Because Bird is big a enough company that the people calling the shots feel responsible to the organization, not responsible for the organization and it can be

Because Bird is big a enough company that the people calling the shots feel responsible to the organization, not responsible for the organization and it can be argued that "preventing rumors and back-channels" is good for the company. This kind of change in thinking happens to almost all organizations as they grow and takes a lot of effort to avoid, it's not unique to VC funded startups though that environment certainly makes it harder to prevent. Edit: Just to be clear I'm not defending Bird or absolving them of blame, I'm just describing how these things can happen.