The other day I hated on Facebook PAC for donating $5K to Devin Nunes, and for giving exclusively to Republican house candidates since January. I don't believe this reflects the values of FB employees, or that they're aware of it.
But tonight let's talk about Google!
But tonight let's talk about Google!
Since January 1, Google's PAC has given $30K to Republican congressional committees, who are working hard to keep progressives out of Congress, and $15K to the DCCC, which is also working hard to keep progressives out of Congress. 
Last September, Google gave $5K to Steve Scalise, who has a zero rating on LGBT issues from the Human Rights Campaign, and in 2002 spoke at a conference founded by David Duke.
In that same period, Google gave $5K to Paul Ryan, who was working tirelessly to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance.
And in early December, some Google mastermind decided it was a good idea to give a thousand bucks to Ted Cruz.
A couple of remarks on this. First off, the size of these donations (from any corporate PAC) is small, because they are limited by law. Arguably more important than the dollar amount is the signal sent to the recipient. Corporate PACs are a formalized kind of bribery.
Second, these PACs (at Google, Facebook and other tech giants) donate fairly indiscriminately, across both parties. And they operate through a lobbying arm over which tech workers at these companies have no influence.
So you end up with a company like Google is backing ferociously anti-LGBTQ political candidates, while its own employees are fighting for the rights of LGBTQ colleagues. And this is simply the publicly visible tip of a lobbying iceberg, most of which goes unreported.
The point I want to make is this—if you work at one of these companies, you don't have the choice of whether or not to be "political". Your labor bankrolls an expensive and broad political agenda. That's why we need tech workers to have a seat at the table at these companies.
With regard to corporate PACs, I think the best policy is not to have them. There is nothing good about the giant tech monopolies making partisan political donations, or paying for independent expenditures. Employees have the power to make this stop, and should use it soon.
