In an open letter posted at Medium, a self-described Republican who works at Google warned about the ideological turmoil and rampant bias in the supposedly nonpartisan Big Tech firm.
These “left-wing ‘outrage mobs’…make use of the company’s anonymous bias reporting channels to shut down dissent,” The Daily Caller observed. Not following the liberal, PC dogma could even get an employee fired, Wacker suggested.
Anti-Social Behavior by SJWs
In his lengthy Medium essay, Google software engineer Mike Wacker writes in part:
“Google has become a company where outrage mobs and witch hunts dominate its culture. These outrage mobs and witch hunts have become an existential threat not only to Google’s culture internally, but to Google’s trust and credibility externally.”
Within the company, Google’s HR department apparently defines hate speech as anything that the left-wing activists “perceive as hateful,” Wacker noted.
“These outrage mobs against ‘hate’ have become honeypots for toxic, hostile, and uncivil discourse,” he added about those who ironically preach tolerance.
Groupthink at Google
Wacker concluded his essay as follows:
“If left unchecked, these outrage mobs will hunt down any conservative, any Christian, and any independent free thinker at Google who does not bow down to their agenda. Anyone who stands up to them will be hounded until they either shut the f*ck up or they ‘get the f*ck out’. Furthermore, Google HR has clearly shown that they function as an accessory to these witch hunts. As I said before, once you control who belongs at Google, you can control what content belongs on Google.”
Internal Censorship Leads To External Censorship
Wacker’s final sentence is particularly pertinent in that Big Tech has unfairly suspended, shadow banned, or de-platformed several peaceful yet provocative right-wing personalities and Trump supporters (wholly unrelated to fringe actors). Payment processors are also getting into the de-platforming game.
The question is what, if anything, will the Trump administration do about protecting free speech in what has evolved into the equivalent of the public square.
Most recently, Breitbart broke the news that Facebook absurdly put Candace Owens and Bridget Gabriel — plus others who have yet to be revealed — on its list of “hate agents” as a precursor to potential banning.
See also:
It would be unfortunate if Internet users have to retreat into single ideological silos rather than share ideas in good faith. That being said, Human Events has called upon wealthy conservatives to fund social networks to compete with the dominant Silicon Valley cartel. Human Events and others have argued, moreover, that platform access should be considered a civil right that can’t be infringed upon.
Gab and Parler have emerged as competitors to Twitter, but they have yet to gain anything approaching the latter’s market share or influence.
[Featured image credit: Hebi B./Pixabay]