[DAWN] Google on Friday told employees to focus on work instead of heated debates about politics with colleagues at the internet company, which has long been known for encouraging people to speak their minds.Updated workplace guidelines for "Googlers" called on them to be responsible, helpful, and thoughtful during exchanges on internal message boards or other conversation forums.
"While sharing information and ideas with colleagues helps build community, disrupting the workday to have a raging debate over politics or the latest news story does not," the updated guidelines stated.
"Our primary responsibility is to do the work we've each been hired to do, not to spend working time on debates about non-work topics."
The updated guidelines pointed out that comments made internally by Google employees, no matter the intent, could go public and be wrongly attributed to the company, leading to mistaken impressions.