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Comment by redleader55 | Hacker News Reader

Why is no one talking about the fact they locked themselves in the CTO's office and this is why they were fired?

There's this odd idea in the discourse that protest is supposed to be convenient to everyone, particularly the decision makers that the protest is meant to influence.

You see this in the "free speech zones" and other nonsense.

But it's also just simply obvious and freely admitted. They were protesting inside Google buildings, which gives lee-way for their arrest and firing.

Both sides are calculating that arrest and firing helps their cause.

There are political protests that happen in a free democratic society and protests that happen in a multi-trillion dollar capitalist corporation. I have no idea why people think they should or will be treated the same.

The Google constitution does not give employees the right to free speech or the right to stage public protests.

No but the US one does, and its the only one that matters in this particular case.

The US constitution applies to the US government. For a while, there were questions as to which parts and how much of it applied to state governments. The constitution doesn't really apply to private individuals and organizations, which is why a company can do things like ban neo-nazis from their platforms.

While it’s technically correct that the First Amendment only applies to the US government, it is also true that Americans are (or were) understood to have broad free speech rights that included all facets of life.

Were that not the case, the Hollywood blacklisting of known or suspected Communists would be a nothing-burger and not a cause célèbre.

Nobody at the time called Hollywood blacklisting a First Amendment violation. In fact, the First Amendment offered pretty weak protections for content once deemed pretty subversive, yet considered banal today, until the 1969 Brandenberg Supreme Court decision. For example, in the 1920s you could be criminally prosecuted for openly sympathizing with the Communist party and that was deemed just fine. See Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927).

It shouldn’t be lost on anyone knowledgeable of legal history that every conservative who relies on modern “free speech” principles to insulate themselves from liability for disseminating bullshit to achieve their political gains has a “liberal activist court” to thank for the privilege.

This is textbook civil disobedience. They believed they could not quietly aid an ongoing injustice, so they loudly protested in the full knowledge they would be punished. This is how protest is supposed to work.

Maybe because the article is an interview with someone at the NYC sit-in?

> KABAS: If I understand correctly, some of the 28 people fired were not actually involved in the sit in. Is that right?

> IBRAHEEM: Yeah, this was retaliation, like completely indiscriminate—people who had just walked by just to say hello and maybe talk to us for a little bit. They were fired. People who aren't affiliated with No Tech For Apartheid at all, who just showed up and were interested in what was going on. And then security asked to see their badge and they were among the 28 fired.

So is this a lie?

"Lie", "incorrect", and "incomplete information" are very different things. Ibraheem clearly believes this to be true, but that is not the same as it being so.

It seems like you are implying it is incorrect or incomplete - do you have any evidence to the contrary or context to add?

I'm not implying anything of the sort. My point is that an unsupported assertion should not be treated as a well-supported truth. All we know right now is what a single person believes.

I am not questioning what Ibraheem believes. I'm saying that statements of fact require support.

Ok, but why question only the "statement of fact" made in response to the "statement of fact" that "they locked themselves in the CTO's office and this is why they were fired?"

Why value a random HN stranger's account over the account of an employee who sacrificed a lucrative career to bring attention to this? Is it perhaps because you ideologically agree with one "statement of fact" over the other? Or is it more self interested?

I think a discourse that runs:

> Assertion one

> Assertion two, claiming assertion one requires asserter two to be a liar

is one that can benefit from being grounded a bit.

On a personal level, I do not believe that the magnitude of a person's sacrifice empowers their beliefs with any particular level of truth, accuracy, or moral imperative. The magnitude of a person's sacrifice is, in my mind, a statement only and strictly on the depths of their conviction and willingness to sacrifice. History is replete with examples of people who have sacrificed much for reasons good, bad, or just plain weird to our eyes.

This person did not bring up the lack of proof for the claim unprompted, they responded to somebody asking about the truth of the statement:

> So is this a lie?

They were responding to this, and my interpretation of what they said is: "It doesn't appear to be a lie, but we do not know if is true, as somebody can be incorrect without lying".

Do you have any evidence that Google's version is incorrect or incomplete? We are just hearing two sides of the story.

It would be incumbent on Google to disprove that, imo. There have to be like 8,000 security or phone videos of it, many of them likely on corporate devices.

It would be precisely in Google’s data-gathering wheelhouse to disprove that.

There were people who showed up to Washington DC on Jan 6, who were not affiliated with Proud Boys. Who saw the shattered windows and open doors, and decided to go for a stroll through the Capitol building. I think they just showed up and were interested in what was going on too.

People wouldn’t usually get fired for hanging out in someone’s office. All these people have after-hours access and most offices are not locked. It’s *OBVIOUSLY* not about the act of going into an office and locking yourself in or even causing a disruption to one person’s day…

Everyone's talking about it.

I'm sure if anybody locked themselves in IBM's CTO's office to protest them selling the computers used in the holocaust that those employees would have been terminated too.

And if something like HN had existed at the time - commenters would be lambasting the protesters for how self-righteous and self-important they must feel; for using the workplace to inflict their personal morals on others; for not respecting IBM's right to make money (thus paying their hefty salaries) as it sees fit; for not respecting the rights of other workers at IBM who couldn't care less about the matter, and who after all are just trying to lead their best life, you know; how no hiring manager in their right mind could afford to have anyone involved in this sort of protest on their team, etc. And how few people will notice this petty attention-seeking outburst, and surely no one will remember anything of it in a few days time, anyway.

You can be very, very sure.

Correct. People with no real view on the events in Israel get very excited to sneer at the "spoiled brat" protesters (who just willingly walked away from extremely fat paychecks). It makes them feel more comfortable about their own lack of moral fiber. The strong Zionists opposing this, I understand, but most people mocking it are just enjoying "the wokes getting owned."

People are talking about it. If they had any ideological sympathy for the protest or even a neutral bearing, it's unlikely they would've fired 28 people in response. That's a fairly extreme reaction.

> If they had any ideological sympathy for the protest or even a neutral bearing, it's unlikely they would've fired 28 people in response. That's a fairly extreme reaction

Totally disagree. If someone decides the way to get my attention is occupying my office and scribbling on my whiteboard, I don’t care how much I agree with their argument, their judgement is lacking. Especially if that is the opening move.

Google has allowed protests before without firing anyone. I'm not debating your personal opinion on protests.

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