When Google silences dissent, it bodes poorly for the rest of us

Well, now we know what you’re not allowed to say if you work at Google. Next question: What are the rest of us allowed to say on the Internet?

When one of the planet’s most powerful information providers stifles dissent, I find myself wondering: How long before it’s our turn?

By now, we’ve all heard of James Damore, the Google employee whose notorious internal memo, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” was leaked to the press last week.

Damore argued that fundamental biological differences go a long way toward explaining why Google has a lot more male engineers than females. For this reason, Damore argued, Google’s current policies for achieving gender equality are destined to fail, and he suggested a number of alternative strategies.

Whatever the merits of Damore’s argument, I’m struck by the fact that hundreds of the hypersmart, highly intelligent people who’ve made Google such a marvel can’t bear to be in the same building with somebody who thinks this way. These are the same people who write the code that’s supposed to generate accurate, unbiased Internet searches for billions of people. After the firing of Damore, how can we trust them to be honest brokers of information when they won’t tolerate dissent in their own ranks?

But in firing him, Google has decisively confirmed one of the key claims Damore made in his manifesto: “ . . . when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence.”

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