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Comment by mandragon | Hacker News Reader

Was the agent fired for writing something specifically, or simply for signing up for these networks?

"The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency was distressed to discover this morning, January 25th, that one of our agents has been using the social media platforms Gab and Parler. We do not condone this activity, and we apologize to anyone who has been affected or offended by this," De Chiara wrote. "The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency has in the past and will continue to ensure a voice of unity, equality, and one that is on the side of social justice."

The unstated assertions that a person simply visiting Parler or Gab is a form of harm to others is astonishing.

Astonishing, and disturbing

From the pattern and other things I've seen from employers, it seems likely to be a response to particular content complaints where the specific content is something the employer doesn't want to draw more attention to from anyone who hasn't seen the initial complaint.

Colleen Oefelein's posts on Gab and Parler are publicly available and appear to be nothing more offensive than reposts of her tweets. I don't think that there is any more than meets the eye here. Her announcement that she was using the offending platforms was enough to raise a twitter mob against her to put pressure on her employer. More here:

https://reclaimthenet.org/literary-agent-fired-gab-parler/

That's what I'm wondering.

I signed up for a Parler account when it first opened, just for a bit of curiosity and research. Found it to be a total cesspool, never posted anything.

People should be judged for the actual opinions they express, when taken in the context of the totality of their character. But I definitely wouldn't support the shunning of somebody simply for signing up for a free service.

Heck, as a software developer and one who dabbles in activism, I've signed up for way "worse" sites than Parler. Waaaaaaay worse.

The language follows a pattern I've seen before where complaints were raised about specific content posted on social sites but the employer didn't want to draw additional attention to the detailed subject of the complaints from people who hasn't seen the initial complaints.

All of Colleen Oefelein's posts on Gab and Parler were public, and were merely repeats of her posts on twitter.

The agency statement doesn't mention specific posts, but that doesn't mean they don't exist... Feels like there's /probably/ more here than we're hearing. There's plenty of space to be loudly outraged on the barest shreds of information, though!

Meanwhile: There's presumably a lot of very free* speech in the Parler data dump, connected to people's verified accounts, which could easily be finding its way to employers, who in turn get to decide how they want to handle it.

* racist, treasonous, violent, etc.

Right now, on /r/opendirectories, there is a dump of videos and pictures from parler that was hacked. Are there racist scumbags on Parler? Yes. Does that justify the disclosure of family pictures, and presumably a lot of NSFW content that is in every social network?

Speech is speech. Think about the limits you want carefully. Especially if it starts with the thought that a particular ideological or ethnic group excercising speech should result in them "getting whats coming to them"

In this case, as the statement made clear - it's not speech that is the problem, it was that she choose to speak at all, that was the problem.

Wait, didn't Reddit have a policy against publishing "hacked information" just about two months ago?

Let’s just say that Reddit is unequal in their application of rules.

"but that doesn't mean they don't exist."

Guilty until proven innocent.

We people wringing our hands on the internet do not necessarily have all the information to judge what's going on here. We have a very thin article with a tiiiiiny shred of information about people we have otherwise never heard of.

This whole discussion is a great encapsulation of mindless, reflexive outrage on hacker news.

According to the article it appears she signed up and actively encouraged others to join as well explicitly for the lack of censorship.

"In a November 12 tweet, Oefelein invited followers to join her on the conservative social network, which she described as "a great platform with no censorship." Oefelein suggested earlier this month that she may also use the far-right social networking site Gab."

The fired agent also said:

"Well thanks Twitter and @JDLitAgency," Oefelein wrote. "I just got fired because I'm a Christian and a conservative."

Which makes me suspect that she was writing political stuff with her real name on Parler/Gab, since Parler/Gab are not inherently Christian sites. (and theoretically aren't inherently conservative ones either?)

Should people lose their jobs for being Christian, conservative, and the slightest bit vocal?

Of course not, I'm just saying I wasn't aware Parler and Gab were christian, conservative websites, so it doesn't make sense for the agent to claim she was fired for being christian/conservative when the reason provided by the employer was that she was on gab/parler unless she was being political on those sites but not political on twitter or w/e.

Hard no. If she was literally fired for the social media equivalent of wearing a cross or having a Trump bumper sticker? If so, I think we would agree that's wrong.

However there's quite possibly a lot more to it than that.

Christianity is not inherently evil but (like all major religious texts) the Bible uh... lends itself to multiple interpretations, to put it mildly.

Surely we can agree that a lot of heinous behavior over the years has been justified by the perpetrators in the name of religion. I'm sure those folks felt they were presecuted "just for following their religion" as well.

Parler, at least, despite initially claiming to not censor anyone/anything, went out of its way to censor/block people in opposed groups.[0] Parler's CEO bragged about blocking trolls, which he identified as those attacking Christians or conservatives.[1]

Of course, the most politically-conservative Christians I know are not on Parler nor Gab, but they're also not Trump supporters, which seemed to be the real reason people went to Parler/Gab. That's an unsupported assertion on my part, but seems consistent with my observations.

She wasn't fired because she's a Christian and a conservative. She was fired because she was active on two sites tied to attempted insurrection. It's a bad look for the agency, but IMO a worse look for Oefelein.

0. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr...

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/06/27/parlers-f...

Are people still peddling the hyperbole/lie that this was an attempted coup? https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/06/why-this-wasnt-a-coup-c...

Yeah, very annoying though almost not surprising

I think it's worth pointing out what a "hot take" that article is. It was written on the day of storming itself, and published at 5:54 PM, before the announced curfew had even started (and before some details about the government response were revealed[0]).

The Naval War College professor being interviewed in the article basically argues that unless the military is involved, it isn't a "coup", by definition. That would make the phrase "military coup" redundant, and contradicts the Merriam-Webster definition[1] which characterizes it as:

> a “sudden decisive exercise of force in politics,” but particularly the “violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.”

By the professor's logic, even if a president were to explicitly command his followers to storm the Capitol, eliminate his political opponents, and destroy the certifications of the electoral votes he had lost, allowing him to stay in power illegitimately, that still wouldn't be a coup (or a self-coup, presumably).

In any case, another article[2] on the same site makes the opposing case:

> It’s undeniable at this point. The United States is witnessing a coup attempt — a forceful effort to seize power against the legal framework.

Admittedly it was published even earlier than the other article, but it had been drafted in response to discussions which had begun before the protests had turned violent, vindicating the author's position.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_St...

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/01/13/insurrection-coup-and...

[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/06/coup-america-capitol-el...

I used the word "insurrection," not "coup," but yes, it definitely was an attempt at both. Bad articles notwithstanding, upcoming federal trials ought to make that clear to those who participated.

> Are people still peddling the hyperbole/lie that this was an attempted coup?

It's neither hyperbole nor a lie.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/06/coup-america-capitol-el...

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