Earlier this year, Google announced it would be pulling its membership from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonprofit that has sponsored conservative state legislators and members of the private sector to draft legislation expressing climate change denial and prohibiting action on global warming. The anti-environmentalist bent of the group is a philosophy inconsistent with Google’s belief in a clean energy future; to date, the tech company has donated over $1.5 billion dollars to clean energy projects. This is not only a sizable investment, but it’s also an indicator of the company’s commitment to reversing the effects of climate change. Though this progressive move is encouraging, it begs the question of why Google was funding ALEC in the first place. For one, ALEC’s goal of developing “the fundamental principles of free-market enterprise, limited government, and federalism” sat well with the company’s political contribution criteria, which are based around the ideals of an open Internet. As Google’s break with ALEC shows, Google’s contribution policy might be too narrowly focused on one set of policy objectives not to contradict the the company’s social responsibility goals. Other companies, like Facebook, Yahoo and Yelp, who also left ALEC under the same circumstances, might face the a similar problem. Indeed, tech companies’ ties with ALEC are not an isolated incident of political contributions incongruent with company beliefs.
The tech world has recently turned a keener eye to politics, partially because politicians have forced their hand. In 2012, two pieces of legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), attempted to make it more difficult for sites to distribute pirated materials. The acts would have required companies to protect the integrity of piracy laws by not allowing links to sites that were “dedicated to the theft of US property.” Many sites and companies responded by posting links to petitions to stop the legislation. After huge uproar, SOPA and PIPA were suspended indefinitely. SOPA and PIPA highlighted for Silicon Valley what Fortune 500 Companies have always known: Business has a serious stake in politics. Building up to the 2014 midterm elections, Google, Facebook, eBay and other large Silicon Valley tech companies expanded their influence in the political sphere: Google donated over $1.43 million to political candidates all across the country, while Facebook spent $375,000 and Amazon contributed $177,000. In fact, Google’s political campaign donations now exceed Goldman Sachs’, indicating the growing tech interest in politics is now operating on a large scale. Generally, Silicon Valley companies have sought to support candidates who they believe will protect their interests in privacy, Internet access and patent laws — all things that are integral to the success of their businesses. In the past few years, donations have included both Democratic and Republican candidates and organizations. And by no means are elections the limit of tech’s dive into the political world; they regularly spend money on lobbying for key causes, a practice demonstrated by their former membership in ALEC.
However, in attempting to advance their causes in a largely bipartisan manner, tech companies have inadvertently backed causes that undercut their own social investments and are largely out of step with liberal techies back in the Valley. One prominent example is Facebook’s backing of Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens. While Olens is a large supporter of government deregulation, a favorable platform for many tech companies who favor open Internet, he has also held a hard conservative line on LGBTQ rights. Olens recently asked a federal judge to dismiss challenges to the Georgia’s gay marriage ban, claiming that the state’s heterosexual marriage laws are “premised upon the unique ability of opposite-sex couples to procreate.” But Olens is just the tip of the iceberg. Google has backed several prominent anti-LGBTQ candidates, and Facebook’s political action committee, FBPAC, has donated a total of 41 percent of itsoverall political contributions to anti-LGBT rights politicians since it was established. At the same time, Facebook and Google have prided themselves on their LGBTQ-friendly atmospheres and programs —Google calls its LGBTQ employees “Gayglers” and has been a corporate sponsor at gay pride events across the globe. In response to a California proposition banning same-sex marriage, CEO Sergey Brin claimed “it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8.” In addition, Ebay, Intel, Apple, and Facebook signed a Supreme Court brief in 2013 that stated, “Recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry is more than a constitutional issue. It is a business imperative.” If these tech companies consider marriage equality so essential to their corporate culture, they often contradict themselves in which politicians they back. Although these companies try to present themselves as diverse and accepting, they have also been complicit in the efforts of politicians who seekto dismantle the human rights advances of the LGBTQ community — missions misaligned with the reputations and values for which these companies are known.
LGBTQ rights are not the only area in which the actions of technology companies have had a questionable impact. —n environmental issues, tech companies have been downright duplicitous. Over the past decade, Silicon Valley has taken extensive steps to counter climate change and raise awareness of the issue. Google, for example, has invested over a billion dollars in various wind and solar energy initiatives to expand the use of renewable energy sources, and Apple has also taken significant steps to reduce its carbon footprint by ensuring its own facilities are environmentally friendly. Despite industry-wide support, companies continue to fund candidates and organizations in favor of environmental deregulation, ALEC being only one example of several. One in three Facebook donations to politicians went to politicians who voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, despite the fact that Facebook is a member of the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign and publicized an internal “going green” campaign in 2009. Google and Facebook also donated significant amounts to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which combats regulations on pollution. This is not to say that these companies don’t have a compelling interest for funding these organizations. Yelp, for instance, aligned itself with ALEC in order to craft legislation to protect its users who post bad reviews from Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. On the other hand, the problems with funding organizations and candidates that are opposed to company beliefs are not abstract debates and clearly have an adverse impact on the company’s mission and identity.
The most egregious hypocrisy comes in the form of Google’s support for Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. In 2013, Google hosted a fundraiser for Inhofe, widely recognized as one of Washington’s loudest climate change skeptics. In an official statement, Google said, “while we disagree on climate change policy, we share an interest with Senator Inhofe in the employees and data center we have in Oklahoma.” Although Inhofe might be a likely supporter for Google’s initiatives in Oklahoma, he will become the new chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January when the Republicans officially become the majority party, making him the most powerful Senator on climate change legislation. It will be interesting to see how Google will adjust to continue its climate change legislation lobbying efforts in the Senate.
As the tech industry struggles to reconcile its business and its politics, donations out of Silicon Valley show a true crisis of identity — and are often both contradictory and counterproductive. Additionally, many of these tech PACs’ donations don’t line up ideologically with the individuals who run them. The Democratic Party has received about 65 percent of individual donations from Silicon Valley employees as opposed to Republican candidates, who only received about 35 percent in the 2014 election cycle. When you compare this to the 53 percent tech industry PACs gave to Republicans and the 47 percent they gave to Democrats, it is easy to see that the companies’ donations are not only incongruent with their practices, but also their employees’ own political leanings.
These tech giants’ conservative ties have not gone unnoticed, and they aren’t sitting well with the Silicon Valley tech crowd. Last year, a Google shareholders meeting was the site of a “Don’t Fund Evil” climate change protest, which played off of Google’s formal corporate motto: “Don’t be evil.” Executive Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt soon after called the company’s membership in ALEC a “mistake”, and Google soon withdrew its membership followed by Facebook, Yahoo and Yelp. Not all companies backed down — eBay reinforced its decision to stay loyal to ALEC, even though it was one of 33 companies to sign a climate declaration urging Congress to take stronger action on climate change. Over 80 organizations petitioned the tech giant to reconsider to no avail.
While tech companies have figured out that their businesses have a large stake in politics, they haven’t figured out how to navigate the complexity of political ethics. Because many tech companies have largely built their reputations on community ideals, the American public must hold them to higher political standards. With more precision in their donations, the tech industry can fund politicians and organizations that align with both their business and political concerns. They just need to learn how to navigate the halls of the Capitol as well as they navigate the wires of the web.
Art by Olivia Watson.