Google Bans Its Staff From Protesting Against YouTube's Current Policies

Harin - Jun 26, 2019


Google Bans Its Staff From Protesting Against YouTube's Current Policies

Employees of Google have been warned that the company would not allow them to protest against the LGBTQ+ policy decisions of YouTube in the Pride Parade.

Employees of Google have been warned that the company would not allow them to protest against the LGBTQ+ policy decisions of YouTube if they want to ride the sponsored float of Google.

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San Francisco Pride Parade.

According to the tech giant, the protest is a violation of the code of conduct of the company. However, employees are still allowed to join in the Pride parade, just not as an employee of Google. And Google’s employees are not happy about this.

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The Verge reported that a leaked internal memo confirmed Google’s stern measure to prevent its employee from protesting.

The Gayglers, the LGBTQ+ employee community of Google, had been trying to remove the firm’s sponsored float from the parade which is due to happen this weekend. The reason for this petition is YouTube’s irresponsibility in protecting the LGBTQ+ community.

The protests follow Vox host Carlos Maza’s tweet about several instances where he had been receiving racists and homophobic comments from Steven Crowder, a right-wing YouTube commentator.

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YouTube responded to this by carrying out an investigation and later concluded that no policies on video-streaming were violated by Crowder.

Soon after that, a small group consisting of Google employees, during Alphabet Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting, decided to organize a demonstration.

Google’s employees have voiced their frustration and anger towards YouTube’s decisions as well as its harassment policies.

For now, it is unclear what kind of punishment Google will have for its employees who protest while being a representative of the tech giant. But Google’s ban on its employee may infringe upon the federal labor law which aims to protect workplace activism.

The decision of Google seems to be somewhat paradoxical although it’s clever of the company to detach itself from political arguments. Especially, this happens during Pride month when the company has changed the Twitter avatar photo of YouTube to one with a rainbow flag. Google even sponsored a float.

It raises the question that whether brands should express their support for causes like Pride, when in actual fact, what they do are not always sincere and authentic.

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