Sundar Pichai, Google CEO.
Anindit Mukherjee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
CNBC has learned that Google has been moderating and deleting employees’ internal conversations about the election.
Ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. election, Google executives warned employees to keep political opinions and statements out of a popular internal discussion forum called Memegen, according to communications seen by CNBC. Despite the warning, employees continued Tuesday to post election-related memes and criticize company policies.
The latest management guidance shows the company is taking expanded steps to defuse internal political debate. Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to employees on Monday reminding employees that people use the company’s services for “high-quality, trusted information.” This includes through the company’s Google Search, Google News, and YouTube services.
“No matter who our voters choose, let us remember the role we play in our work through the products and businesses we build: to be a trusted source of information for people of all backgrounds and beliefs.” wrote Pichai. “We’re going to keep it that way, and we have to keep it that way.”
As one of America’s most important technology leaders, Pichai himself has recently been drawn into broader political debates. Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed to have had multiple phone calls with Pichai in recent weeks.
Google has been cracking down on internal conversations since 2019, when it introduced a policy that prohibits employees from making comments that are “insulting, disparaging, or humiliating” about co-workers. The rules also prohibited employees from engaging in “heated discussions about politics or current news stories.”
This policy signaled a significant cultural change for the company. Some employees objected to the restrictions as too broad, and in 2020 the company announced it was expanding its internal content moderation practices and requiring employees to more actively moderate internal discussions. CNBC reported at the time.
Since 2021, Google has been dealing with internal opposition to Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint agreement with Google. Amazon Provides cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli government and military. In March, Google temporarily shut down its internal bulletin board after an employee posted a comment about the company’s Nimbus contract.
In a 2019 settlement, the U.S. Labor Relations Board ordered Google to post a list of employee rights at its headquarters, including the right to discuss workplace conditions. This comes after a former Google employee filed a complaint alleging that the company restricted his free speech and fired him for expressing conservative views, a claim Google disputes.
The company declined to comment.
Ban on political discussion
Google announced further updates to its Memegen guidelines in September, including expanding the forum’s limits on political discussion, according to internal documents seen by CNBC. The company also announced that if an employee violates the policy three times, they will be banned from the platform, and Google also said it will use artificial intelligence technology to better detect violating content.
“Memegen does not allow the posting of personal political opinions, including national policies and events, geopolitical content (such as international relations, military conflicts, economic activities, territorial disputes, and other international situations not related to Google); or related news will no longer be allowed to be shared without comments,” one document said.
One of the expanded policy documents states that political debate drives the “vast majority” of content removals.
“Memegen is not a place for personal political opinions or statements,” reads a yellow banner Google recently added to the top of Memegen, according to an image seen by CNBC.
One employee wrote that Google’s internal community management team (ICMT) removed the meme but did not feel it was a violation. Many of the memes seen by CNBC included messages such as “sending support” and “encouragement” to colleagues. Others made fun of the company’s expansion policy and ICMT.
One meme said: “This meme is a political statement. Report it to ICMT immediately.” Another article read, “Make Election Day a holiday to give ICMT a break.” Another meme just said “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” over a black blank space.
Read Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s full memo to employees below.
Hello, Googlers.
Tomorrow is Election Day here, and many Americans will head to the polls to cast their votes for everything from school boards to judges to Congress to president.
Our teams at Google and YouTube have worked hard to ensure our platforms provide voters with quality, trustworthy information, just as we have done in many other elections around the world. . In fact, dozens of countries are holding major elections and large-scale elections are taking place. Elections will be contested this year in countries including France, India, the UK and Mexico, and well over a billion people will vote in 2024.
We should be proud of our work and our team’s efforts to keep campaigns safe, provide accurate information about where and how to vote, and provide digital advertising solutions for campaigns. Thank you to everyone working around the clock on these efforts during the election and while votes are counted.
As with any election, the results will be the talk of the town and elsewhere around the world. And, of course, the results have important implications. No matter who voters choose, let’s remember the role we play in our work through the products and businesses we build: to be a trusted source of information for people of all backgrounds and beliefs. We will and must maintain it. In that spirit, it’s important that everyone continues to follow our Community Guidelines and Personal Political Action Policy.
Beyond Election Day, our work continues to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and usable. Al has given us deep opportunities to advance our mission, build great products and partnerships, drive innovation and make significant contributions to our national and local economies. Our company is at its best when we’re focused on that.
thank you,
thunder
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