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Comment by intopieces | Hacker News Reader

Even if it wasn't an accident -- even if he saw the Tweet, and on behalf of Marriott and in full intention of broadcasting such, he clicked "Like" on this tweet, it's completely insane he would be fired for it. The tweet exhibits a positive sentiment. I would not expect most people to know that this sentiment matters to China.

This is another example of China exerting influence on the open web, and it's shameful that we have ceded leadership to China like this.

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It is not that hard to imagine being fired by "clicking" likes, let's not oversimplify like this. Official tweeter accounts carry weights. Plus this is not about China at all, what if this is a Nazi tweet? An ISIS tweet? An anti-LGBT tweet? It's either the company's way of dealing with PR problems, or the employee's misconduct, but not about China.

A dictatorship like China raising the issue over Tibet is the equivalent of (an alternative universe) powerful Nazi Germany getting someone fired in the U.S. over liking a tweet about Jewish rights issue.

WOW that escalates quickly. I thought the Americans liked capitalism.

We're currently having a nationalist/populist period.

> I thought the Americans liked capitalism.

Depends from which account they accidently "liked" it.

American here.

Not often.

That’s a terrible analogy. It’s more like the Nazis getting someone fired for liking a tweet about Austria or Czechoslovakia still being a country.

Surprised this is being downvoted. Example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/tibetan-tells-of-ch...

> what if this is a Nazi tweet? An ISIS tweet? An anti-LGBT tweet?

Say "oops" and unlike the tweet. If it keeps happening, maybe you've got a problem.

> Plus this is not about China at all

Am I misunderstanding you? How can you say this story is not about China?

First, it is about China. In fact, I think an ISIS or Anti-LGBT tweet getting liked would be less likely to get someone fired! Marriott is concerned about the Chinese government shutting down their business for a nation. an ISIS/anti-LGBT tweet getting liked would piss people off, get explained away as an obvious accident (especially if the employee were to explicitly apologize and explain themselves) and we'd move on.

The Gods of Chinese Empire apparently do not tolerate slights.

This behavior of greedy Western corporations playing ball with China is flat-out embarrassing.

Thought experiment: a Russian multinational, Gazprom maybe, likes a campaign tweet for “Free Alaska.” How does it come across in America?

President Trump tweets "my big red shiny button bigger than Gazprom CEO's shiny bald head!", a thousand verified twitter accounts blast him for bad international relations. Across the American web many different opinions are raised, debated, trolled, and flamewars rage for a couple of days. Someone posts an image edit of President Trump swinging his tiny hands at a caricature of Putin. There are cats. Nobody at Gazprom gets bothered at all by this.

> Nobody at Gazprom gets bothered at all by this.

Ahh, there's the unrealistic part. Unless by "bothered" you specifically mean "bothered by government personnel"?

A more appropriate example would be the Crimean annexation, which only a handful of countries recognize.

Also IIRC a lot of these companies are state-owned or owned by Kremlin-friendly oligarchs. Not really a private corporation.

It’s a completely different issue though; there’s already a lot of built up politics regarding Tibet in China.

It’s ignored because Free Alaska is not a thing.

If it became a thing in Russia, would that count?

> The tweet exhibits a positive sentiment

Not if you are the Chinese government... not at all.

> This is another example of China exerting influse on the open web

This has nothing to do with the open web, there is not censorship involved. This was Marriott's business relationship with China.

Employees in social media teams should not be clicking LIKE in anything. It’s too risky to the business, and it conflates your personal preferences with corporate business goals.

You cannot be yourself on social media anymore. You just have to be inactive, a fake, or pretend to be like what the echo chamber asks you to be.

He wasn't being "himself". He was an employee of Marriott Incorporated, doing the job he is paid to: publicize Twitter users who paint Marriott Incorporated in a good light.

Just a quick note that you probably mean "conflates" (combine two or more texts, ideas, etc. into one) rather than "conflagrates" (a conflagration is 'an extensive fire that destroys a great deal of land or property.')

;)

You are right! THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME something. (Fixed it)

Have a great weekend!

Clicking 'like' on tweets positive toward the brand is a common job for employees in social media teams. Making connections around the brand is the whole job of those employees. (Not saying whether or not he should have liked this particular tweet, or whether it was an accident or whatever—just that it's common and part of the job to like a tweet.)

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