[woodruffw]

I absolutely agree, and I think this nicely summarizes why political discussion at work is more important than ever: it amounts to real discussions between human beings with emotional and professional ties, not flame wars between angry Tweeters.

I don’t agree with my coworkers on everything. But when they talk about politics I listen, and try my best to engage in a cogent discussion.

Maintaining a culture of political discussion at work is critical to both healthy corporate cultures and healthy civic processes, which might provide a hint as to why Meta is opposed to it (outrage is their business model.)

[icelancer]

Meta isn't banning discussion of politics in groups of employees. It's banning discussion in open channels.

If you want to listen to employees talk pro-life / pro-choice, join the groups for that and do so. Keeping Roe v. Wade discussion out of the equivalent of Slack #general or All-Hands email list seems more than reasonable.

[woodruffw]

The article itself concerns online discussion spaces, but what constitutes an “open channel”? Should employees expect to be reprimanded or potentially punished for talking about abortion rights in a company hallway, because an uninvolved coworker might happen to walk by?

The baseline position here (“don’t create political distractions in large channels”) is reasonable on face value. But I have difficultly believing that it’s not pretextual, and that the real goal isn’t to generally chill political discussion between colleagues.

[1123581321]

At most companies, open physical meetings would not include private conversations inadvertently overheard. I can see how companies employee some people who don’t understand things like that, panic and overreact. I think most companies would have trouble admitting they employ such people in higher level planning meetings.