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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely right. Saying “don’t talk politics at work” seems to assume that politics is something that goes on on the outside. A stream of news on divisive topics.

In reality, politics happens everywhere and you can’t really avoid talking about it.

“Don’t talk about politics not relevant for the workplace” could be reasonable (most poltics is after all not related).

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To me this (news not your comment) sounds like a very slippery slope. What happened to freedom of speech? And who is to decide what is "political" what is not?

As long as speech is not offensive, I think it should be protected.

> As long as speech is not offensive, I think it should be protected.

Speech that isn’t offensive usually doesn’t need protection.

Isn't that the case here? A company is suppressing all speech about politics?

What happens when people start taking offense at opposition to affirmative action? Or take offense at disapproving of putting biological males with male genitalia that self identity women in women's prisons? And conversely, plenty of conservatives take offense at gay marriage. Whose offence counts?

This is akin to the idea that you don't need privacy unless you have something to hide. Freedom of speech is important, but at the same time, so is the responsibility of a person to his team and community to maintain a minimum level of politeness and empathy. That entails understanding that some people are affected by some political issues significantly more than others, and that it might be intimately tied to their working situation.

A person's privilege to speak out about issues facing them in the course of their work is to be protected, irrespective of it being offensive.

The text of the 1st amendment discusses the Congress not passing laws that abridge the freedom of speech. It’s origin is for a people’s right to protest the government without retribution from the government. It has nothing to do with private actors having rules about what happens in their private property, and for good reason — that would unduly restrict a persons freedom to enjoy their property.

So prohibiting discussion of politics in the work place is legal I get it. But "freedom of speech" is more than a law. It is an ideal. Just because it is legal to prohibit speech does not mean it is a good idea.

I would say that an employer that prohibits free exchange of ideas is not "open minded". I would not want to work for such an employer, without getting paid extra for having to work under such dire circumstances.

All speech is protected or none of it is. Offense is subjective. It's useless as a measure of what to protect.

>> What happened to freedom of speech?

It still exists. Gitlab does not infringe on your freedom of speech. The government does.

It is definitely true that Gitlab doesn't infringe on my freedom of speech, since I don't work there. But what are you referring to when you say "The government does"?

That you can sign an NDA and it’s not a limitation of your freedom of speech (for example). There are thousands of situations were there are things you agree to not say.

Anything you agree with some entity that isn’t the government doesn’t count as infringing your freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is a narrow legal thing. It’s not “I can say what I want when I want it”.

Agree - and workplace rules shouldn’t be “don’t talk about X” but rather ”please avoid talking about X unless strictly necessary.

Sounds good, more like "speech etiquette".

It could also be phrased in terms of "Everyone has a right to decline to talk politics". If people agree to talk politics I don't see problem, except of course it can lead to lower productivity perhaps.

So then maybe all non-work-related speech should be forbidden? That just sounds inhumane.

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