Project Veritas, a conservative transparency group, has obtained what it calls an internal document circulated among Google employees, titled ‘Beginner’s Guide to Protesting’.
As it appears from the title, the company, which claims it is devoid of political bias, wants its staffers to know what to do when they come out in the street for a protest.
The purpose of the document is “to assemble best practices and ensure that everyone feels comfortable and pumped about Resist@Google.com marches/protests”.
No further details are given about the mysterious ‘Resist@Google.com’, which could be an internal group coordinating protesters or merely a service providing information about upcoming events.
The memo instructs would-be demonstrators to bring appropriate attire and to appear involved in the event because “media might be present”.
The ‘Do’s and Dont’s’ part argues that it is not necessary for protesters to stop at crossroads, since “the point is to disrupt, and a crosswalk can split up the group when it’s large”.
It also floats some ideas for signs to carry during a protest, including “#NoMuslimBan #NoWall”, “Immigrants Welcome”, “Make America Welcoming Again”, “Never Again”, “No Ban No Wall”, and “Muslims cure cancer”.
Interestingly, Google also mentioned the motto “Don’t Be Evil” as an example of an appropriate slogan for a protest sign. This is the company’s catchphrase that previously was the preface to its code of conduct but today only remains in the document’s final line.
A section of the leaked memo titled “Example chants” includes some politically-charged slogans such as “No Hate, No Fear, Immigrants are welcome here” and “From Palestine to Mexico, All the walls have got to go”.
While Google has yet to comment on the authenticity of this leak, Project Veritas has recently published a number of incriminating leaks related to the top tech firm.
According to one internal document, Google employees have compared several popular conservative speakers to ‘Nazis’ and discussed manipulating the autocomplete search feature to stop it from advising users to type their names in the search box.
Furthermore, an undercover video of a Google executive showed her speaking about “preventing the next Trump situation”. She later stated, however, that she was talking about countering “online foreign interference” rather than Trump’s chances of re-election.
She wrote: “Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings.”
Project Veritas, meanwhile, said it received a ban on several platforms following the exposés, including video-sharing site Vimeo and Reddit.
1. @YouTube bans @Pinterest investigation
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) 26 июня 2019 г.
2. @Twitter suspends Veritas for Pinterest story
3. @reddit bans Project Veritas
4. @YouTube bans @Google investigation
5. @Vimeo removes Project Veritas account
DO THINK BIG TECH IS WORKING TOGETHER?
Last year, the Wall Street Journal obtained Google’s internal e-mails in which employees allegedly considered tweaking the search algorithm in favour of pro-immigration information when users would search terms related to Donald Trump’s 2017 travel ban.
In response to the flurry of questions that followed, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that “we do not bias our products to favour any political agenda”, while the company did not deny the report but assured that the idea had never been implemented.
