesn't really say that its their motto either, but does certainly suggest that Google has been riding the Don't be Evil publicity.
Google's code of conduct[0] still has "don't be evil" in it. The very last paragraph/line in the document:
> And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
The big issue with a phrase like "don't be evil" is that it is ambiguous and highly depends on the understanding of the word "evil" to the individual that reads that line. Google at this point is 80k+ full-time-employees, that I can guarantee will read that phrase to mean different things.
The newer code of conduct tries to codify what "evil" means, to lay a clearer picture for everyone what it means. That way it can't arbitrarily be applied for or against the company based on your an individual's beliefs of what that word means.
> “Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect.
> The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put “Don’t be evil” into practice.
Google obviously does evil things. Still not an excuse to keep using this argument, which was nothing but sensationalism and clickbait. "Don't do evil" is still in Google's COC[0].
> [...] And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
It's not like a COC is anything legally binding, or like they didn't do anything bad before restructuring under Alphabet, either.
Source title is misleading clickbait [0]: as the text of the article makes clear, Google rewrote one section of its Code of Conduct in a way which, among other things, removed the phrase “don’t be evil”, but retained that phrase in another (more prominent [1]) place.
[0] which is necessary to pretend there is anything even worth having as a story here at all. “Google updates Code of Conduct; reduces number of repetitions of phrase ‘don’t be evil’” is an obvious nothingburger.
[1] the final line; in any long document, the very beginning and very end are the most prominent.
Former Google engineer here. There's a subtle but significant semantic difference between "Don't be evil" (the real motto) and "Do no evil" (a confusion between the Hippocratic oath and the Google motto).
Look at what the last paragraph says despite the title:
The updated version of Google’s code of conduct still retains one reference to the company’s unofficial motto—the final line of the document is still: “And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!”
"And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
This is Google telling ME to not be evil not Google telling itself to not be evil. Big difference. Its sounds more like "if you see something, say something" snitch culture. That's evil.
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