Google CEO Sundar Pichai has canceled the company’s much anticipted talk about gender issues today. It was scheduled to discuss the controversy over a memo opposing diversity policies, the company said, citing concerns about personal attacks on employees from far-right commentators.The move came after some of its employees expressed concern over online harassment they had begun to receive after their questions and names have been published outside the company on a variety of largely alt-right sites.
The company meeting was called to discuss the fallout of Google’s decision on Monday to fire an engineer, James Damore, after he posted a memo on Google’s internal network arguing that the company’s dearth of female engineers was because women were genetically less well-suited to software engineering than men.
Google said Damore violated its code of conduct and his actions advanced harmful gender stereotypes.
Sources inside Google said some employees had begun to experience “doxxing” — online harassment that can take various forms and is defined as “searching for and publishing private or identifying information about [a particular individual] on the internet, typically with malicious intent.”
You can read CEO Sundar Pichai’s letter below:
Dear Googlers,
TL;DR Sorry for the late notice but we are going to cancel today’s Town Hall.
We had hoped to have a frank, open discussion today as we always do to bring us together and move forward. But our Dory questions appeared externally this afternoon, and on some websites Googlers are now being named personally. Googlers are writing in, concerned about their safety and worried they may be “outed” publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall.
In recognition of Googlers’ concerns, we need to step back and create a better set of conditions for us to have the discussion. So in the coming days we will find several forums to gather and engage with Googlers, where people can feel comfortable to speak freely. We’ll share details soon.
Over the past two days, I have had the chance to meet with so many people here, and I have read each of your emails carefully. The vast majority of you are very supportive of our decision. A smaller percentage of you wish we would do more. And some are worried that you cannot speak out at work freely. All of your voices and opinions matter … and I want to hear them.
In the meantime, let’s not forget what unites us as a company — our desire to build great products for everyone that make a big difference in their lives. I have been in a few product discussions today and felt energized by the important things we are working on. We can, and will continue, to come together to do the very best for the people we serve.
Stay tuned.
Sundar
