Google CEO cancels diversity all-hands meeting, cites employees concerns about safety and online privacy

CNET

Google was set to hold an all-hands town hall meeting yesterday at 4 p.m. but was cancelled at the last minute. According to the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai, the meeting was cancelled because several employees have expressed concern about being harassed online with their questions and names being published outside of the company. Google is currently facing a diversity-related controversy when one former Google engineer argued in a 10-page manifesto called “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” that biological differences between men and women are the cause of the gender gap at Google and in the tech industry in general.

Already, conservative pundit Milo Yiannopoulos published Twitter biographies of eight Googlers who criticized the memo. Pichai in a memo to his employees says, "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 [those recommended by an app for attention] 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." 

Pichai promises they’re going to find a different way to discuss these issues plaguing the company. Google isn’t the only one facing a diversity issue. This has long been an issue with Silicon Valley companies.

Source: CNET