From her description of her job position it seems like programming a popup to appear over twitter with a message like "Don't slack off dummy UwU" was exactly what Google wanted her to do in her job.
> As a security engineer who worked on the Chrome browser’s use within Google, Spiers wrote browser notifications so that employees could be automatically notified of the company’s policies and guidelines as they browse the internet. Spiers said that engineers regularly implement such code changes to make their jobs easier and share personal interests.
But programming a popup to appear over a union busting law firm website with a message that such and such law exists was not.
> Spiers wrote a few lines of code that created a pop-up message asserting Google employees’ labor rights whenever her co-workers visited the consulting firm’s website or Google’s community guidelines. The message reads: "Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities." The pop-up would have been visible to anyone at Google.
> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgexe8/google-fired-an-en...
> As a security engineer who worked on the Chrome browser’s use within Google, Spiers wrote browser notifications so that employees could be automatically notified of the company’s policies and guidelines as they browse the internet. Spiers said that engineers regularly implement such code changes to make their jobs easier and share personal interests.
But programming a popup to appear over a union busting law firm website with a message that such and such law exists was not.
> Spiers wrote a few lines of code that created a pop-up message asserting Google employees’ labor rights whenever her co-workers visited the consulting firm’s website or Google’s community guidelines. The message reads: "Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities." The pop-up would have been visible to anyone at Google. > https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgexe8/google-fired-an-en...