Image Courtesy of dfarber

Google, being a company that is pretty laid back as far as what their employees can do, has done something that is definitely a first for them. They have forced an employee to stop using a social network. Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering- Vic Gundotra has been told by Google to stop using Twitter, after he allegedly tweeted making a joke about Microsoft and Nokia’s Windows Phone Partnership.

Apparently, this single tweet about the partnership got very viral and made the headlines many times. However, Google has nothing to do with Microsoft or Nokia when it comes to Windows Phone, and as far as we know they are competitors  so why Google would have a problem with a simple joke on Twitter is beyond me. Maybe this is their secret plan to get more of their employees to use Google+. The tweet was simply “two turkeys do not make an eagle” in reference to the Nokia – Microsoft partnership. Nothing too bad at all.

My Opinion

I’ve heard of companies in the past forcing their users to leave a social network for whatever reason, or simply regulating social media usage. It’s a complicated issue, and something that I have gone back and forth on as far as how I feel about it, many times. Yes, the United States constitution does have something about freedom of speech, but the truth is that only goes so far. If you were protesting a company and making obviously false statements, you could be sued for defamation if it got bad enough. So in a sense, there is freedom of speech. Yes, you can say pretty much anything you want. However, there are laws such as defamation, that protect people from the wrath of freedom of speech.

A harmless joke such as “two turkeys do not make an eagle”, shouldn’t as harshly punishes as Google did, in my opinion. Especially since the tweet was not directed towards Google in any way at all. That’s just my opinion though, there could be something more inside that never reached the internet that we don’t know about.

Gundotra still checks Twitter and Facebook from time to time. He says that he has to in order to keep inovation going at google. Obviously though, you will see him more active on Google+, go figure.

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source – BGR