[strogonoff]

> getting into these discussions has a high risk of becoming an HR issue as tempers flare and conversations become vitriolic.

Here we can forget that IRL face to face people are much less likely to be offensive to each other. If they get to literal name calling and aggression, sure, that’s an HR issue, HR gets paid to sort this out, doesn’t it? I don’t see how politics is different from any other topic on which people can have strong opinions.

> There's also the issue that the company founders and leadership have political opinions of their own that might inform company policy and any political opinion to the contrary may be perceived as pushback from a "troublemaker".

That is why “no politics” is somewhat dishonest. In my view, either blanket forbid all off-topic talks, or don’t censor by topic and handle fights if they arise. There can also be softer guidelines about how to behave at work without an actual ban of any topic.

[pseudalopex]

Or censor by topic specifically and honestly.

[dcow]

I agree with your ideal. I used to be one of those people who would just talk about whatever in any context assuming everyone was mature enough to have academic discussions and not get personal. Political viewpoint is a protected class in the US. But we all saw what happened to James Dramore. Real consequences for holding a political opinion that allegedly made him “unemployable at Google” where his politics were so threatening to the established order that Google just couldn’t operate with him in the mix. You’d think G has the most mature employees… and either they do but humans are just toxically unable to hold differing opinions, or they don’t and therefore have to maintain a safe space for the comfort of their sensitive workers.

The silliest part: what was his thesis? Well that using race and gender based quotas during hiring and leveling made Google less competitive. Certainly not a privileged white male tech bro just barreling through the company on a racist bigoted spree leaving tears in his wake. There is more interesting discussion to be had here about how the Civil Rights Act has been weaponized in the US and companies feel they have a legal obligation now to prove that their systems don’t yield “unfair distribution of protected classes”, or whatever the actual wording is. And how that is at odds with a world where you can openly discuss politics at a company without fear of falling afoul of the Chief Diversity Officer (ffs, there are executives installed to maintain the order now). And related: just look at how pockets of people respond to Trump’s second term insisting that he’s a fascist dictator and anybody who doesn’t see it is a de facto fascist. But I digress.

Nobody wants to bet their job on being on the losing end of a kafka traps and thought terminating clichés.