8 ms·

In two words: bite me. there aren't too many things that i'm a raving aboslutist about, but the freedom of political speech is one of them. If my employer att

In two words: bite me. there aren't too many things that i'm a raving aboslutist about, but the freedom of political speech is one of them. If my employer attempts to step on my neck for saying things about china that china doesn't like, on my time, and my personal accounts, their next contact from me will be from an ACLU lawyer.

thereare5lights 7y ago
AFAIK, political speech is not protected against employer discrimination.
- goobynight 7y ago
  If it isn't explicitly not protected though, there could still be a fun case to deal with.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    For precision's sake, it should be pointed out that it is explicitly not protected in a lot of cases. This is due to the fact that a lot of people sign papers that they never read when they start at many corporations. The correct play here, is to get the word out that people need to review every single paper they sign and line out the clauses that allow dismissal for bringing yourself or the company into public disrepute. People have to understand that they shouldn't be just signing away their rights like that. The ACLU can't protect you if you've signed these kinds of contracts.
- dfhfkslhhj 7y ago
  It would be good if it were though. If employers were unable to do anything about an employee's political speech, then China would face the choice between isolating itself economically, or tolerating criticism.
- LocalH 7y ago
  That's honestly part of the problem. Increasingly, every single right that we have that was enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has been encroached upon by the government via workarounds and loopholes (see: Commerce Clause).
  - willis936 7y ago
    If it’s such an issue then surely a larger federal government is the solution.
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    Government encroachment of these rights has always been a problem, but the real issue is that America tries to nurture two systems within itself: a liberal, democratic government with correspondingly enshrined rights and an economy arranged around authoritarian hierarchies with no such protections. While it’s all well and good to prevent the government from quashing speech and other rights, when your boss can fire you for saying something they disagree with or if you refuse things like workplace surveillance (potentially costing you your housing and healthcare in the process), these protections seem pretty threadbare. I think we need to do more to check the authoritarianism of our economy if we have any real aspiration to adhere to them.
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure that this is going to get you sued into oblivion: 1. I work for private company X. 2. X tells me to vote for Y, says that Y is awesome, supports Y, donates to Y. (pick any of these) 3. I campaign for and vote for Z. 4. I am fired because i voted for Z. Any outcome in which X is not crushed into little pieces is so incredibly far off the deep end from what the values of who we are as a country are that it's frankly inconceivable to me. If the free expression of political speech is so crabbed and constrained that the above is ok, or legal, or both, then we're fucked.
  - thereare5lights 7y ago
    My point is that I am not aware of any legislation (at least on the federal level) that is widely accepted to protect political speech even in the example you bring up. Many people assume that gay and transgendered people are protected from employer discrimination but that is also currently being adjudicated.
  - ImprovedSilence 7y ago
    I want to agree with you here, but I fear that this reality is closer than we expect, perhaps less than a generation away.... it starts with citizens untied, and it means we’re already fucked, just not completely, not yet.
mc32 7y ago
I know there are companies that try to tread lightly especially when they have sizable mainlander ranks and go to pains to try to not offend. And we obviously don’t want to speak to the people at large, but I definitely think we should have no qualms about calling out behavior of the Chinese gov as we do the Russian gov. It’s such a contrast for Russian expats and Chinese expats and how company wide comms go out asking people to be mindful and not offend (but never get comms about not offending Russkies). I think this speaks to the importance of where the money comes from and how sensitive they are to that.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Part of the deal is that the Chinese are much more hypersensitive than the Russians. The Chinese seem to have a deep inferiority complex about their country (a couple centuries of being over-run by foreigners can do that to you), and they are responding by aggressively trying to shut down any criticism whatsoever of China. But strong nations don't need to do that. Weak nations do. Russia is actually stronger than China here, because Russia doesn't feel like they have to stop all criticism.
  - mc32 7y ago
    Maybe but Russia has had a history of being weak and controlled as well as being a target for colonization by two at the time super powers of Europe with visions of grandeur. They also likely feel “victimized” as losers of the Cold War... (though wrongly).
    - vbezhenar 7y ago
      If you're talking about French war and WW 2, then both of those wars were won by Russians, so those are examples of Russian superiority when we're talking about nation pride. Also I don't think that many Russians thinks that Russia lost Cold War. It was internal rebellion and has nothing to do with US. Last time Russia lost was Mongol invasion but it was so long ago.
      - 7y ago
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
China wants us all to not say bad things about China. It doesn't want to stop oppressing the Uighurs. It doesn't want to give any freedom to Hong Kong. It just wants us to shut up about them doing these things. Forget. That. Noise.
Amezarak 7y ago
What case would you have? We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. If a corporation wants to exercise their right to stop associating with you, that trumps our right to be employed by them or to use them as a platform - or so we're told. And it's not the US government leaning on them, but a foreign government. Don't see a legal case here, and it's even in-line with popular moral sentiment nowadays.
- o_p 7y ago
  >We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. Thats some nice doublespeak. By that definition the chinese people have total freedom of speech, just no freedom from the consequences of being disappeared by the CCP!
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    For some reason, a lot of people consider it a problem only when the consequence is brought on you by the government. Somehow corporations are seen as naturally good, from whom protection is not needed. Only the government is seen as a potential source of tyranny or oppression. How long will this be justifiable, with the rapid gain in power by corporations?
    - pessimizer 7y ago
      It's not that it's only a problem when the consequence is brought by the government, but that US policy is so actively hostile to worker interests that the vast majority of employees can be fired at any time for any reason other than when that reason is somewhere explicitly stated to be because the worker is a member of a short list of protected classes. There's no "right to publicly support things that are not illegal without employer punishment."
    - ghaff 7y ago
      >problem only when the consequence is brought on you by the government It's not that corporations (or individuals) are seen as being naturally good. But they don't have the power to imprison you or silence you by force and, in fact, would be committing a crime by doing so. They have some civil remedies for stealing trade secrets or breaching NDAs. Certainly major corporations have a lot of power. But it is still a fundamentally different degree and type of power than the government has.
gibspaulding 7y ago
Relevant XKCD from way back in 2006: https://www.xkcd.com/137/ https://www.xkcd.com/137/
- eecc 7y ago
  hmm, that one hit
- deogeo 7y ago
  He has since changed his mind: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
  - imgabe 7y ago
    These are not contradictory.
  - rumanator 7y ago
    Doesn't sound like he did at all. The first cartoon states that you should have the right to say everything you feel you should say, while the second states that no one is forced to listen to you.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - im3w1l 7y ago
      "If you are yelled at, boycotted [due to pressure from China], have your show cancelled [due to pressure from China], get banned from an internet community [due to pressure from China], your free speech rights aren't being violated"
      - oarsinsync 7y ago
        "It's just that the people listening think you're an asshole." I don't think it's unfair to presume that the author wasn't considering "people" to be "nations" in this context.
claudeganon 7y ago
While I agree with your general sentiment, free speech absolutism is meaningless in employment settings without something like militant labor organizing to defend it. It’s not protected in many cases and they can always just fire you and exhaust your resources in any resulting legal battle. If you had a union on the other hand, it could stipulate protection of this kind of speech as part of the employment contract and marshal the resources to mount an actual, meaningful defense if your employer were to try these tactics.
- andrekandre 7y ago
  > While I agree with your general sentiment, free speech absolutism is meaningless in employment settings without something like militant labor organizing to defend it. couldn’t that also be accomplished though employee ownership? e.g. without the militancy?
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    Absolutely! Co-ops are a great way to enshrine these protections as well.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > While I agree with your general sentiment, free speech absolutism is meaningless in employment settings without something like militant labor organizing to defend it. Sounds an awful lot like a socialist euphemism for an ideologically-motivated blend of censorship.
  - iamasoftwaredev 7y ago
    I don't see how you can possibly get that from the comment. Socialism, yeah okay. Pro-censorship?
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
I'd say that whatever I do outside of work should stay outside of work, not just political speech. Whatever personal pictures I post on my personal instagram are none of my company's business. That said, I don't post anything public outside of forums like this.
qbaqbaqba 7y ago
Are you sure you haven't signed some obligatory arbitration clause?
dragonwriter 7y ago
Political activity isn't protected against workplace discrimination federally, and I would think that, were one an absolutist about freedom of politics speech, one would have to view state establishment of political activity as protected against private discrimination (in employment and in public accommodations) as California has established to be a violation of the absolute freedom of political expression otherwise enjoyed by employers and operators of privately-provided public accommodations.
malms 7y ago
this is nice

thereare5lights 7y ago

AFAIK, political speech is not protected against employer discrimination.

goobynight 7y ago
If it isn't explicitly not protected though, there could still be a fun case to deal with.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  For precision's sake, it should be pointed out that it is explicitly not protected in a lot of cases. This is due to the fact that a lot of people sign papers that they never read when they start at many corporations. The correct play here, is to get the word out that people need to review every single paper they sign and line out the clauses that allow dismissal for bringing yourself or the company into public disrepute. People have to understand that they shouldn't be just signing away their rights like that. The ACLU can't protect you if you've signed these kinds of contracts.
dfhfkslhhj 7y ago
It would be good if it were though. If employers were unable to do anything about an employee's political speech, then China would face the choice between isolating itself economically, or tolerating criticism.
LocalH 7y ago
That's honestly part of the problem. Increasingly, every single right that we have that was enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has been encroached upon by the government via workarounds and loopholes (see: Commerce Clause).
- willis936 7y ago
  If it’s such an issue then surely a larger federal government is the solution.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Government encroachment of these rights has always been a problem, but the real issue is that America tries to nurture two systems within itself: a liberal, democratic government with correspondingly enshrined rights and an economy arranged around authoritarian hierarchies with no such protections. While it’s all well and good to prevent the government from quashing speech and other rights, when your boss can fire you for saying something they disagree with or if you refuse things like workplace surveillance (potentially costing you your housing and healthcare in the process), these protections seem pretty threadbare. I think we need to do more to check the authoritarianism of our economy if we have any real aspiration to adhere to them.
hprotagonist 7y ago
I'm pretty sure that this is going to get you sued into oblivion: 1. I work for private company X. 2. X tells me to vote for Y, says that Y is awesome, supports Y, donates to Y. (pick any of these) 3. I campaign for and vote for Z. 4. I am fired because i voted for Z. Any outcome in which X is not crushed into little pieces is so incredibly far off the deep end from what the values of who we are as a country are that it's frankly inconceivable to me. If the free expression of political speech is so crabbed and constrained that the above is ok, or legal, or both, then we're fucked.
- thereare5lights 7y ago
  My point is that I am not aware of any legislation (at least on the federal level) that is widely accepted to protect political speech even in the example you bring up. Many people assume that gay and transgendered people are protected from employer discrimination but that is also currently being adjudicated.
- ImprovedSilence 7y ago
  I want to agree with you here, but I fear that this reality is closer than we expect, perhaps less than a generation away.... it starts with citizens untied, and it means we’re already fucked, just not completely, not yet.

mc32 7y ago

I know there are companies that try to tread lightly especially when they have sizable mainlander ranks and go to pains to try to not offend. And we obviously don’t want to speak to the people at large, but I definitely think we should have no qualms about calling out behavior of the Chinese gov as we do the Russian gov. It’s such a contrast for Russian expats and Chinese expats and how company wide comms go out asking people to be mindful and not offend (but never get comms about not offending Russkies). I think this speaks to the importance of where the money comes from and how sensitive they are to that.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Part of the deal is that the Chinese are much more hypersensitive than the Russians. The Chinese seem to have a deep inferiority complex about their country (a couple centuries of being over-run by foreigners can do that to you), and they are responding by aggressively trying to shut down any criticism whatsoever of China. But strong nations don't need to do that. Weak nations do. Russia is actually stronger than China here, because Russia doesn't feel like they have to stop all criticism.
- mc32 7y ago
  Maybe but Russia has had a history of being weak and controlled as well as being a target for colonization by two at the time super powers of Europe with visions of grandeur. They also likely feel “victimized” as losers of the Cold War... (though wrongly).
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    If you're talking about French war and WW 2, then both of those wars were won by Russians, so those are examples of Russian superiority when we're talking about nation pride. Also I don't think that many Russians thinks that Russia lost Cold War. It was internal rebellion and has nothing to do with US. Last time Russia lost was Mongol invasion but it was so long ago.
    - 7y ago

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

China wants us all to not say bad things about China. It doesn't want to stop oppressing the Uighurs. It doesn't want to give any freedom to Hong Kong. It just wants us to shut up about them doing these things. Forget. That. Noise.

Amezarak 7y ago

What case would you have? We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. If a corporation wants to exercise their right to stop associating with you, that trumps our right to be employed by them or to use them as a platform - or so we're told. And it's not the US government leaning on them, but a foreign government. Don't see a legal case here, and it's even in-line with popular moral sentiment nowadays.

o_p 7y ago
>We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. Thats some nice doublespeak. By that definition the chinese people have total freedom of speech, just no freedom from the consequences of being disappeared by the CCP!
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  For some reason, a lot of people consider it a problem only when the consequence is brought on you by the government. Somehow corporations are seen as naturally good, from whom protection is not needed. Only the government is seen as a potential source of tyranny or oppression. How long will this be justifiable, with the rapid gain in power by corporations?
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    It's not that it's only a problem when the consequence is brought by the government, but that US policy is so actively hostile to worker interests that the vast majority of employees can be fired at any time for any reason other than when that reason is somewhere explicitly stated to be because the worker is a member of a short list of protected classes. There's no "right to publicly support things that are not illegal without employer punishment."
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >problem only when the consequence is brought on you by the government It's not that corporations (or individuals) are seen as being naturally good. But they don't have the power to imprison you or silence you by force and, in fact, would be committing a crime by doing so. They have some civil remedies for stealing trade secrets or breaching NDAs. Certainly major corporations have a lot of power. But it is still a fundamentally different degree and type of power than the government has.

gibspaulding 7y ago

Relevant XKCD from way back in 2006: https://www.xkcd.com/137/ https://www.xkcd.com/137/

eecc 7y ago
hmm, that one hit
deogeo 7y ago
He has since changed his mind: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- imgabe 7y ago
  These are not contradictory.
- rumanator 7y ago
  Doesn't sound like he did at all. The first cartoon states that you should have the right to say everything you feel you should say, while the second states that no one is forced to listen to you.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    "If you are yelled at, boycotted [due to pressure from China], have your show cancelled [due to pressure from China], get banned from an internet community [due to pressure from China], your free speech rights aren't being violated"
    - oarsinsync 7y ago
      "It's just that the people listening think you're an asshole." I don't think it's unfair to presume that the author wasn't considering "people" to be "nations" in this context.

claudeganon 7y ago

While I agree with your general sentiment, free speech absolutism is meaningless in employment settings without something like militant labor organizing to defend it. It’s not protected in many cases and they can always just fire you and exhaust your resources in any resulting legal battle. If you had a union on the other hand, it could stipulate protection of this kind of speech as part of the employment contract and marshal the resources to mount an actual, meaningful defense if your employer were to try these tactics.

andrekandre 7y ago
> While I agree with your general sentiment, free speech absolutism is meaningless in employment settings without something like militant labor organizing to defend it. couldn’t that also be accomplished though employee ownership? e.g. without the militancy?
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Absolutely! Co-ops are a great way to enshrine these protections as well.
rumanator 7y ago
> While I agree with your general sentiment, free speech absolutism is meaningless in employment settings without something like militant labor organizing to defend it. Sounds an awful lot like a socialist euphemism for an ideologically-motivated blend of censorship.
- iamasoftwaredev 7y ago
  I don't see how you can possibly get that from the comment. Socialism, yeah okay. Pro-censorship?

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

I'd say that whatever I do outside of work should stay outside of work, not just political speech. Whatever personal pictures I post on my personal instagram are none of my company's business. That said, I don't post anything public outside of forums like this.

qbaqbaqba 7y ago

Are you sure you haven't signed some obligatory arbitration clause?

dragonwriter 7y ago

Political activity isn't protected against workplace discrimination federally, and I would think that, were one an absolutist about freedom of politics speech, one would have to view state establishment of political activity as protected against private discrimination (in employment and in public accommodations) as California has established to be a violation of the absolute freedom of political expression otherwise enjoyed by employers and operators of privately-provided public accommodations.

malms 7y ago

this is nice