- Googlers have been using an internal message board to vent about the election.
- There’s just one problem: they aren’t allowed to make political posts, so they’re being creative.
- Google has cracked down on political discussions, and CEO Sundar Pichai urged staff to stay neutral.
Google employees are, as ever, memeing through it.
As the 2024 US election unfolded, Googlers have taken to the company’s internal message board — a meme generator named Memegen — to express their feelings.
There’s just one problem: Google leaders have cracked down on employees making political posts, so staff have been poking fun at the inability to express their views on the election, according to several of the posts seen by Business Insider.
One of the top Memegen posts on Wednesday was a picture of a fake newspaper named “The Memegen,” with the headline, “Nothing Happened. For the first time in history nothing happened for a whole day.”
Another read: “It’s not a permitted personal political opinion at the workplace unless it comes from the C-suite region of the org chart.”
Another popular meme showed a scene from Disney’s “Raya and the Last Dragon,” with the dragon Sisu telling Raya to “Bring your whole self to work.” In the meme, Raya asked, “Even my political opinions?” to which Sisu responded, “Not that part.”
Two former Googlers built Memegen in 2010 as a way for employees to vent about work, life, and even their C-suite. While home to often silly creations, it has long acted as something of a town square for Google’s workforce and an effective way to read the temperature of its over 180,000 employees.
Earlier this year, after employees used Memegen to share their thoughts on the war in Gaza, Google barred staff from making political posts, several employees told BI. A message on Memegen now reads, “Memegen isn’t a place for personal political opinions or statements,” according to a picture seen by BI.
A Google spokesperson said that the company made and tested these changes in response to employees requesting to make adjustments to its moderation practices and that Googlers have said political topics were distracting.
Leaders have been reckoning with an increasingly outspoken workforce in recent years while fending off perceptions it is politically biased. In 2018, right-wing news site Breitbart posted a video from an internal Google town hall where leaders expressed dismay over Donald Trump’s election as president. In the meeting, Google cofounder Sergey Brin called Trump’s election “deeply offensive.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to employees on Monday thanking them for their hard work ahead of the election and saying that Google should be a “trusted source of information” for everyone, according to a copy reviewed by BI. The memo also asked staff to abide by company guidelines against conducting political activity on company time.
Are you a current or former Google employee? Got something to share? You can reach the reporter Hugh Langley via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 628-228-1836) or email (hlangley@businessinsider.com).