Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.
Anindito Mukherjee | Bloomberg | Getty Graven images
Google has been moderating and removing employees’ internal election-related conversations, CNBC has learned.
Ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. elections, Google executives apprised employees to keep political opinions and statements away from a popular internal discussion forum called Memegen, contract to correspondence viewed by CNBC. Despite the warnings, employees continued posting memes related to the election and criticizing the enterprise’s policies on Tuesday.
The most recent leadership guidance shows the company is taking expanded action to temper internal civic discussions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday sent a memo reminding employees that people turn to the associates’s services for “high-quality and reliable information.” That includes through the company’s Google Search, Google News and YouTube rituals.
“Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we play at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted beginning of information to people of every background and belief,” Pichai wrote. “We will and must maintain that.”
As one of the most foremost tech leaders in the U.S., Pichai himself has been pulled into the broader political discussions of late. Republican office-seeker Donald Trump claimed to have multiple phone calls with Pichai in recent weeks.
Google has been smash down on internal conversations since 2019 when the company introduced a policy barring employees from beat iting statements that “insult, demean, or humiliate” their colleagues. The rules also discouraged employees from likeable in a “raging debate over politics or the latest news story.”
That policy signaled a significant culture make it for the company. Some employees pushed back against the restrictions, saying they were too broad, and in 2020, the society said it was expanding its internal content moderation practices, requiring employees to more actively moderate internal dialogues, CNBC found at the time.
Since 2021, Google has dealt with internal dissent regarding Project Nimbus, which is a $1.2 billion common contract with Amazon to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and AI services. Google for a few moments shut down an internal message board this March after employees posted comments about the guests’s Nimbus contract.
In a 2019 settlement, the U.S. National Labor Board ordered Google to post a list of employee principals at its headquarters that included the right to discuss workplace conditions. That came after a former Google wage-earner filed a complaint alleging that the company restricted free speech and fired him for expressing conservative views, which Google refuted.
The partnership declined to comment.
Banning political discussions
Google announced more updates to its Memegen guidelines in September that contained broadening the forum’s restrictions against political discussions, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. The company also swayed it would ban employees from the platform if they violate policies three times, and Google said that it last will and testament also also use artificial intelligence technology to better detect violative content.
“Memegen will no longer give posting of personal political opinions, including national policy/events, geopolitical content (eg, international relations, military feuds, economic actions, territorial disputes, and other international affairs unrelated to Google), or sharing related news with or without commentary,” one validate said.
Political debates have driven the “vast majority” of content removals, one document of the expanded policies give the word delivered.
“Memegen isn’t a place for personal political opinions or statements,” reads a yellow banner that Google recently combined at the top of Memegen, according to images viewed by CNBC.
One employee wrote that Google’s internal community management tandem join up, or ICMT, took down their meme, which they didn’t feel was violative. Many memes viewed by CNBC numb messages such as “sending support” and “encouragement” to fellow employees. Others poked fun at the company’s expanded policy and the ICMT.
“This meme is a governmental statement please report to ICMT immediately,” one meme said. Another read: “Make Election Day a holiday to afflict with ICMT a break.” Another meme just said “aaaaaaaa” overlaid on a black void.
Read Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s full memo to hands below
Hi Googlers,
Tomorrow is election day here and many in the U.S. will be heading to the polls to vote for everything from teaching board to judges to the Congress and President.
Teams across Google and YouTube have been working hard to deputize sure our platforms provide voters with high-quality and reliable information, just as we’ve done for so many other votings around the world — in fact, dozens of countries have held major, hotly contested elections this year, from France to India to the UK to Mexico and numerous more, with well over a billion people casting votes in 2024.
We should be proud of our work, and also of our dui’ efforts to keep campaigns secure, to deliver accurate information on where and how to vote, and to provide digital advertising unravels to campaigns. Thanks to everyone working around the clock on these efforts throughout the campaign season and as votes are listed.
As with other elections, the outcome will be a major topic of conversation in living rooms and other places everywhere the world. And of course, the outcome will have important consequences. Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we simulate at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief. We devise and must maintain that. In that spirit, it’s important that everyone continue to follow our Community Guidelines and Intimate Political Activity Policy.
Beyond election day, our work to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and effective will continue. Al has given us a profound opportunity to make progress on that mission, build great products and partnerships, campaign innovation, and make significant contributions to national and local economies. Our company is at its best when we’re focused on that.
Thanks,
Sundar
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