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Comment by einhverfr | Hacker News Reader

In the EU, freedom from discrimination on the basis of political opinion is considered a fundamental right, and is mentioned as such in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Private conversations about politics thus is entirely outside the scope of what the company is allowed to care about. Public comments, for example on global email lists, would be a different topic.

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> Public comments, for example on global email lists, would be a different topic

If I understand Google's stance, that's what it's about.

And to Alphabet's defense, if it is exclusively aimed at disruptive behavior then that's fine. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

From the article:

> Google is also building a tool to let employees flag problematic internal posts and creating a team of moderators to monitor conversations on company chat boards, a spokeswoman said.

Though the article's headline is remarkably unclear, it's apparent that Google is focusing on the written word on company equipment.

Political opinion is a very strange protected class, and protection of it seems unenforceable to me.

The issue was that tying political opinion to jobs was what the Fascists did in the 1930s. So it's kind of a "Never Again" category. It isn't entirely enforceable but companies cannot use it to fire people based on private conversations about politics. This has come up a few times where I work actually and the answer is the same. That's off the table.

I assume "political opinion" as in "the way you vote", not so much speech about politics (which would just be protected by rights protecting speech.) Even in the US, you have a right to voting in a way that's protected from others' observation.

Or, to put it another way: if you want to hold a political opinion, and then express it by voting, but otherwise keep it completely secret from your community... that's your right.

Private conversations are protected. So even in Germany if a report to me confides he admires Hitler I can't fire him for that. If he says so on a public channel, that is different (and depending on what is said might be criminal, but that is a time/manner/place restriction).

But the goal is to hold private political discussions as much as possible above economic retaliation.

A useful way to think about this is that the Supreme Court ruled the state cannot punish someone for advocating genocide in the abstract at a KKK rally, not because advocating genocide is somehow a natural right or that free speech is absolute, but because the government had previously exceeded its authority by going after political dissidents (particularly Communists) using similar logic. So free speech protections in the US for hate speech are a reaction to state abuse in the context of the US.

In Europe the abuses were different so the protections are different.

No stranger than religion, when you think about it. Both are completely arbitrary (a personal choice), people get very emotional and defensive about them, and they seem irrational if you don't share the beliefs.

Conviction is a better word than choice. People don't have a choice if a god exists or if rent control works as intended.

They have convictions and these things are either true or false at the end of the day. It's not purely a matter of preference.

Debating politics all you want outside of work.

Yeah, it is what my colleagues and I often do over lunch break. Since it is a break, it is outside of work, right?

Try that argument next time you invent something on a lunch break and want the patent assigned to you :)

Try making the argument that the invention was developed purely over the course of lunch

The larger problem is that the IP assignment clauses are way too broad in the US. When I worked at Microsoft I had one that theoretically covered everything I wrote regardless of when, where, or on what devices. As an hourly worker, though, Microsoft was never going to exercise that due to overtime issues.

I rechecked my contract and under the terms of the contract, if it is specific to my work at my employer, they could claim it, but frankly we prefer to release everything that isn't specific to our industry open source anyway, so.....

I just checked my contract again. If the patent is outside the scope of my work activities, and I don't write up the application while I am at work, I don't see how they could claim it.

But then Americans have these funny "all your intellectual property are belong to us" clauses in work contracts....

Its worth noting my colleagues and I have very different political views when we talk over lunch but I find it very insightful to see different views and we are all on good terms over it all. And I think we do think about eachother's views and we do try to build common ground, so frankly I find it healthy.

The American political spectrum is way bigger than the political spectrum in most European countries. There's a lot more potential for deep disagreement in the US when people talk politics.

I'm American and I've had plenty of political discussions on polar opposite political sides at work or with colleagues at a bar or wherever. There's two lines that should not be crossed: the obvious one is threatening someone's job due to politics, but the more nuanced one is mistrusting someone professionally based on their political affiliation or opinions.

I suspect some on this discussion are also conflating political discussion at work with this incident: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/business/google-women-eng...

Sure, it's "political", but more importantly it's discriminatory and therefore unacceptable on many other levels.

What part of Damore's memo do you think was 'discriminatory' in an 'unacceptable' way? Please be specific, because this is into bizarro-world territory from my point of view.

I read it and saw an attempt at proposing policies to increase female representation based on a collection of science papers about differences in behavior between men and women.

>The American political spectrum is way bigger than the political spectrum in most European countries. There's a lot more potential for deep disagreement in the US when people talk politics.

Ummmm....

The entire American political spectrum fits in the center-right of most European countries' political spectrums.

When was the last time you saw a political discussion between a Socialist, a Social Democrat, and an old-school Christian Democrat?

Here's how I describe American politics to Europeans:

In the US we have two political parties. We have the Democrats which you know as the Liberal party.

And then we have the Republicans which you know as the Liberal party.

Yes, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama would be in the same party in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, etc.

> Yes, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama would be in the same party in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, etc.

You're getting downvoted but I'd like to register that I agree with you: they'd both be social-democrats, sitting on the center-right in my opinion :)

>Yes, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama would be in the same party in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, etc.

Not surprising at all, Romney and Obama were so similar I didn't bother voting in the 2012 election.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012

Then there's Trump, who would be in one of the newer right-wing populist parties, and the religious fundamentalists who wouldn't fit into any party in most European countries.

In policy matters, Trump would still be in Liberal. He isn't threatening to ban importing tropical fruit for example, and he is far more hostile to the idea of a safety net than is the Danish People's Party.

There's no way he'd be in a classical liberal party. He has, at times, said he supports universal government-provided healthcare, and he favors heavy protectionism, both of which put him at odds with liberal economics. His erratic, right-wing populist message would also not fit with a liberal party.

> The American political spectrum is way bigger than the political spectrum in most European countries.

It has both fewer signficant dimensions and narrower range on those dimensions; it's much smaller, not bigger.

Also centered further to the right, on the left-right axis that is the most significant axis of variation in the US; the whole range on that axis with any substantive representation in the US is about center-left to the solid right.

Elizabeth Warren would be center-right in Europe.

Bernie might be center-left depending on country.

The problem is not the spectrum, I believe, it’s the people. People, for some reason, specially educated ones, cannot handle disagreement. My country had a Red & Blue battle that lasted years, where each party would kill members of the other party. At least now there are more parties and candidates you can align with, but I still think parties are the most stupid thing ever: You will never agree a 100% in everything (and if you do, you’re really weird or probably devoid of criterion), so what’s the point? Deep disagreement comes from passionate people, not from any political spectrum. If you cannot keep your passions somewhat in check, you’re just a time bomb.

And what happens when you have a global company setting itself up as the gatekeeper of information and of ranking information by truth value? What of such disagreements then?

"Bigger"? You guys have two parties, one of which is right/far-right and the other is just regular center/right. Parties on most countries on our side of the pond generally range between fascist and communist with at least half a dozen more in between those, not to mention that each differs in other axii too, like the level of cosmopolitanism.

I think that can work for a small group at lunch, and it's great to see. The problems begin on large faceless email/message groups, where the dynamic is less personal.

Good luck proving that political differences were why you were fired.

It's also very easy to fire someone in the US compared to many other countries.

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