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Google Silences LGBTQ Employees Ahead of Tomorrow’s Pride Marches. Employees Want Google Banned.

Danielle from Leaf and Core
Reading Time: 5 minutes.

Faded Google logo in front of a faded backgroundIf you’re an LGBTQ YouTuber, you’ve likely faced two serious problems. The first is from the community. It’s harassment. Vile comments and hate speech on your videos. Maybe you’ve even been doxxed. You also likely faced demonetization. That is, YouTube has prevented you from putting ads on your videos because they consider them “inappropriate” for dealing with LGBTQ topics.

Both are faults of YouTube, a company owned by Google. They refuse to censor hate speech and harassment while simultaneously censoring LGBTQ speech.

The harassment on YouTube reached a head recently when Carlos Maza, a gay Vox journalist, created a video showing all the hate speech and harassment he was receiving from one YouTuber, Steven Crowder. It was targeted harassment and hate speech, over multiple videos. It lead to Crowder’s fans to dox and harass Maza online and offline. Crowder was even selling T-shirts with an anti-gay slur on them through YouTube’s platform. Instead of banning Crowder, or asking him to remove the videos where he called Maza slurs and harassed him, they instead decided to allow the hate speech on the platform.

Obviously, LGBTQ YouTube users and LGBTQ Google employees aren’t happy with YouTube’s pro-hate decision. YouTube censors hate speech against other targeted groups, they even warn users about the dangers of anti-vaccine ideology, but they refuse to ban targeted harassment and hate speech when the target is the LGBTQ community or an LGBTQ individual. This is despite such harassment and hate speech being against YouTube’s usually strict rules on the matter.

Now, before Pride, Google has banned their employees from marching with Google unless they fall in line. As a result, Google employees are asking San Francisco Pride to ban Google. SF Pride, however, has chosen not to do so.

Google Bans Pride Protest

https://twitter.com/Tri_Becca90/status/1143265475561791488

Google upset the LGBTQ community during the worst month of the year to do so. It’s Pride Month. Towards the end of Pride Month is when two of the largest Pride marches are held. The two cities in the U.S. perhaps most well known for their LGBTQ communities are San Francisco and New York. San Francisco is a popular city for both LGBTQ people and tech companies, making its pride a large, and often corporate, affair. NYC also has a thriving LGBTQ community, and started Pride. The Stonewall riots in NYC began the gay rights movement. Both of these cities have Pride marches tomorrow, the last Sunday in Pride Month.

Both will feature protests of Google’s awful treatment of the LGBTQ community.

However, don’t expect anyone marching with Google to carry signs that call for equality, an end to harassment, or an end to hate speech on Google’s platforms. Instead, you’ll see many smiling, waving people. These will largely be people who fear for their jobs or straight people who did not join the LGBTQ rights protest.

Google’s LGBTQ Pride floats will largely be straight people or other corporate apologists.

This is because Google has banned all protest or criticism of the company during the march. Google seems to have forgotten that it’s a Pride march, not a Pride parade, because we are still fighting for our rights and safety. For Google, this is a recruitment and marketing stunt. However, by turning their backs on the LGBTQ community, and by banning all criticism, LGBTQ people and allies instead see Google as an adversary to LGBTQ rights now.

It’s funny, Google is in favor of “free speech” when it’s hate speech targeting LGBTQ people, but not when it’s their own employees, critical of their hateful positions.

Ban Google From Pride

In response to Google’s abhorrent choices, LGBTQ employees asked SF Pride to ban Google from marching. A company that actively enables and empowers anti-LGBTQ hate speech and harassment, while vilifying LGBTQ people, has no place at Pride. Google has no place at Pride.

“We, the undersigned, employees of Google (and related companies YouTube and Alphabet), urge you to revoke Google’s sponsorship of Pride 2019, and exclude Google from representation in the San Francisco Pride Parade on June 30th, 2019.”

– From the Open Letter to SF Pride from Google Employees

Over 100 Google employees signed an open letter to SF Pride asking them to ban Google. It states that the employees have exhausted all efforts to work with Google. The company would not change its position and it would not allow employees to protest.

Why Won’t SF Pride Ban Google?

Photo: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images

Money.

SF Pride, like many city Pride marches, has become a corporate entity. It’s no longer about marching. It’s not a public event. It’s not about protests, free speech, or equal rights for LGBTQ people. It’s instead just about advertising money. Corporations pay large sums of money to sponsor Pride and get a float in the march. Of course, this means individuals can’t march down the street, but must instead stand in the packed crowds along the side of the parade.

Google is one of SF Pride’s largest sponsors. They’re not going to ban Google and potentially have to refund them just because they don’t respect LGBTQ people. There’s a lot of money on the line, and supporting LGBTQ people comes in second after that money, apparently.

Pride is now about selling rainbows, not getting equality for LGBTQ people.

Corporate Money in Pride?

On one hand, corporations at Pride increase LGBTQ visibility. It shows young children that they can be themselves. It gives people confidence. I’ll admit, I stood atop a corporate Pride float last year, and will do the same tomorrow. I know I’ll be helping my community with visibility, and it always warms my heart to see so many LGBTQ people and allies standing together. After hiding my sexuality for most of my life, I’m finally free, and seeing so many other people who are now free is one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever lived.

On the other hand, Pride should still be a protest. Google isn’t the only company taking an anti-LGBTQ stance. Politicians in this country are trying to legalize discrimination against us, even if it could cost us our lives when it comes to healthcare. Trump is attacking transgender people, and focusing on transgender children. Republicans are trying to roll back all the rights we’ve fought so hard for, and right now, they’re winning. Pride should be a protest. Maybe not a riot, but certainly a protest.

I’m conflicted. I know the corporate nature of Pride means bad actors like Google get to pretend to support the LGBTQ community, all while condemning us and permitting harassment and hate speech on their platforms. On the other hand, I remember being a little gay girl, telling herself that there must be other girls who like girls. Staying awake at night and through naps trying to figure out what I was. Perhaps if Pride was a little bit more corporate back then, I would have know the term “lesbian,” and that it’s perfectly normal. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent much of my life so afraid, sad, and lonely.

What Google Employees and You Can Do

 

 

Google employees are planning to break away from the company’s Pride float, staging their own protest. This will leave Google with a float that is empty, full of scared LGBTQ people, or full of straight corporate sycophants. No matter what, it will not be a representation of Pride.

You can call attention to Google’s insulting stance on LGBTQ people. Write articles. Share tweets. Hit them with a hash tag. If you’re at Pride and you see the Google banner flying, boo them. Carry signs. Make sure Google’s attempt to tie dye their hateful stances does not work. Make sure they wasted every penny they spent on Pride, trying to buy our good will. Make their pro-harassment and pro-hate stances known.

Then go switch your search engine to a different one. Perhaps Bing or DuckDuckGo. Try using Vimeo instead of YouTube. Use Here Maps and Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. Get your transit directions from Citymapper. Trade your Android phone in for an iPhone. Shut off your Google Home. Protest. Write. Sing. You don’t have to do every one of these things, but do something. Every little bit will force Google to address their hateful positions.

Also, don’t let SF Pride live this down. They chose corporate profits over LGBTQ rights and safety. The corporate takeover of Pride has gone too far. Reclaim Pride for LGBTQ people. Attend Pride planning meetings. Ensure that no anti-LGBTQ company can again try to buy their way into our good graces. Be part of the solution.

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