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Comment by randmeerkat | Hacker News Reader

I’ll take a shot at responding:

I would argue that the board wouldn’t exist without the people that make up the company. I would also argue that with monied interests and lobbyists in Washington, one of the last places that people can really effect societal change is at the work place. Companies have become the power center in American politics, so of course activism is going to rise up there.

As far as compelled activism goes, I feel that silence _is_ violence.

“The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing” (JFK, Burke, Mill...)

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It's the framing of everything in good vs evil, monochromatic terms that actually increases divisiveness and prevents deescalation of conflict. Forcing people to take one's side or else "be on the wrong side" in a multifaceted environment is not appropriate for a workplace, where people expect to be able to set aside differences to work together on work itself.

I agree. But that's not a problem inherent in bringing political issues to the work place. This is a whole different problem which exists regardless of the work place. It's the zeitgeist, it's the result of attention economy, and massive social media.

I mean it’s absolutely appropriate to take a side on certain issues. I've always refused to work on military hardware for example. If my employer started working on military hardware, I’d refuse to contribute and I would try to encourage others to refuse as well. But actually we all have things we would refuse to do. Usually it’s not an issue because both management and the workers feel the same way. Most people wouldn’t want to create a product designed to murder people for example.

The issue comes when some people are uncomfortable with work being done and others aren’t. Those who are uncomfortable are probably going to want to have discussions about it. If I was asked to contribute to a system that put people (any people) in to cages I would refuse. But that’s precisely what ICE is doing in the USA. If such a contract came up you can bet it’s something I’d want to talk about with my coworkers!

The situation with Coinbase is the opposite of what you describe. Coinbase isn't moving into new territory that its employees find objectionable, e.g. by starting to develop crypto for the military. The activists at Coinbase are angry because the company isn't moving into their demanded new territory.

Millions of Americans are unemployed, hundreds of thousands are dying from a pandemic, tens of thousands are in lines at food banks, there are children in cages, women being given forced hysterectomies, and there are literally neo-Nazis that the President refuses to disavow.

If you’re not going to take a stand now, when will you?

If you’re not going to take a stand now, when will you?

When I'm not at work.

When and where I stand is my business, but "when" is definitely not when I am at work and nobody is bullying anyone.

So what about Twitter flagging Trump’s tweets? Do you think that happened without a politicised workplace discussion? With the amount of power that tech wields over society these discussions _have_ to happen.

That doesn't require a politicized workplace. Only a mission-focused one. One of Twitter's mission could very conceivably be to attach warnings to misinformation, irrespective of what political agenda it is intended to advance.

An argument could be made that this mission is politicising freedom of speech, in that a tech company is now determining what is misinformation and what is not. This very topic was a point of contention in the congressional antitrust hearings.

A company operates in a political environment, whether or not people want to acknowledge that. Workers have real power and can advance their goals whether or not management wants to accept it. Politics in the workplace isn’t something to shy from, but to embrace. Any company that tries to refute politics will find themselves behind the curve on something they should very much so try to stay ahead of.

I don't see how a tech company being the final arbiter on what is deemed misinformation on its own platform is politicizing free speech.

Yes you could stretch any argument to categorize anything as what you want, but I think under a reasonable interpretation of 'politicized workplace', Twitter could institute a policy of adding warnings to content it deems misinformation without politicizing its workplace.

As for workers having power, yes, but the company has the right to dictate what the worker does in their capacity as workers, if they choose to stay employed at the company.

Maintaining a mission focused company that doesn't allow employees to turn the company into a vehicle to advance a political cause unrelated to that mission is good for productivity.

I am operating on an underlying principle that others may not share, but this could help elucidate why I disagree with many fellow liberals on this front:

I'm trying to solve for how decision making power is allocated without making assumptions about which side is right or wrong. In other words, the argument that "The company must do XYZ because this political cause is simply on the RIGHT side of history!" is not acceptable to me, even though I often personally agree that the cause really _is_ right.

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