By Douglas MacMillan
Google is trying to quell the debates roiling its workforce by
setting new internal rules designed to limit offensive language and
personal attacks against fellow employees.
In a set of guidelines sent to employees, Google said it would
discipline anyone who discriminates against or attacks colleagues
or engages in discussions that are "disruptive to a productive work
environment," according to a copy of the guidelines reviewed by The
Wall Street Journal.
The rules aim to curb so-called trolling -- in which people are
deliberately provocative or offensive online in order to elicit
strong reactions -- as well as "blanket statements about groups or
categories of people."
For Google, which has long prized its culture of open debate,
the rules present fresh challenges about how to police employee
speech while continuing to encourage free expression and
unconventional thinking.
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., gives its roughly 80,000
employees a number of digital tools with which to share and argue
over ideas internally. Even in Silicon Valley, its Mountainview,
Calif., campus is seen as a bastion of free-wheeling discourse.
Yet of late the search giant has struggled to keep those debates
under control. Over email discussion groups and a message board
called Memegen, employees have waged verbal wars over all manner of
social and political beliefs. Many insiders increasingly see these
as a drain on productivity and a barrier to conducting
business.
Google has punished employees for online posts that violate its
employee code of conduct, but the new community guidelines, which
were sent to employees last week but hadn't been previously
reported, are the first set of rules explicitly geared toward
governing discussions on the forums and across the company's
campus. The rules are broad, asking employees to respect one
another and honor Google's values, and they leave room for
interpretation about what type of conduct is prohibited, a review
of the guidelines shows.
Google finds itself in a situation similar to that at many
universities, which have long tried to strike a balance between
permitting free speech and maintaining civil discourse, said Lisa
Nishii, a professor of management at Cornell University's IRL
School.
The alternative to issuing guidelines would be giving employees
the impression that anything goes, which could undermine Google's
efforts to promote a culture of inclusion and respect, Ms. Nishii
said. "On the one hand they say inclusion is important but if on
the other hand they allow incivility to continue, it would amount
to inconsistent messages."
The move also follows a controversy in which some Google
employees protested the company's involvement with an effort
code-named "Project Maven," which involved helping the Pentagon
identify and track potential drone targets through artificial
intelligence. Google decided not to seek renewal of the contract,
drawing criticism from some who contended the company was putting
the politics of certain employees over national security.
Google earlier this month laid out a new set of internal
guidelines for determining whether new artificial intelligence
products meet its ethical standards, including a ban on the use of
such technology in military weapons.
That sort of employee activism rippled to other tech firms this
month. Companies, including Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce.com
Inc., have had to contend with employee unrest over their ties to
the government, driven by the Trump administration's controversial
policy that separated migrant families at the southern border.
Microsoft employees demanded the company sever its work with
Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Salesforce employees
asked Chief Executive Marc Benioff to reevaluate the company's work
with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency.
So far, none of the companies have acquiesced to their
employees' demands.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company would stand up for
its "enduring values and ethics" and denounced the Trump
administration's immigration policy but said Microsoft's technology
was not being used to enable the separation of migrant families. A
Salesforce spokeswoman said: "We're proud of our employees for
being passionate and vocal, and will continue the conversation on
this and other important matters."
To enforce its new rules, Google plans to leave much of the
interpretation to its volunteer army of intranet moderators, who
have day jobs at Google but in their spare time oversee discussion
groups about anything from animal rights to sexual expression.
Google so far has been relying on those moderators and other
employees to flag instances of abuse on their forums, which
triggers a review by human resources staff.
The new rules are being issued nearly a year after Google fired
a software engineer, James Damore, who wrote an internal memo
saying gender differences might have something to do with women's
underrepresentation in the tech workforce. His memo and resulting
dismissal ignited frenzied debate between employees, some accusing
Google of wrongly firing an employee for expressing himself and
others saying the company hadn't done enough to stand up for gender
equality.
Since February, more than 2,600 Google employees have signed a
petition calling for the company to do more to curb harassment
against employees and offer more transparency on how human
resources staff conduct investigations.
Liz Fong-Jones, one of the organizers of the petition, said the
new guidelines don't go far enough in addressing their
concerns.
"We don't believe the new Code of Conduct adequately supports
employees speaking out about the racism and sexism we face," the
organizers of the petition said in a statement.
Harmeet Dhillon, Mr. Damore's attorney, said in an interview
that Google is moving in the wrong direction with its guidelines.
"You're going to have a bunch of employee moderators ratting people
out" to human resources, she said.
Ms. Dhillon said Mr. Damore wouldn't comment on the new
guidelines.
Mr. Damore's firing was also followed by several lawsuits,
including legal actions from female employees alleging pay
discrimination against women, from male ex-employees and potential
new hires claiming bias against conservative white men, and from a
transgender engineer who said he was fired for making derogatory
statements about what he called white male privilege.
Google last week told employees it had also revised its
workplace-conduct rules, providing more details on what constitutes
harassment and discrimination, a person familiar with the matter
said. The policy says derogatory or insensitive jokes and offensive
images may be considered forms of harassment, according to excerpts
of the policy reviewed by the Journal.
The company added a new section to this policy addressing
"retaliation" in an effort to curb the practice of doxxing, or
sharing someone's home address or other personal information to
punish them for something. Google said in its new policy that it
may terminate or demote employees who retaliate against another
employee.
--Yoree Koh and Kirsten Grind contributed to this article.
Write to Douglas MacMillan at douglas.macmillan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 27, 2018 18:17 ET (22:17 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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