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“Bootlickers” is pretty unkind. If you work for Google, comment in public on Google stuff, with an account that says “I work for Google!”, I would say it is no

“Bootlickers” is pretty unkind. If you work for Google, comment in public on Google stuff, with an account that says “I work for Google!”, I would say it is not possible for you to remain independent, no matter what kind of spell-of-disclaiming is attached to your post. When it comes to Google matters, one either comments as a Google employee, or not at all. It comes across as distasteful to try to do wade in while waving off claims of bias with “opinions are my own” with the implication that they are unbiased. Maybe what these people mean is: I work at Google so this is biased towards them, but they didn’t tell me to write this, and perhaps I should be reading it that way?

TulliusCicero 4y ago
> I would say it is not possible for you to remain independent Good thing nobody said this, then. They're just making it clear that they're not explicitly relaying company opinion. > with the implication that they are unbiased. Nobody's trying to imply this. Obviously if you work at company X, you're gonna have at least some subconscious bias. The point is to make your potential bias transparent, so others can judge for themselves. > I work at Google so this is biased towards them, but they didn’t tell me to write this Yes, though of course the amount of bias can vary. I used to work at Amazon, and my opinion of Amazon didn't seem to significantly change when I started working there, or when I left. (Of course some people develop a more negative opinion of a company after working there, rather than a positive one)
tyrfing 4y ago
I think you're misunderstanding. It's about making it very clear that you aren't speaking on behalf of the company. It might seem like anyone reasonable would understand that, but that would just mean there are a lot of unreasonable people in the world. I'd say that a situation where you feel the need to add that sort of disclaimer generally means you should keep your mouth shut, but stopping people from talking about things they know about will never happen. In other industries, you'll find similar boilerplate disclaimers like "this is not investment advice." Particularly amusing when it is attached to even character-limited tweets.

TulliusCicero 4y ago

> I would say it is not possible for you to remain independent Good thing nobody said this, then. They're just making it clear that they're not explicitly relaying company opinion. > with the implication that they are unbiased. Nobody's trying to imply this. Obviously if you work at company X, you're gonna have at least some subconscious bias. The point is to make your potential bias transparent, so others can judge for themselves. > I work at Google so this is biased towards them, but they didn’t tell me to write this Yes, though of course the amount of bias can vary. I used to work at Amazon, and my opinion of Amazon didn't seem to significantly change when I started working there, or when I left. (Of course some people develop a more negative opinion of a company after working there, rather than a positive one)

tyrfing 4y ago

I think you're misunderstanding. It's about making it very clear that you aren't speaking on behalf of the company. It might seem like anyone reasonable would understand that, but that would just mean there are a lot of unreasonable people in the world. I'd say that a situation where you feel the need to add that sort of disclaimer generally means you should keep your mouth shut, but stopping people from talking about things they know about will never happen. In other industries, you'll find similar boilerplate disclaimers like "this is not investment advice." Particularly amusing when it is attached to even character-limited tweets.