Inducing People’s Employers to Fire Them Should Be a Civil Wrong | Hacker News Reader

Inducing People’s Employers to Fire Them Should Be a Civil Wrong

quillette.com

77 pointsraleighm98 comments

Freedom of speech is important. Freedom of association is important. As long as we respect both we won't interfere with people freely speaking to other people's employers or employers choosing to disassociate themselves from employees as a result. Sure free speech and association can have negative consequences, they just tend to be less negative than prohibited or compulsory speech or association.

I'm not so sure. If an employer wants to disassociate from Islam and fires all muslims, why do we cover that under religious discrimination?

Why not stop discrimination over all ideologies? Maybe somebody will start a religion for Nazism.

Are you genuinely asking for an entry-level explanation of why most modern societies disapprove of discrimination on a few specific characteristics but do not generally consider "ideology" one of them? (I can provide one, but don't want to explain something basic if it's not actually at issue here.)

I'm not the poster you're responding to, and I like to think I have a reasonably good understanding of why modern societies don't discriminate on characteristics which a person can't change, and while I personally find it unethical to discriminate against someone based on their religious views, I have a hard time discerning why religion should get that protection while "ideology" shouldn't? As a non religious person I find religion both fairly ideological and something that a person can readily change, at least in a free society.

I've looked through your profile and you always seem to provide good explanations so I'd love to hear your thoughts. I hope you can believe me that this is a question asked in good faith.

Religions often run in families and have very strong sticking power, in a way that's different from a college student turning to nihilism. For many people, their religion is not very changeable because it's a major part of their identity and without it they would not be properly themselves and don't know what to do and it would cause them great alarm.

Religions are often very sticky by location or by cultural subset, so if you decide to discriminate against religions, often you're not really discriminating against someone's free thought, but just where they happened to be born and what kind of culture they grew up with.

> at least in a free society

Lots of religious people do not come from societies one would reasonably call "free".

The things you've said certainly make sense but I feel like much of that also applies to political ideology. It certainly seems to me like much of that ideology is at least partly subject to location and culture. In particular I feel that a large part of our individual ideologies are based on our past experiences and the way those experiences shape our perspective of the world at large.

Edit: If we're going to use the logic that religious views should be protected due to their inherent "stickiness" relating to family and culture, and other aspects out of one's immediate control, I'm not convinced that other ideological views are any less "sticky" and thus not equally worthy of protection.

I don't really find that ideology is anywhere near as sticky, as I've had a much easier time discussing nuances with ideologues compared to religious people, and, more importantly, ideology is just nowhere near as stand out.

You can be a communist without anyone knowing. I have a set of some very odd beliefs, nobody really knows unless they ask.

You can't quite do that with religion when you have days you can't eat meat or you can't work because you have to go to a special building or what not. Or often religion instructs you to talk about it. Ideology can stay in your head; religions (properly followed) tend to be disruptive to one's entire lifestyle, so if a society doesn't protect it, it can as well declare the religion invalid for what that's going to do to it.

Which might be what the society wants to do, but you should understand what it is that you're doing.

The specific question that prompted this was, why don't we protect Nazism the way we protect religion, and to that I'd say that I have heard of exceedingly few Nazis who have inherited it from their parents and feel the need to keep up external trappings of Nazism for the sake of family or social status. (The only example I can really think of is the Gaede twins, who renounced their mother's ideology by the time they were adults, and if you refined the question to not discriminating against minor children professing Nazi beliefs at their mother's direction, I am totally fine with figuring out a way to write a non-discrimination law about that.)

What 'projektir said - while religion is definitely changeable in theory in ways that race, gender, age, disability, etc. aren't, as a cultural phenomenon it's definitely heritable, and in particular, the parts that tend to stick are often the parts that aren't associated with ideology. If your social structure has been based around your church (or equivalent) since childhood, it's much easier to change your opinions on what things are moral or what directions a just government should take than to stop showing up. If your family goes to a certain worship service in the winter, you shouldn't face discrimination for going to that service too, and you shouldn't need to defend yourself by saying "I don't actually believe any of it" in public, for everyone including your family to hear.

(It's true that one way to solve this problem would be to highly regulate (or ban, but that's not quite necessary) religion and make sure that people's day-to-day interactions outside of worship are free from religion, with the aim of making it easier to change religions in practice. This would probably start with making it illegal for parents to take their children along with them to religious services or education. There are certain advantages there - but it would be such a huge change from existing free societies and such a huge infringement on how we currently treat religious liberty, that it's hard to say that this is how a free society should work.)

This is also why free societies with nondiscrimination-on-religion norms also tend to give partial but only partial deference to religious beliefs that conflict with secular laws. If it is important to you to have one day of the week off plus a few holy days, great, we can certainly protect your right to do that. If it is important to you that you not have to engage in war, that's fine but we'll still draft you into non-combat service. If it's important to you that you not execute certain laws as a government official or fill certain prescriptions as a pharmacist, that's also fine but you're going to need to find some career other than being an official a pharmacist.

I appreciate both you and projektir taking the time to respond to me, everything you've said makes a lot of sense but I'm still left with some additional questions. It's way past my bedtime and I don't think I can articulate my questions very well at this time and I'll probably come off sounding like I'm trolling, which I certainly don't want to do since you took the time to type out such a well reasoned response. Do you perhaps have any suggestions for further reading on this topic that I could do on my own time? Keep in mind I'm not particularly smart or well read, but I'm definitely interested in exploring this topic in more depth.

For the sake of productive discussion, let's narrow 'modern societies' to the United States since 1964 (when Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed). In 1965, the Supreme court held (in United States v. Seeger) that:

'The test of religious belief [...] is whether it is a sincere and meaningful belief occupying in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those admittedly qualified for the exemption.'

So a non-religious person like yourself can have their 'ideology' legally protected from discrimination, as long as it passes the same 'sincere and meaningful' test that other protected religious beliefs do.

So the key to answering your good-faith question is in the definition/scope of 'religious' belief. A 'religious' belief (in this narrow context of US Title VII law) must meet a higher standard than a more general 'ideological' belief in that it must be both sincere and meaningful, and I would argue that a sincere belief meeting this higher standard is, by definition, not 'something that a person can readily change'.

This is a pretty great explanation for me, your last point is something I hadn't considered before and definitely gives me a lot to think about. I wish I was able to more meaningfully engage with you and the other posters here but I feel I'm always so far out of my element.

But why can't I make religious jokes at my workplace, if my ideology requires fighting religion, and the most acceptable place for it is lunches at work?

Religious accommodations are not required by law if the employer can demonstrate that granting them would impose an 'undue hardship' on the conduct of the employer's business, which in this case would be liability for claims of religious harassment.

Stumbling by prayer rooms in tech companies is an insult on my world view, but I doubt courts would let me call it harassment.

Not to mention me having to pay for them indirectly.

Let us apply the standard to mentioned example: Nazism.

> it must be both sincere

Yes.

> and meaningful

Most certainly yes, considering the millions that fought for and against it.

> a place parallel to that filled by the God

Ultimate goal of purification.

Charismatic and visionary leader.

Integrated New Testament and writings by Martin Luther as holy texts. John 8:44, Cleansing of the Temple, Luther's On Jews and Their Lies

Aryan/Nordic chosen race. (Compare: Jewish chosen race.)

"Sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the 'common good'" (Compare golden rule, and religious communes.)

> not 'something that a person can readily change'

Often yes. (Though I do take issue with this one, given that conversion is the most talked about religious experience there is.)

The courts don't disagree in general principle. In Peterson v. Wilmur Communications [1], the courts held that "a follower of the World Church of the Creator, an organization that preaches a system of beliefs called Creativity, the central tenet of which is white supremacy" (more or less a 'religion for Nazism') was protected from religious discrimination because the "Creativity functions as religion in his life; thus, Creativity is for him a religion regardless of whether it espouses goodness or ill."

[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/...

Late to the party here, sorry didn't reply earlier.

So, you do support laws banning religious discrimination but support discrimination against say white supremacists?

The major reason people don't support lgbt rights is because of religion. Koran and old testament explicitly speak out punishments for homosexuality. Koran also says that for apostasy. Would you protect hateful speech against lgbt rights or athiests? If not, how are you determining the "true Islam" or "true Christianity"? Should we silence only the ideas you deem undesirable?

Religion is a sticking power, sure. But so does casteism, white superiority, racism etc. It is not easy to change ideologies (just like religion) and I don't think we want a government to actively ban any speech on them (if not calling for violence).

I'm sympathetic to the example and idea, I guess I feel like it ... depends on the situation.

Let's say you're running a coffee shop. One of your servers posts a lot of racist stuff about minorities on twitter and it comes to light.

You want your shop to feel welcoming to all customers, keeping that person on is clearly untenable, potentially even a risk for the business to survive.

Granted the article at the end does take a more measured approach compared to the title that seems a bit absolute.

Is it really?

If nobody coming to the shop feels threatened, if the server's attitude towards the customers is not racist, if nothing that the server is doing in their private life is affecting your business, should you really be bothered?

Because, it feels to me, that once we give in to our imagined fears, we are only a few steps away from becoming what we feared.

Still can't believe Brendan Eich was hounded out of Mozilla.

That's where IMO things get complicated.

Mozilla presumably has or would have gay employees. Meanwhile here is a guy running the company supporting a cause to limit a specific group of employee's rights to marry.

That's no small thing, it's not some generic labor dispute, it's a very specific action that is specifically targeting a group of employees legal rights regarding marriage.

I think there is a legit leadership problem there.

> Meanwhile here is a guy running the company supporting a cause to limit a specific group of employee's rights to marry.

Specifically, he donated $1000 to Prop 8. If you're going by that standard....literally the majority of California is ideologically unfit to lead.

Obviously the majority of California did not donate.

I do think a lot of people are in fact unqualified to lead.... being CEO is a very different job.

What do you think is different between donating and voting in this case? If you think it is legitimate to have a promotion ceiling for donators to a particular political side, why not voters?

I wouldn't know how he voted, perception for a CEO is kinda a big deal. Plenty of leadership type classes are out there talk about all sorts of behavior and such, .. imagine asking in one of chose classes:

"Hey what if I financially supported a cause that would restrict the marriage rights of some of my employees, but not others?"

What do you think they'd say about his leadership there?

> If you think it is legitimate to have a promotion ceiling for donators to a particular political side, why not voters

I feel like the other post you're over generalizing to the point of irrelevance.

> Obviously the majority of California did not donate.

Donating and voting are the same, in that both are actions of people harboring views that are (supposedly) at odds with effective and fair leadership. Of course, donations make the inability known, whereas by only voting, the inability is real but unknown. I can't say for sure which people voted for Prop 8, but can say that most people are ideologically unqualified.

> I do think a lot of people are in fact unqualified to lead

Naturally only a small percentage of the population are qualified across the board to be CEO of Mozilla.

But that's not what's interesting. What's interesting is that most Californians have political views outside of the realm of acceptability for CEO circa 2014.

I'm not sure I've ever thought that qualifications for being a CEO have to be shared by most or some of the population....

I've never thought that most of the population qualifies to be a big tech CEO.

I've also never thought that the ballot box would one of the majority-disqualifying criteria.

But I've learned.

By that logic should leadership fire those who support gun control? They are, after all, removing (what to some) seems a constitutional right.

I'm not against gun control, but the argument here isn't a slippery slope one. This is very close to believing or not in gay rights.

If it was gun control specifically targeting people based on race, sexuality, etc then yes.

I think the idea that even legally we look at things differently when they're targeting a specific group is pretty well established and the difference in your example lies there.

You seem to be proposing a standard based solely on discrimination.

I doubt that is the standard you mean to propose.

If someone say, ardently supported removing virtually all rights to free speech, in your mind does that fit into Prop 8 unacceptability or gun control acceptability?

I don't quite understand your question. Why does your free speech example have to fit ... some other situation?

Sorry, that was poorly worded.

> If it was gun control specifically targeting people based on race, sexuality, etc then yes.

I think the "specifically targeting" aspect is an odd choice of standard.

You're saying if a CEO advocated for restricting gun rights for everyone, that would be acceptable.

If a CEO advocated for restricting free speech for everyone...would that too be acceptable?

Little note ....

The Constitution does not grant rights. It protects natural rights inherent to man.

The Constitution also limits the govt... not the people.

I think that if you donate to pro-gun-control causes and a significant number of your employees own guns that you wish to ban ownership of and find it personally important to own those guns, you might be a poor choice of CEO.

(Gun control isn't quite analogous here for a few reasons, one major one being that employers care a lot about who you marry, for insurance and family-leave reasons, and employers tend to care little about what guns you own. But if you can construct some situation where, I dunno, you interrogate employees about their guns or they want to open-carry at work, it's a little closer.)

Remember that nobody cared about Eich's views when he was CTO. He could have remained CTO for years, and the question of his suitability as chief executive wouldn't have arisen.

> employers care a lot about who you marry, for insurance and family-leave reasons

Employers don't care who you marry; they care if you marry. Although, those matters are related.

Similarly, employers doesn't care if you or others own a gun; they care if you are alive and healthy. And those matters are related. [Insert debate here about the direction of that relationship.]

> Employers don't care who you marry; they care if you marry. Although, those matters are related.

Sure. And if you are married to someone of the same gender, you reach the situation where the question of if you are married has different answers to different people.

Or more precisely, your employer doesn't care if you are married, either; many states had processes for extending insurance benefits to either registered domestic partners or unregistered people that you just state an intention to live with long-term in a marriage-like way. Your employer cares that the social good promoted by insuring a family and not just the individual employee is a) actually being used when appropriate and b) not being used contrary to their wishes when not. If the employee's and employer's idea of social good and social ill are at odds, the employee should think twice about whether this employer is a good long-term (or even short-term) place for them.

The fact that this question arises with a significant number of Mozilla employees made Mozilla and Eich a poor match.

> the question of if you are married has different answers to different people.

No one has a different answer to this question.

This isn't baptism. If one group could have one answer and another group could have a different answer, there would have no need for Prop 8, et al. The conflict arose because there is only one answer to which people have entered into a state-administered legal contract.

OK, fine, let's be even more pedantic. The question is whether you should be able to get or remain married to someone. The purpose of Prop 8 is to make things that were previously recognized as legal marriages no longer legal marriages. If you're in one of the affected marriages and your CEO is trying to cause your marriage to become invalid, you may not share long-term goals.

(I can't tell, are you disagreeing with my point or just picking at the words I'm using to make it?)

> trying to cause your marriage to become invalid

FYI, the validity of existing marriages was never really on the table.

> I can't tell, are you disagreeing with my point

I'm disagreeing with "gun control isn't quite analogous here for a few reasons".

What if a leader opposed gun rights, thus removing employees' ability to protect themselves? Or what if a leader supported gun rights, thus making employees' communities more violent?

What if a leader opposed abortion rights, thus imposing an inappropriate level of control on women and their bodies? What if a leader supported abortion rights, thus showing a fundamental disregard for human life?

What if a leader supported minimum wage, thus showing a poor grasp of economics? What if a leader opposed minimum wage, thus hurting his employees financially?

What if a leader wanted increased defense spending, thus recklessly endangering the well-being of the world? What if a leader wanted decreased defense spending, thus recklessly endangering the well-being of the world?

What if a leader has Communist sympathies?

Or let's bring it back to marriage: What if a leader supported rights to polygamist marriage? What if a leader opposed rights to polygamist marriage?

The usual response to this is "Well, OBVIOUSLY X is the right thing." Despite the fact that the country at large does not have anything resembling consensus on these issues. (Just as the supposed "obvious" answer to Prop 8 was evidently very non-obvious to most Californians in 2008.)

I am distinctly not claiming "Obviously X is the right thing." I am claiming that if a leader believes that obviously X is the right thing, and a significant number of employees believe that obviously !X is the right thing, and the issue is likely to affect the productivity or long-term happiness of employees, the leader is a poor choice. This claim does not in any way express an opinion on which of the two groups is right. (Also, the poor choice may still be the best of the available choices.)

In that case, I suppose I don't see that as a surprising or really even noteworthy occurrence.

Statistically speaking, it is very likely that a CEO's political views are at odds with half of his employees.

I didn't say it was surprising or noteworthy. Brendan Eich is one of literally billions of people who are ill-suited to be CEO of Mozilla.

> I didn't say it was surprising or noteworthy

I don't think it's noteworthy that a CEO doesn't vote the same way as some employees; I think it's notable that a CEO was fired for it. How many companies have done that?

> billions of people who are ill-suited to be CEO of Mozilla.

Specifically (and this is really important -- you can't leave this out) because of their political affiliation.

So, no one that believes that should be employed?

You can belive anything you like.

If you're a CEO you're naturally raising leadership questions if you're donating money targeting the marriage rights of some employees.

This perspective frames the issue too narrowly, though.

Eich did not donate to Prop 8 because he hated his gay employees or whatever. He donated because of his beliefs on marriage. Marriage holds a important place in our society, and for good reason---we're animals that reproduce and live in families, not atomized immortal legal entities. If you believe there is something special about the relationship between a man and a woman specifically---and this doesn't seem like a very outlandish idea---then marking that relationship out, giving it a unique name, seems appropriate. It was not about "limiting the marriage rights of his employees" so much as giving a definition of what the term "marriage rights" even means.

This conversation requires a lot of trust and empathy on both sides and is very likely to go wrong, which is why Eich didn't go rubbing his employees' noses in it. Once someone views something as their right, it becomes a very sensitive thing to suggest that, uh, maybe it's not. And remember that this isn't about "You can't tell me who to love" (could anyone stop you?) but "you can't deny X legal status to my relationship."

Yeesh. I still don't want to touch this with a ten-foot pole.

It turns out that there are strong beliefs around a quasi-religious-legal institution with millennia of history.

Beliefs about homosexual marriage, adoption, marriage of minors, shared property, divorces/annulments, parental rights, polygamist marriage, etc.

What we need is stronger rights for the worker. At the moment the employer holds all of the cards and enjoys the fact that we can be let go for silly social riots like this.

I wonder what reasonable rights we can have to protect workers. At will employment sounds like a good idea on paper (employee can quit anytime they want), but it is assymetric, especially when large corporations are involved (employee is easily replaceable and so impact of quitting is less on corporation). Perhaps we should have at will employment for small corporations and then private unions for larger corporations? The unions will increase bargaining power of employees which could mitigate the issues brought up in the article.

I debated this with a co-worker the other day. His opinion was that no matter what the reason for firing an employee, the employer can always justify it by citing performance or budgetary concerns. So the protections would be rendered useless.

How's it work in Norway? They usually do a good job of making Americans look silly when we say "that can't work because..."

Timing with the social outrage would present some difficulties. Also presumably this stuff crosses someone's desk and they email someone else and there starts the paper trail for the worker's lawyers.

...citing performance or budgetary concerns...

In the UK, where I ran a business and employed people, you need a small mountain of paperwork, collected over a fair period of time, to show that you tried in good faith to remedy the situation with the employee (in case of performance). Budgetary concerns also carry a heavy burden of proof. It really is a difficult and time-consuming path. Most medium and large companies choose to bypass the whole thing and offer a "compromise agreement", essentially "we give you x months pay right now if you sign this agreement where we mutually agree not to sue, or talk bad against eachother, and you GTFO right now".

There is a significant risk of something called "constructive dismissal" meaning you made it unreasonably hard for someone to be effective in their workplace, that is decided by an employment tribunal. As an employer, the system is undoubtedly a burden, but as a human, I always found I could live with it. I had one instance where it was open-and-shut grounds for instant dismissal, and I still had to spend 4 months going through the process to ensure I was fully covered and not liable to some tribunal action. That sucked, but in the end there are many large firms that will fuck over employees without a second thought (USA style), and employees need protection from that.

Although employees don't get those protections if they've been working for the company for less than 2 years (unless the firing is discriminatory as defined in the Equality Act), and bringing a case to Employment Tribunal is fantastically expensive and thus not common.

For a completely different perspective, I want to raise a few points, in no specific order.

I don't believe having laws that make people hard to fire is the right solution, because a healthy relationship with your work is absolutely critical for a fulfilling job. In essence, jobs should be mutually voluntary and easy to terminate with reasonable terms and notice.

I think what is more important is that there should exist sound social infrastructure and safety-nets that affords employees better negotiation power. There is nothing that makes you weaker in a negotiation than being desperate for the transaction.

Let's face it, we are headed into a new era and a new industrial revolution that is going to make millions of jobs obsolete.

If this sounds too much like an argument for Universal Basic Income, it is not because it is intended to be, it is because UBI may be after all the right solution going forward.

> a new industrial revolution that is going to make millions of jobs obsolete

Just like the last one.

> jobs should be mutually voluntary and easy to terminate with reasonable terms and notice.

I agree with you on that. But that's not what we have right now. The entire US (IANAL) is At-will employment. Which means that you can be let go for nearly any reason. There are no safety nets that will protect you if you're in the right. (I.e. The employer didn't want to hold their end of the bargain on vacation time when it's "unlimited pto")

Having an internet mob going after you because you made a silly comment off the job on Twitter or that you don't agree with the current political climate is not a reasonable reason to fire someone.

This is a fear of mine since an employer can fire you for basically any reason and just cite a compliant reason on paper. This is why I find it very hard to extend a relationship with an employer beyond anything other than work and I don't like being forced into recreational activities with my team.

This mostly comes down to employment being too important and an unbalanced relationship between the employee and the employer. If the relationship was more balanced, "you said something questionable on Twitter" just wouldn't really be that compelling.

I think this is an effect, but not a solution. The harder answer is we treat others the way we would want to be treated if the roles were reversed.

I'm not sure how "we should treat others better" can be implemented in practice? That seems to be in the same bucket as "people should be smarter".

> I'm not sure how "we should treat others better" can be implemented in practice?

This is an honest question from you, but to some it might seem like a no-brainer. I think a lot of it has to with personality types.

I think you're right on the power math, but I don't think addressing a social issue with social mobs like this ... is solved by addressing some sort of employment power balance.

"We'll get you fired!" only works because people have reason to be really afraid of it. People are just pulling a preexisting lever. They might, of course, find some other lever to pull, but this is a very convenient and accessible one.

I still think the solution you're asking for is working from the effect on up, that's kinda backwards and would likely have naturally unintended consequences.

You mean compared to the current "unintended" consequences of the majorly imbalanced relationship between employee and employer?

I think you're trying to use the wrong reason to address a different issue.

See my previous post.

Employer-employee disbalance is already an issue, and it is worth asking if it wasn't present, if this situation would happen at all. This is not the first and the last problem caused by that disbalance, and for anyone observing, stuff like this is old news. There were the teenagers with drunk selfies, no mob required. Lots of very random stuff can get you fired that does not involve Twitter mobs and it all comes back down to the same thing. Note that the title of the thread is "inducing employers to fire them", and explain to me how that statement makes any sense outside of a very imbalanced relationships.

You might disagree with this statement overall, but it is the one I am making.

I was fired for nonsense two years ago and am homeless now, as of June. (I said something that could be construed as sexist and violent when written down with flair). I'm Tweeting the most flagrant stuff I can think of to get attention. I'm being warned now that it may hurt my employ-ability... which is more attention than anyone paid when I privately emailed about being wrongfully terminated and needing work for 18 months. Kind of ironic.

Tomorrow will be my first day at a Day Labor line... my latest Tweet storm is about taking illegal immigrants' jobs and making their babies starve; offering for my former employer, OpenTable, to give $200k worth of food vouchers in their crusade against bigotry (my old compensation :).

I'm looking forward to meeting my next employer who takes all of this as seriously as I do.

Indeed. I think harassing people because you disagree with their political, religious, favorite flavor of skittle, etc is nasty. We need to have some class as the entire country is running towards identity politics like it's a good thing.

Unfortunately, in-group preference is like a primal instinct. People will pretty much always (sub)consciously treat you differently if you are different. This is why I prefer not to work for companies where everyone is "like family". They tout a "strong company culture" but, to me, it sounds more like "if you aren't one of us, we'll find a way to fire you".

I agree. It is human nature / instinct to get all tribal and such.

Someone had a great quote that I'm going to screw up big time here, but it was something like, "Every civilization is invaded by barbarians, they're called children."

Now as a parent it is amusing, but I belive the quote really was intended to note how children aren't born making good decisions or making decisions that support a community or civilization. Rather they must be taught to resist the negative instincts in order to maintain society.

> There’s another issue here, too. Why do employers not stand up for an employee in the face of mob pressure? My own theory is that it comes down to “corporate branding” and the way in which an individual’s “personal brand” is thought to mesh with the employer’s “corporate brand.”

This is the key point in the article IMO. Companies could shrug off these online mobs with a simple "none of our business" (and they have done so plenty in the past). Nowadays, however, every company is working its way into completely unrelated social causes simply for marketing, and employees must bear that burden whether they like it or not.

On the one hand people have a right to free speech, on the other hand, they should not leverage their jobs or positions when making controversial comments so as to associate their employer with those words.

Of course, this position is frustrated by there not being a clear cut distinction between work persona and private persona.

Ideally, with a platform like Twitter, you'd have two personas, one tied to your employer or professional life, one tied to your private persona... For example, Rosanne or the people in the article.

Some people do separate their personal and work lives/personas. They are still at risk when malicious actors work to "doxx" them and force that connection to be made in the public space despite the honest attempt to compartmentalize.

This is true. But I mean it should br sicially acceptable to have at least the two. That’s not to say people should not push back on odiousness, but the pushback should happen on the account conducting the odiousness; hopefully with some community policing. In other words there should be some modearation, even if by a sympathetic group to ensure it does not become too extreme.

Democracy is a function of many variables. "An average high intelligence of population" and "high tolerance for seemingly outrageous ideas" are important ones. Humans have rigid belief-systems (comfort zone) and show very little capacity to step out of it.

In the current form of democracy, freedom of expression exists only when it is convenient for masses or when the elites need to push an agenda.

People like to go for the jugular when topics like these are best tread delicately.

I'm sure the reporter in the sorry feels passionately about his position but if you use strong right/wrong language someone will probably end up feeling offended and get defensive.

>Hitler as an example in an argument about a modern day political debate.

Huh? What would this prove? Doesn't this happen already? Are you not aware of Godwin's law?

If someone isn't ready to face the consequences of being of shunned professionally or socially, all they need to do is stop being a terrible person.

https://xkcd.com/1357/ sums it up quite well.

Define "terrible person" and I might agree with you. Somehow, I don't think you'll be able to do it.

If we're going to play the quote-xkcd game, this one is relevant too: https://xkcd.com/137

I very much agree. I do not at all think people should self-censor nor hide under the guise of anonymity. They should stay true to their beliefs.

However, if those beliefs are one of a terrible person, as judged their local social and professional networks, then they should be prepared for the consequences.

I'd be careful prosecuting anyone for beliefs that are not tied to conduct. People need broad latitude to develop and should be given latitude to have evil thoughts, truly believe in them, and eventually reject them without fear of punishment.

However, once those beliefs leave your head and alter your conduct or others perceive that they can alter your conduct, then you are responsible for what you get.

Attacks may and have been fabricated out of the blue.

"When a Stranger Decides to Destroy Your Life"

https://gizmodo.com/when-a-stranger-decides-to-destroy-your-...

But that is already a civil wrong, and would be covered by defamation law.

Glad to see Quillette come out against free speech.

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