It's true that the world doesn't work that way, in the sense of natural law: it is neither inevitable nor predictable that one will be able to express any opinion without consequences, and as you note, were you Google, one would not be able to express a negative opinion of Google without there being any negative consequences. I have to concede this point because your own opinion on the matter might well go into a (newly opened) file marked "things I don't like about paulhaggis" that could hypothetically affect our future business transactions, as individuals; people have opinions about each others opinions, and form inferences about the other person based on those opinions.

However, there's a larger transaction going on here, in the sense of the opinions about opinion sharing that are simultaneously shared when we voice and respond to each other's opinions, and this transaction has a scope in which Google's corporate motto, "don't be evil", has some meaning. (I'm not asserting that Google will follow it, just that it has meaning.)

I'm going to use the game theory ideas of "cooperation" and "defection" because most people who read HN are familiar with them. There is indeed a body of opinion which holds that, in a cooperative system, the value for all cooperators of the open development and sharing of information -- even opinions; even distasteful opinions -- greatly outweighs any harm any one cooperator should fear from that information, unless that entity is actually a defector.

Google wishes to do good things to (a) invest in its own future, and (b) gain moral standing as an entity, which it (rightly in my opinion) correlates with brand effect and future market share. It has very little to fear from the opinions of any one individual, barring some vast personal influence in Washington or on Wall Street. I find it unlikely that Google -- in any decision-taking sense -- actually intends to silence the speech of critical individuals, simply because the signalling of opinion that that would entail -- the opinion about opinion sharing -- would be a self-inflicted harm that would far outweigh any possible benefit.

(It is possible, of course, that there are people at Google who share your analysis of the situation and have acted independently to express displeasure to the board.)

What the board has revealed about itself is a collective opinion which agrees with your own. The board either feels that they should promote Google in exchange for its funding, or that "the world doesn't work that way", and that they should be concerns about retaliation against Code Club by Google in response to the director's opinions. The board feels that Google will publicly defect from the system of open information cooperation, and they themselves are willing to (quietly) defect from that system in order to prevent Google's public defection.

This brings the Code Club board of directors into conflict, in general, with everyone who relies upon a cooperative system of the open and free sharing of opinions, and that is why they face retaliation for their actions.

So, that is why you might want to sponsor a group that thinks you are evil and is spreading that opinion around: because you wish to establish that you are not evil, by supporting their actions despite their words, and that they are therefore wrong.

[ed: grammar]