In 2012, Koch Industries faced a wave of bad publicity for sending a pro-Romney mailing and allegedly "stifling workplace political speech." In the midst of their feel-good "We Are Koch" campaign, one would think that Koch Industries would refrain from overtly mixing business with politics.
As of 6/8/2015, Koch Industries' official Facebook page contained a comment with 55 likes expressing the commenter's belief that "liberals simply aren't bright enough...to work for Koch...I'm seriously not kidding!" Until recently, the parent post (with this comment displayed) was actually pinned to the upper right of their page. Meanwhile, the company's Glassdoor profile prominently reflects that "controversial political views alienate some" while the company's own spokesperson is quoted as saying the "We Are Koch" campaign seeks candidates who are the "best and brightest" and "share our values."
Facebook allows brands to moderate their official "pages." While the Koch Industries page appears to have been heavily moderated to remove critical posts, the Charles Koch Institute page actually contains a published complaint about the admins' moderation policy:
CKInstitute complaint about moderation policy
Evidently, the moderators of the KochIndustries page did not see fit to remove the popular anti-"liberal" comment even as they promoted and pinned the post (to where it received 1,339 total likes):
Offensive comment directed at "liberals" not only wasn't deleted, it received 55 likes and the parent post was temporarily "pinned" by Koch Industries' social media team.
(Note that one of our members had to remove his own profile image from this file. Otherwise, it has not been edited.)
According to a published report from 2012, Koch allegedly retaliated against an employee for being "too political". InTheseTimes reported on the "culture of fear" at Georgia Pacific and one particular episode of alleged retaliation:
When [Travis] McKinney applied for a foreman job at the plant in May, he says, his supervisor informed him that a higher-up said he wouldn’t get the job because he was “too political.” “They said I should be aware of what I am posting online,” says McKinney. A subsequent August evaluation of McKinney [PDF] noted that “supervisors feel Travis gets caught up in the politics of the day which can be distraction.”
McKinney says it wasn’t hard to deduce what they meant. He was quoted in the 2011 Nation article I wrote with Mark Ames, talking about how the Kochs pushed their libertarian “Market Based Management” principles on their workers to such an extent that the dictums were even printed on employee time cards. He had posted that article and other political articles about the Koch brothers online.
It should be noted that the company declined to comment on the specific allegations made by McKinney in their written response to InTheseTimes.
The company's message is loud and clear: they only want the "best and brightest" to apply to Koch--clearly that doesn't include any "liberals." Perhaps, the company should be more explicit in its "We Are Koch" TV ads that their vision for "We" excludes roughly half the country.