[Someone1234]

I'm conflicted. I respect someone for standing up for what they believe in (freedom to express their views) but this also seems like one of those "pick your battles" situations. Google like it or not are a key sponsor of Code Club. They do some good and some evil, but they're a key sponsor, and as the director you need to put the organisation ahead of your personal issues/complaints.

The complaints might be entirely valid (and they likely are), but when you're in that kind of position you might not have the luxury of expressing valid complains about the people who literally pay the bills.

So I guess my thought is: Maybe this is best for all parties. Code Club gets to continue, Linda Sandvik will be able to express herself openly, and Google will be able to continue to be a Code Club sponsor without conflict.

It is just unfortunate that these personal complaints couldn't be put to the side for the betterment of the organisation as a whole.

[simondedalus]

You cannot have a healthy society if only the powerless are allowed to criticize the powerful.

She isn't even resigning in protest of Google's involvement, but the board's forbidding her to criticize any of Google's actions.

[facepalm]

Why should a sponsor finance a project that tells people the sponsor is evil?

I don't really see the problem here. Two parties disagree, so they go separate ways. End of story.

[Iftheshoefits]

When imbalances of power exist, it's almost never as simple as "two parties disagree, so they go separate ways."

We don't have complete information, and the article is clearly a one-sided representation of the situation. That said, based on her account, it seems one of these things is true:

1. Code Club's board acted independently of any action by Google in an attempt to stop some perceived conflict before it started (e.g. Google balking at further support because on of their key people says some negative things about Google now and then).

2. Code Club's board acted based on off-the-record or unofficial complaints by unknown Google representatives about the negative things Linda says/said.

3. Code Club's board acted based on on-the-record/official complaints by Google.

If the former, the board is in error. They have neither the obligation nor the right to demand anybody in the organization, Linda or whomever, to behave in any manner when not "on the clock." Our society is conditioned to accept the imbalance of power that makes such a demand seem reasonable, but it doesn't have to be that way (my opinion, if it's not clear, is it ought not be that way).

If it's either of the latter, it's an egregious abuse of power on Google's part (and an obsequious act on the Board's part). Google's relative power and influence makes Code Club a rounding error in terms of their PR efforts, either direction. In this scenario, Google's support of Code Club is little more than an advertising purchase masquerading as giving back to the community, which is certainly not unusual, I suppose, but it's also not something that leads to anything like an equal/level playing field.

If she's making stuff up, well, that's pretty bad on her part, and at least as awful as any of the above items.

[smikhanov]

They have neither the obligation nor the right to demand anybody in the organization, Linda or whomever, to behave in any manner when not "on the clock."

Of course they do. A company (that board ultimately represents) is not a human being and it can't have opinions on certain things, but it can has something resembling ethos, enforced by the employees. Anyone joining a company does so voluntarily, and can expect consequences when they do something that is not aligned with that ethos.

Mozilla, for example, ousted Eich because of him doing something anti-LGBT "off the clock". As a company, Mozilla has an "ethos" that is all about diversity and their board is absolutely free to act accordingly.

Also wanted to add that there's also no "imbalance of power" here (i.e. no need to paint it all black). Certain highly valuable CEOs stay in their positions even when they say and do nasty things, so a situation when Linda would be more valuable to Code Club than Google sponsorship is entirely possible.

[chc]

Mozilla ousted Eich because a vocal group was calling for his head. They knew about his donation for years and didn't care. The decision was pragmatic, not ethical.

[otakucode]

>Why should a sponsor finance a project that tells people the sponsor is evil?

Because they are sponsoring the project in order to accomplish the goals the project works toward - not because they are buying friends. If they want to teach kids to code, sponsoring Code Club gives them that. If they insist on also getting people to censor themselves and lie, then they're just being spoiled children.

[paulhauggis]

I disagree.

Spoiled children say things without thinking (or accepting the consequences), which sounds like the director, not Google.

"Because they are sponsoring the project in order to accomplish the goals the project works toward - not because they are buying friends."

Yes, but the director is running that project and represents the company. I'm still curious as to why they even accepted the money in the first place if they think Google is so "evil".

"If they insist on also getting people to censor themselves and lie, then they're just being spoiled children."

Private companies aren't the government. If you continue to make a company look bad, they will not want to do business with you (and have no obligation to do so). It's just common sense.

[simondedalus]

It's worth pointing out that nowhere in her note does she say "Google is evil." In fact, she doesn't even use the word 'evil'.

The only place where an entity's being evil has been mentioned is in these strawman comments.

The issue is not a board member spreading around the opinion that a sponsor "is evil." The issue is whether it's alright to forbid any criticism of a sponsor's actions by board members (or by management, or other high level / prominent figures).

If you choose to argue against, for example, me (since you responded to me), please understand the position. It is not that Google or anyone at all is evil. It's that no one's actions can be beyond criticism in a healthy society (or a healthy business, or a healthy relationship, etc).

Further, it is especially dangerous when people like founders, politicians, board members, etc can't express opinions of the actions of other prominent figures. When that is the case, the only people who can complain are those people whose voices won't be listened to. How does that make society better?

The position I, at least, am arguing for is that it is a socially irresponsible policy to force board members to express uniform approval of all actions taken by a sponsor.

Expressing disapproval of a company's actions is far from saying the company is evil, or that you're too good to cooperate with the company, etc. Please avoid straw man arguments if you want to have useful discussions.

[facepalm]

She writes: " Even if Google was mostly good, I need to have the right to call them out when they do bad things."

Are you really nitpicking about "evil" vs "doing bad things"?

And everybody can say whatever they want, and criticize whoever they want. But companies are not obliged to keep people on the payroll who use their position to make the same company look bad. The whole assumption is absurd.

Board members forbidding whatever is not the issue at all. The job of the board members is to keep the business afloat and prevent harm from coming to it. Bosses give their employees instructions all the time.

[ascendantlogic]

They don't have to. But if a sponsor is doing something that someone fundamentally disagrees with, they shouldn't be told to shut their mouths so the money keeps rolling in. That's called corruption.

[facepalm]

Um no that is not called corruption. Corruption is siphoning away money and other perks in an illegal way.

[ascendantlogic]

Compromising your beliefs for money is a form of corruption. It's just one that people are forced to do every day to varying degrees.

From Wikipedia[1]: 'In philosophical, theological, or moral discussions, corruption is spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement.'

Keeping your mouth shut in exchange for sponsorship money sounds a bit like bribery to me.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption

[viraptor]

You should be always able to criticise companies/organisations you depend on. Otherwise, why would they improve anything for you?

Taking an example on a bigger scale: you should be able to openly criticise some actions of the government, even if you're receiving benefits.

[erikpukinskis]

What's wrong with people in your community taking about the ways you are bad? If there isn't consensus about your goodness, that means you are either bring bad in ways you don't understand or you're being good in ways your community doesn't understand. Either way keeping a conversation going is a big party of the solution. Shutting down the conversion seems like a surefire way to make your relationship with your community worse.

[facepalm]

Are you employed? Could you tell us some things you really dislike about your company? (Giving your real name and your employers real name)

Rolling with the government example: should the government be obliged to fund communists (or other people who think the current government is evil)?

[chipotle_coyote]

The government funds people who think the current government is evil all the time. They don't fund them because they think the current government is evil, but I can assure you that there are people receiving unemployment benefits, social security, and other "entitlement program" checks that disagree loudly and publicly with the government all the time. (Some of them are probably critical of the same entitlement programs they rely on.)

[facepalm]

They get money to eat and pay rent, not to build ideological organizations with the aim to undermine the government. You are talking about somebody completely different.

[viraptor]

Yes I am. No, I couldn't. That's exactly what I think is not right and should change.

[jlarocco]

Not saying it doesn't make it not true.

If Google doesn't like people calling them out on it then they should stop doing it. Honestly, it seems pretty childish of them to threaten to pull sponsorship because somebody called them on their shit.

[otakucode]

Why do you take it as implicitly acceptable that Google should expect silence about their bad actions simply because they sponsor the club? Is Google sponsoring the club to support teaching kids to code, or to buy some ideological allies in the tech ideas sphere? If the second, why should we accept such a thing?

[DannyBee]

"Why do you take it as implicitly acceptable that Google should expect silence"

I wouldn't (and i work for Google!). But I also expect this is more on the side of "Board worries about this in abstract" than "Particular company made a complaint".

[paulhauggis]

From Google's perspective, why would I want to sponsor a group that thinks I am evil (and spreading this opinion around)?

If I was sponsoring a company/group (IE: paying them money) and they said anything negative about me, I would drop them in a second.

If they really don't like Google, they can deny their money and press as a result of the sponsorship.

They didn't and then the director thought it was okay to spread her negative opinion around. You don't get it both ways. She was obviously not on board with the rest of the company and now has to deal with the consequences.

It seems many people commenting here want to be able to express any opinion (bad or good) without any consequences. The world doesn't work this way.

[escape_goat]

It's true that the world doesn't work that way, in the sense of natural law: it is neither inevitable nor predictable that one will be able to express any opinion without consequences, and as you note, were you Google, one would not be able to express a negative opinion of Google without there being any negative consequences. I have to concede this point because your own opinion on the matter might well go into a (newly opened) file marked "things I don't like about paulhaggis" that could hypothetically affect our future business transactions, as individuals; people have opinions about each others opinions, and form inferences about the other person based on those opinions.

However, there's a larger transaction going on here, in the sense of the opinions about opinion sharing that are simultaneously shared when we voice and respond to each other's opinions, and this transaction has a scope in which Google's corporate motto, "don't be evil", has some meaning. (I'm not asserting that Google will follow it, just that it has meaning.)

I'm going to use the game theory ideas of "cooperation" and "defection" because most people who read HN are familiar with them. There is indeed a body of opinion which holds that, in a cooperative system, the value for all cooperators of the open development and sharing of information -- even opinions; even distasteful opinions -- greatly outweighs any harm any one cooperator should fear from that information, unless that entity is actually a defector.

Google wishes to do good things to (a) invest in its own future, and (b) gain moral standing as an entity, which it (rightly in my opinion) correlates with brand effect and future market share. It has very little to fear from the opinions of any one individual, barring some vast personal influence in Washington or on Wall Street. I find it unlikely that Google -- in any decision-taking sense -- actually intends to silence the speech of critical individuals, simply because the signalling of opinion that that would entail -- the opinion about opinion sharing -- would be a self-inflicted harm that would far outweigh any possible benefit.

(It is possible, of course, that there are people at Google who share your analysis of the situation and have acted independently to express displeasure to the board.)

What the board has revealed about itself is a collective opinion which agrees with your own. The board either feels that they should promote Google in exchange for its funding, or that "the world doesn't work that way", and that they should be concerns about retaliation against Code Club by Google in response to the director's opinions. The board feels that Google will publicly defect from the system of open information cooperation, and they themselves are willing to (quietly) defect from that system in order to prevent Google's public defection.

This brings the Code Club board of directors into conflict, in general, with everyone who relies upon a cooperative system of the open and free sharing of opinions, and that is why they face retaliation for their actions.

So, that is why you might want to sponsor a group that thinks you are evil and is spreading that opinion around: because you wish to establish that you are not evil, by supporting their actions despite their words, and that they are therefore wrong.

[ed: grammar]

[facepalm]

If she thinks Google is so evil she shouldn't (indirectly) work for them.

[piokoch]

Hmm, how about journalists who write articles about companies that buy advertisments in newspapers they work for?

Are journalists allowed to write bad things about advertaisers? There are other topics they can choose or switch job...

I can't belive that Google is sponsoring Code Club totally without any gains (positive PR, for instance), so that's kind of mutual relation between Code Club and Google. If Code Club starts promoting coding worst practices (say, let's use always static methods in Java) I would expect that Google, as a partner/sponsor, would react.

Google provides a lot of valuable services, but they have also some questionable practices, I don't see any reason why someone cannot speak about them.

I guess she wasn't spreading lies about Google or offending Google or Google employees, etc. so why the "gag order". Constructive criticism should be welcomed, especially in the strongly "meritocratic" circles.

"put the organisation ahead of your personal issues/complaints" way of thinking can be really dangerous because it allows to justify evil - "because organisation/my boss" said to do X or Y I can put aside by belives and opinions.

That's start from cheating older people to buy expensive phone plans or cable TV subscriptions ($1 a month only... for first 3 months out of 24).

Then we can justify bankers talking people into bad investments.

Then we can justify selling drugs that does not help anyone (but the company invested $XXXXXXXX, so the product must go to pharmacies).

[rabc]

"Here, take all this money and be quiet about everything we do". That's not how a healthy society works.

Google are sponsoring Code Club not because they're good guys, but because they have some business interest in it.

They must be accountable for their actions, good or bad. Linda Sandvik expressed her believes as a person and she did great not accepting being silenced just because she was hurting the feelings of a big company.

[facepalm]

"because they have some business interest in it."

The business interest might be conveying a positive image of Google. So using the code club as a vehicle to paint a bad image of Google would be detrimental to the business interest. Why then should they pour more money into it?

[rabc]

AFAIK, you can express your believes as a person and don't need an endorse of your volunteer group.

[vidarh]

If someone asks for silence (and it is not clear that Google has; it could just as well be an overzealous board, so I'm not (yet) blaming Google), then I'd be inclined to grit my teeth and say I don't want their money.

Yes, it may be "for the good of the organisation" in the short term. But if you allow the organisation to be corrupted by bending to the will of corporate sponsors that are treating it as a means of buying goodwill, it is not clear the organization will deserve to survive in the long term.

I must say that if Google asked for this, then I don't think they are a suitable sponsor. It sends all the wrong signals to me for an educational charity to sell the silence of it's board members.

In any case, this has already damaged my opinion of the Code Club board, regardless whether they made this decision unilaterally or under pressure. I hope it does not damage my opinion of Google too.