In this Tuesday, April 18, 2017, file photo, a conference worker passes a demo booth at Facebook's annual F8 developer conference, in San Jose, Calif. Facebook Inc. reports earnings Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
Buried in a larger piece about how companies are handling employee relationships in the wake of the #metoo movement—the upshot: they're reexamining their relationship policies and, per one lawyer, "drawing a hard line in the sand" about those in plum positions dating subordinates—comes an interesting dating nugget.
The Wall Street Journal reports on a particular part of Facebook's policy: Employees are permitted to ask a co-worker out once, and if the answer is a no—and even an ambiguous or gentle-seeming one, like "Oh, I already have plans Friday night"—they aren't permitted to ask again.
The Journal reports that Google shares the same policy, but Gizmodo says it spoke with a Google rep who clarified there wasn't a formal date-request count set in its policy.
Reaction to the tidbit was varied. Breitbart News calls the policy "dystopian." At Slate, Susan Matthews calls it a "quietly radical" policy. "At its heart, the policy echoes the principles of affirmative consent that so often get their college-age adherents mercilessly mocked—that consent should be energetic and unambiguous." (This first date allegedly ended extremely badly.)
This article originally appeared on Newser: Facebook Has an Interesting Dating Rule
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