(San Francisco) For nearly 14 years, an online discussion forum called Memegen has served as a “virtual valve” for Google employees. A place where employees were able to bluntly criticize their bosses or make scathing humor about job cuts, but this freedom raised the temperature a little too much for management.
According to documents reviewed by The New York TimesGoogle executives, after seeing their employees shouting about the war in the Gaza Strip in recent months, are making important changes to lower the temperature on the bulletin board well -loved by the company.
One of the biggest changes to Memegen will be the removal of the virtual thumbs down. The most liked memes rise to the top of Memegen based on these votes. Those who are unpopular disappear quickly. Another change will be the removal of indicators that allow users to see how popular other employees’ memes are.
Google said the changes, which will take effect later this year, were based on feedback from employees who said downvotes on thumbs made employees feel unhappy and that indicators made the discussion forum seem too competitive. But some employees said they fear the changes would censor their free speech and turn Memegen from a real-time gauge of worker sentiment into a boring corporate bulletin board.
The debate on Google’s forum reflects the long-simmering tension between Google employees, who have strong opinions, and executives who try to control the company’s sometimes very free-spirited culture. More than 4,000 employees liked a recent post summarizing why they are so protective of the forum: “The five minutes I spend on Memegen before starting work are the best two hours of my day.”
A Google spokesperson said in a statement that “as the team has transparently shared with employees, it is experimenting with some common industry practices similar to what other internal and external social platforms have done.”
Memegen
Memegen was created in October 2010 by two Google engineers, Colin McMillen and Jonathan Feinberg. McMillen has since left Google. Its name is the abbreviation of Meme Generator, because, in addition to displaying memes (funny images accompanied by pithy text), it helps employees create or generate them. Using their work username, employees can select or upload an image, type a message over it, view it, and wait for responses.
Christopher Fong, former head of partnerships at Google, remembers that more than a decade ago, during Google’s all-hands meetings, known as TGIFs, even though they were often held on Thursdays, employees would rush to Memegen when leaders including Larry Page and Sergey Brin were speaking. They commented live whether they agreed or disagreed with the remarks, and voted, thus forming an informal poll – a scrolling corporate ID. Under the leadership of current CEO Sundar Pichai, people continue to use the forum to react in real time.
People wrote what they “thought, but were embarrassed or afraid to say,” says Mr. Fong, who runs Xoogler, a community of former Google employees.
Employees liked Memegen because it was a community center that felt uniquely Google. Even the executives who got burned there from time to time appreciated it. Eric Schmidt, the company’s former CEO, wrote that Memegen “succeeded wonderfully” in allowing employees “to have fun while commenting scathingly on the state of the company” in his book How Google Worksco-written by Jonathan Rosenberg.
“In the great tradition of Tom Lehrer and Jon Stewart, Memegen can be very funny while getting to the heart of controversies within the company,” they write.
“Intimidation tactic”
Over the years, the tone of employee discussions has become more heated, echoing changes in social media and society at large. The arguments escalated when employees began posting about the war in Gaza last fall. Employees engaged in heated discussions about the war and downgraded posts they disagreed with, making them harder to find, said two people with knowledge of the exchanges, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The company’s internal moderators said in a February memo seen by the Times that they viewed coordinated demotions as an “intimidation tactic.” During the second half of 2023, they added, they saw a dramatic increase in complaints about content shared by employees. In February, the company began deleting results and downvotes.
When the changes are fully in place, employees will still be able to use Memegen to post and comment. Criticizing the company and its policies is still allowed, as long as posts don’t attack people or use abusive language.
But some employees doubt whether Memegen will retain its eccentric character. The changes “will kill Memegen,” reads a recent post. “Which is, of course, the point. » This post was liked by more than 8,000 employees.
Most of the time, employees don’t talk about war or other serious topics on Memegen. Jokes about working at Google are always popular, but heartfelt tributes to the discussion board have recently struck a chord, like one wishing Memegen a happy birthday: “You make Google really special.”
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
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