You obviously didn't read her blog post where she stated the following:
"This kind of code change happens all the time. We frequently add things to make our jobs easier or even to just share hobbies or interests. For example, someone changed the default desktop wallpaper during the walkout last year so that the Linux penguin was holding a protest sign. The company has never reacted aggressively in response to a notification such as this in the past. It’s always been a celebrated part of the culture."
No, the kind of code change she committed has never happened before. A change in desktop wallpaper is not the same as a change in a security extension.
The fact that other employees have participated in pro-employee activism and not been disciplined speaks to that. Some things are fine, some things are not. Abusing security software is not.
Sharing a cute desktop background is inappropriate but it's only a picture on a background, misusing an internal security mechanism for your own pet activism when visiting a harmless website is a totally different tier of unprofessionalism.
Do you activism in your personal time. Don't use important company resources used to protect employees from harm to push your slogans. Regardless if those slogans are legally legitimate statements in a normal context, like handing out a leaflet on the edge of the property.
This is about Google. Apparently their company culture has been the opposite, and they have commonly had lots of political discussions on company time using company resources.
For the millionth time, it was not a general message display tool. It is a security tool to flag domains that run the risk of data leakage and malware. Trying to hijack a security extension to turn it into a general messaging platform is both stupid and bad for security.
>Correction: a warning not to break federal labor law, which Google is actually required to provide.
Labor law requires that those notices be posted somewhere in a prominent place employees are likely to see. They definitely don't require them to be posted in arbitrary places at any employee's choice.
She was protecting employees from harm. Illegally interfering with protected concerted activity hurts the company, and an employee doing so is likely to get fired quite legitimately.
(Furthermore, the laws about protected concerted activity specifically permit you to do your activism at work, not just on your own time.)
"This kind of code change happens all the time. We frequently add things to make our jobs easier or even to just share hobbies or interests. For example, someone changed the default desktop wallpaper during the walkout last year so that the Linux penguin was holding a protest sign. The company has never reacted aggressively in response to a notification such as this in the past. It’s always been a celebrated part of the culture."