Republican Google Engineer Writes Open Letter About Company’s ‘Outrage Mobs’ And ‘Witch Hunts’

“If left unchecked,” Wacker wrote, “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.”

In one case, Wacker describes a fellow Republican employee who was reported for saying nice things about the University of Toronto academic Jordan Peterson. He was given a note in writing that said, “One Googler raised a concern that you that you appeared to be promoting and defending Jordan Peterson’s comments about transgender pronouns, and this made them feel unsafe at work.”

Wacker himself was twice reported via the company’s anonymous reporting channels.

“You wrote in the [email protected] group: ‘The definition of ‘Google’s values’ that matters is the one used by Google’s activists, who could only be described as ‘nonpartisan’ in the same sense that the Women’s March could be described as inclusive towards pro-life Jewish women,’” reads a note he received in January. “Other members of the group responded that your statement was percieved [sic] as hateful/incendiary/inflammatory. [redacted].”

In February, he received a note that said, “You received feedback on [email protected] that your comments were ‘rude, disrespectful, and intellectually dishonest.’”

In an exchange released in Wacker’s medium post, he describes a back-and-forth with Blake Lemoine, the engineer who belongs to a self-described cult led by a former porn star and called Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn a “terrorist.” When Wacker raised issues with how the company had handled the AI ethics board debacle that ended with the company dropping Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James, Lemoine replied that, “Everyone is aware of your tolerance for bigotry.”

New from me: Google's Outrage Mobs and Witch Huntshttps://t.co/mNm9kfsUeZ

— Mike Wacker (@m_wacker) May 21, 2019