Your bigtech employer feels no loyalty. It will lay you off without a thought. Don't give it your paycheck to contribute to Republican campaigns for pinky swear promises to not break the internet, oh wait, here comes SESTA/FOSTA! well, maybe they won't retaliate... nope, haha, lucy footballed again

Once upon a time, the deal was thus: you worked at a company until you got the Sr Eng title. You then were guaranteed tenure. If a citizen, you contributed ~1% of your salary to the company's PAC, run by the execs & DC lobbying team. Once a year you'd get invited to a fancy dinner at a VP's house.

You felt good about it because it helped ensure that the company's stock price would rise and rise, making your RSUs more valuable. and hey, the connections with VPs were nice! Sure, nobody officially was penalised if they didn't contribute to the PAC, but there were shiny supporter badges!

and they told feel-good stories about how they were able to use the influence that you bought and paid for with your paycheque to get into rooms you individually couldn't, like getting the Georgia governor to veto a horridly anti-LGBT bill in part b/c of the impact upon your company's Georgia biz.

but then Trumpism came, and suddenly your PAC's money was going to paying for far right candidates in the hope that they'd remember your company once they got into office, and also your company started lobbying for scarier anti-competitive things, and also your company started no free food, layoffs.

and none of that worked because your company got extorted and investigated for "anti-right bias" and no one returned their calls, despite the money you'd given to get them elected! then they laid you off, and the NLRB was gutted so you couldn't get an unfair labor practice complaint heard. the end.

when you think about it, PAC contributions are the opposite of union dues: they're collected from many different employees, but instead of helping those employees with a collective voice, they specifically improve the bargaining conditions of the executives with politicians. Makes you think!

Editors. I never convinced an editor to commission me to write about the Microsoft PAC. Very few reporters self assign with no sign off

heaps of comparisons btw, between the google and msft pacs. they kept scaremongering that Microsoft had a bigger war chest, and how could you possibly let microsoft out-spend, etc. bsky.app/profile/lizt...

"but who will possibly defend the freedom of the internet if *Microsoft* get their way?!!!"

What’s the news, if you happen to have a link handy (thank you!!!)

no specific news at this time.