Google employees are being encouraged by colleagues to keep silent on President's Trump provocative tweets because they think it will get 'spun' by the far-right press

• Since President Trump tweeted directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichaion Tuesday, making sweeping allegations about the tech giant's suppression of right-leaning content, internal message boards have been mostly quiet on the topic, multiple current employees tell us. 
• One reason for the relative silence, one current Google employee who's helped with employee organizing movements in the past said, is that they've been "encouraging" fellow colleagues not to react publicly. 
• "I feel it's extremely likely that anything anybody says internally on this subject will be shared with the far-right press and spun in a way that reinforces the existing narrative," the employee organizer said. 
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Google's internal message boards are typically buzzing with conversation about hot-button issues involving the company.

But when President Trump tweeted directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday, making sweeping allegations of political bias by the tech giant (and describing Pichai himself as an ingratiating smooth-talker), Google's employee message boards were strangely calm. 

"I have seen some short remarks, but nothing of substance," one current Google employee, who's helped with employee organizing movements in the past, told Business Insider on Tuesday.

Another current employee said they hadn't heard of anybody on message boards talking about the president's provocative remarks, which were prompted by a "Fox and Friends" interview with former Google employee, Kevin Cernekee, who accused the company of having a conservative bias. 

One explanation for the relative silence, the employee organizer told Business Insider, is that they've been "encouraging" fellow colleagues not to react outwardly.

"I feel it's extremely likely that anything anybody says internally on this subject will be shared with the far-right press and spun in a way that reinforces the existing narrative," the organizer said. "I've been encouraging people not to react."

That narrative - of a liberal Google intentionally silencing conservative viewpoints on its search platform - has been reinvigorated with the president's tweets on Tuesday. Those tweets come on the heel of Cernekee's remarks, which accused the Silicon Valley giant of bias against Trump and explicitly altering the way its service works to block the president winning a second term in 2020. 

"We are watching Google very closely!" Trump warned in one of his tweets. 

But experts say the claims are without merit, and many Google employees privately say they've grown tired of the on-going accusations about the company by right-wing conspiracy theorists.

"I think a politician talking negatively about Google isn't surprising to anyone here," said a third current Google employee. "We're a big target." 

On Tuesday, Google told Business Insider that the statements by Cernekee, who it described as a "disgruntled former employee," were "absolutely false." 

Read more: Trump goes after Google CEO Sundar Pichai in tweetstorm, says the tech giant is being watched 'very closely'

The employee organizer who spoke to Business Insider said that so far, they've only seen messages that acknowledged Trump's tweets from today, rather than any of the impassioned debates that often break out on the corporate channels. The source, however, said there were "thousands of mailings lists so it's hard to be definitive" that the tweets haven't provoked any internal discussions.  

Tweets inspired by Cernekee

Cernekee, who was the subject of a recent profile by the Wall Street Journal, claims that Google fired him in 2018 for his conservative viewpoints. Google said Cernekee's termination came as a result of multiple policy violations, including unauthorized downloads of confidential information.

Cernekee told The Journal he denies those policy violations. He also said in the report that he considers himself a "mainstream Republican" and rejected alt-right viewpoints, including the promotion of white supremacy. 

On Monday, however, The Daily Caller revealed that in 2017, Cernekee had petitioned fellow colleagues on Google's internal message boards to raise money to find the culprit who punched white supremacist Richard Spencer in an on-screen interview. 

"It would be a nice gesture," Cernekee wrote, according to the report. 

"For over a year, I have seen the alt-right try and work their influence at Google, infiltrating mailing lists, infiltrating Google's culture, and even trying to infiltrate Google's product decisions," Mike Wacker, a self-proclaimed conservative and former Google engineer said in a 2018 internal email, obtained by CNBC. Wacker, who was also fired by the tech giant, called Cernekee the "face of the alt-right" at Google. 

Cernekee, who found himself at the center of President Trump's recent tweetstorm, denied the alt-right associations to Business Insider on Tuesday, saying, in part: "These are false and baseless smears from a jealous and vindictive ex-colleague. I have always supported free speech and opposed white nationalism." 

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