The tech giant has opted to eliminate the tone-down feature found on a platform where employees have long been sharing memes for more than ten years. This is right after the workers ended up getting into heated debates with each other on the subject of the Israel-Palestine war in the Gaza Strip.
These changes as confirmed in a recently published report by The New York Times spoke of getting rid of options for thumbs-down on every post.
For those who might not be aware, the popular Memegen was a top spot for workers to laugh and joke about both the organization and those in charge of its leadership. Moreover, this popular meme generator is quite often utilized to put out the sentiments of employees who might not be able to do so elsewhere.
This particular meme generator had people often complaining about matters such as too much corporate work or overload and even mocking the figure for AI models which every firm has rolled out too.
This feature is awfully similar to the Reddit app and it has ended up upvoting memes and therefore pushing them at the forefront while downvoting memes that were not as popular. For example, such corporate overlords would entail layoffs in January and that got plenty of upvotes as predicted and shown by media outlet, The Verge.
Additionally, getting rid of thumbs down means saying hello to Google ridding matters like metrics that display a certain post’s popularity.
A few workers were concerned about changes ruining a certain texting board which Googlers have tried long and hard to speak freely and so candidly regarding some firm. Moreover, a certain employee was getting close to 8000 likes across a post where they would ask for changes like killing Memegen.
Another rep for Google added how the team is working toward its goal of conducting experiments with similarly trending industry practices which are in line with what is witnessed across various internal and external social media apps.
The changes are all set to take center stage this year so that means soon. And it’s actually happening because Google really takes feedback from all of its employees very seriously. It also reiterated how a thumbs down is a gesture that could end up making people feel so awful about themselves.
Media outlet The Times also mentioned how a memo sent internally through Google had some moderators agreeing with the decision that these kinds of gestures were more linked to bullying than anything else.
For now, Google is yet to roll out any requests for comments but these actions are proof about how strongly it feels. After all, the Israel-Palestinian war has been a source of massive controversy for so long at the company.
If you go back to the year 2021, nearly 250 employees called the firm to get rid of contracts generated with Israel after the latter’s forces conducted strikes in the Gaza Strip.
We even saw one staffer at Google quit and added how so many were being forced to suffer for showing support to Palestine so openly. A moment after that, more than 100 Google workers gathered to show their opposition to the company’s Project Nimbus which is the term reserved for a $1.2 billion contract featuring cloud computing with links to Israel.
Speaking to The Times in the past, Google workers did agree that tensions and slowly rising in the firm and many had serious issues with the growing figures of antisemitic posts while others felt they couldn’t let their voice or opinion out on the controversial topic.
In the past month, Google fired one of its workers who carried out a protest in Israel at the company’s NYC conference linked to Project Nimbus. The worker’s contract was terminated because he ended up disrupting another fellow colleague’s presentation.
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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World
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