Putting the ruckus on Apple’s Slack in context

From Ina Fried’s “Apple’s crumbling wall of silence” posted Tuesday on Axios:

The big picture: The debate inside Apple is at a lower pitch and volume, but echoes similar conflicts within other tech giants, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.

• • Google employees have spoken out loudly and frequently over everything from treatment of women to the company’s military work.
  • Amazon employees have spoken out about climate concerns, among other issues, while warehouse workers in Alabama tried to unionize to increase their say in working conditions there.
  • Workers at Microsoft have also spoken up over its work with the U.S. military and immigration authorities.
  • During the presidential election last year, several hundred Facebook workers signed a letter criticizing the decision to allow politicians to lie in paid ads without consequence.

What to watch: The big question is whether Apple’s secretive culture can bend to accommodate some additional discussion — or must fundamentally shift to keep up with its workforce’s evolving views.

My take: That Apple’s internal debates would be lower in pitch and volume than the rest of the Valley sounds about right.