‘We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Just as last year’s #MeToo movement helped bring to the surface some of the biggest open secrets in Hollywood, recent backlash against conservative censorship from Silicon Valley is exposing a scandal that should surprise nobody.
For years, tech mega-companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter have skirted accusations of extreme left-wing bias, not only with respect to users, but also endemic in their company cultures.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, after censoring right-wing radio host Alex Jones with a two-week suspension, last week acknowledged in an interview with CNN that the microblogging platform tilted to the left.
Google, which long maintained ties with the Obama administration and other liberal institutions, previously faced criticism for its “echo chamber” culture that was hostile to conservative employees. A report on Tuesday revealed the company to be actively suppressing conservative media in its search results, prompting President Donald Trump to issue an admonishment.
Facebook also has faced consumer criticism for bias in its former trending news algorithms and fact-checking practices, to name only a few concerns. Now, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, around 100 conservative Facebook employees have teamed up to challenge the hostile groupthink of leftists within the company culture.
According to the article, the catalyst for the movement was an internal post titled “We Have a Problem with Political Diversity” from senior product engineer Brian Amerige, a self-described objectivist.
“We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views,” Amerige wrote. “We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack—often in mobs—anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.”
While their private group, “FB’ers for Political Diversity” has met with complaints from others in the company of roughly 25,000 employees, so far it has done nothing to get banned.
The group’s aim, according to the article, is “to create a space for ideological diversity within the company.”
According to the blog Zero Hedge, which posted what appeared to be the source memo, Amerige cited a litany of specific ways in which the company had been overtly hostile to conservatism, including tearing down posters that welcomed Trump supporters and removing PayPal chief Peter Thiel from their board.
Amerige also cited instances of people being fired or reported to human resources for supporting statements like “All Lives Matter,” criticizing Islamic human rights records or complaining about transgender art on display.
“We’re quick to suggest firing people who turn out to be misunderstood, and even quicker to conclude our colleagues are bigots.”
He said conservatives at the company lived in fear of being subjected to a modern-day lynch mob.
“They know that all the talk of ‘openness to different perspectives’ does not apply to causes of ‘social justice,’ immigration, ‘diversity’, and ‘equality.’ On this issues [sic], you can either keep quiet or sacrifice your reputation and career.”