If a business wants its employees to leave politics at the door, the business should too. If Facebook is going to have departments for government affairs, public policy, and lobbying, then it is entirely reasonable for employees to be politically active too.
Otherwise, you're basically saying corporations should participate in the political process but individuals should not. And that's exactly how we got the Earth into the increasingly shitty state it is currently in.
That's a straw man argument, just because an employee isn't allowed to bring politics to work doesn't mean they can't be politically active on their own time.
I don't think it is. If the corporation is going to be donating to groups and lobbying politicians in support of certain policies, are employees who are strongly against those policies supposed to just shut up, ignore it, and do their work?
I'm lucky that I'm in a place financially and career-wise that I can just quit and find a new job if I disagree with my company's politics, but many others don't have that luxury. Their choices are either to talk about it and try to get their company to change, or feel awful keeping quiet.
Individuals are also free to sink as much of their resources into it as they want.
The fact of the matter is political conversations have high risk of annoying/frustrating/alienating their participants. To have these conversations at work is just making employees less productive and asking for a controversy.
I'm not the parent you're replying to, but I think we're talking about two different things here.
I agree that there's no need to bring up politics in the break room (or worse, during active work) and risk alienating people. It's a bad idea, just like talking about or advocating for particular religious beliefs.
But if your company is being politically active in ways you find unethical, I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to just put their heads in the sand, ignore it, and get their work done. And not everyone has the luxury of quitting a job whenever their don't agree with the company's politics.
And you believe that people being asked to quietly do work for a company advancing politics they disagree with are going to be MORE productive? I know I'd be quietly fuming and doing minimal work for weeks after a mandate like that.
That's not how it works. The business is employing you, not the other way around. They are the ones who set the standards for behavior in the workplace, not you, the employee. If you don't like it, you are free to move on.
> The business is employing you, not the other way around.
It's a two-way street. You are providing your services to the company in exchange for compensation. It's an unequal relationship, to be sure, but the company needs employees to exist and survive.
> If you don't like it, you are free to move on.
If only life were that simple, and if jobs were so plentiful and easy to come by that people could be so picky. Sure, a lot of tech workers are in a great place financially such that they can quit in protest (and lose their health insurance, among other things), but most workers don't have that luxury.
When your company is the place the rest of the planet gather to discuss these very topics, it's not easy to not have to talk about them just in discussing what topics your platform is being used.
