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> I think even internal criticism of companies should be considered free speech and protected as such.

I think you misunderstand what free speech is: it simply means the government can't arbitrarily prevent you from saying whatever you think (well, most of it anyway, you can still go to jail for saying certain things).

We're talking about corporations and individuals here, no free speech laws apply. It's perfectly legal for a company to restrict what its employees can talk about publicly (within certain boundaries, e.g. whistle blowers, ...).

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I know this is the logic the Twitter police use to chase people from jobs, but its certainly not true.

Mill argued free speech should be protected in all cases for two great reasons. The first being that one never really knows if something is right or wrong. Many scientific have turned out correct that were disallowed initially. Secondly, even if a view is wrong it acts as a foil to the correct view. People learn a greater appreciation for the truth by seeing the bad examples. This acts as natural selection for ideas.

Yes, certainly. But not American companies; not companies that purport to have American values. The principle of free speech was incorporated into our constitution, not because the idea started and ended there, but to push an American ideal into Government unequivocally. The ideal exists outside the constitution.

A private company can suppress free speech; it can perform searches and seizures on its grounds; it can profile and discriminate and have pay inequality. But it cannot claim any moral high ground. To say "at least we don't violate the letter of the constitution" is a shamefully low bar.

> A private company can suppress free speech; it can perform searches and seizures on its grounds; it can profile and discriminate and have pay inequality. But it cannot claim any moral high ground.

I don't think any company has ever tried to make such a silly claim. If they fire someone, it will usually be because that employee broke the terms of their employment contract which nobody forced them to sign in the first place.

Right. Employee agreements that suppress free speech are kind of the subject of this thread.

That's the whole point: employee agreements do not suppress free speech. It's legal nonsense to claim that they do.

If you define free speech as 'that part of the American value that is embodied in a Constitutional amendment' and take it no further. Be fair.

Especially if they sign NDAs, which I am sure every Google employee signs

If a NDA or any contract clashes with the law its null and void - you cant sell you self into slavery or sign away statutory rights for example.

> I think you misunderstand what free speech is

I think I understand it better than you. I am arguing about moral principles here, not law. That's a different level of discussion (you cannot meaningfully discuss legality if you don't recognize the moral principle from which you are starting).

And I think that free speech (that could be roughly called "right to criticize in public", because if the speech is not being critical, then no one cares) should apply to corporations and individuals too as subjects. The reason is I don't really care if I am getting screwed by government or not.

The idea of "government" that should be subject to free speech but not other institutions leads to contradictions, because what is government doesn't have a good definition. For example, if the institutions is government owned, then you can criticize it. If not, then you can't, even if it would be exact same institution. Or you can consider the opposite case, where the government is effectively owned by foreign multinational company. What then?

I therefore reject the notion that the ownership structure should determine what can be criticized. I believe everything that is unfair, or inefficient, should be possible subject of criticism, even in public, from anybody. Because that's how you actually improve institutions, governmental or not.

> I think I understand it better than you.

I'll challenge that, especially when a few sentences later, you say:

> you cannot meaningfully discuss legality if you don't recognize the moral principle from which you are starting

There is absolutely no connection between laws and morality. Zero.

Laws tend to be derived from attempts at improving the general happiness and survivability of the society but the fact that laws and morality tend to overlap is a coincidence, especially when morality is such a vague notion that nobody can agree on.

Beyond that, it is absolutely possible to meaningfully discuss legality without ever mentioning morality.

Laws tend to be derived from attempts at improving the general happiness and survivability of the society but the fact that laws and morality tend to overlap is a coincidence

What defines "happiness" and welfare is itself heavily rooted on morality, so that statement is self-contradictory. Hell, the idea in itself that "happiness" is something to strive for is a moral concept.

And while nobody can agree exactly on the morality of every single action, people do have broad agreements about moral principles: it's what defines most religions.

> What defines "happiness" and welfare is itself heavily rooted on morality, so that statement is self-contradictory. Hell, the idea in itself that "happiness" is something to strive for is a moral concept. And while nobody can agree exactly on the morality of every single action, people do have broad agreements about moral principles: it's what defines most religions.

Not all, it's the exact opposite. Religions are the worst guides for morality.

Happiness is much easier to derive broad consensus about, simple things like health is preferable to sickness, alive is preferable to dead, safety is preferable to harm, etc...

This is simple consequential ethics, which has guided society for millennia. Societies that follow these simple principles thrive, those that don't wither out and die. And you don't need any knowledge about morality to achieve it.

Whether religions uphold good or bad moral codes is inconsequent to my point, which is that they demonstrate the existence of broad agreements about morality between millions of people.

This is simple consequential ethics, which has guided society for millennia. Societies that follow these simple principles thrive, those that don't wither out and die.

Those principles you're talking about are exactly the principles that asgard1024 mentioned; and that "societies that follow [them] thrive" is exactly why legality is rooted in morality - be it consequential ethics or not.

And you don't need any knowledge about morality to achieve it.

How can you have "broad consensus" without knowing what you're consenting? I think you're trying to separate "consequential ethics" from "morality", but that makes no sense, because as a normative ethical theory, "consequential ethics" is morality.

> "consequential ethics" is morality.

Which morality?

I think allowing homosexuals to marry is beneficial to society but I'm pretty sure that a huge majority of religious people disagree with that because they choose to follow the teaching of a book instead of following consequential ethics.

Yes, there are different moral codes. So?

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