72 ms·

Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

403 points by DeusExMachina 6y ago

goldforever 6y ago
Ridiculous.
polka_haunts_us 6y ago
I feel like my choice to not participate in non-anonymous social media in any but the absolute most bland and uninteresting ways is the best long running decision I've ever made. The end of anonymized internet is the end of my participation in it and sadly I think that day is fast approaching.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  That’s nice faggot but if you actually read the fucking article you’ll notice that the person was punished for visiting the sites at all, not for participating.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  but if a future employer asks to see some social credentials and they don't see any, they ll be suspicious
  - HDMI_Cable 6y ago
    If said employer is asking for your private social media, then they're probably not worth working for anyway.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      Tens of millions of people in the US alone don't have the privilege of being on the supply-side for a high-demand skillset. "they're probably not worth working for anyway" is not a reasonable nor helpful response to people in that situation.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - HDMI_Cable 6y ago
        That's a sad thing though, that people don't have enough leverage against their employer for more benefits.
        evilsetg 6y ago
        I think this is what unions are for. Powerless alone but strong together.
        skinkestek 6y ago
        I've been anti union for almost my entire life as you cannot really be a member of a union without at the same time supporting a number of unrelated cases that I disagree wildly with. That said I am starting to feel that we could need something like unions, only they should avoid messing with international affairs, avoid supporting any political parties and stick to working for their members directly.
        DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
        > avoid supporting any political parties Unions represent their workers and by extension must advocate politically for workers' rights. How can a union fight for workers' rights if they're barred from political activity? If companies can engage in political activity, it follows that workers' unions are just as entitled.
        skinkestek 6y ago
        > How can a union fight for workers' rights if they're barred from political activity? You are replying to something I didn't write. I want them barred from supporting specific parties, not from influencing laws, negotiating, organizing, providing legal support etc. Around here unions largely align with what is probably Labour elsewhere, which makes sense. But I personally feel I cannot in good conscience be found supporting someone who directly time and time again organizes boycotts against middle Easts only somehow working democracy. I cannot live with supporting companies that are openly hostile to values I find important. So I end up outside the unions, at least until someone creates one that promises to not do that. > If companies can engage in political activity, it follows that workers' unions are just as entitled. Yep. And that's ok. But I won't support them as long as they try to meddle in international affairs or even push national lawmaking in directions I think are abhorrent.
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    If a future employer expects such social "credentials" from me, I'll be suspicious and tell them where to go.
    - dehrmann 6y ago
      I'd ask them where I should report phishing attempts.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      My favourite take I read about was to give them the credentials for a social-media account that is full of personal information that directly fields the "illegal interview questions"[1] (in US law, at least) - assuming one gets a rejection from the company you have grounds to sue them for discrimination because they essentially asked questions they're not allowed to. [1] https://www.betterteam.com/illegal-interview-questions https://www.betterteam.com/illegal-interview-questions I recall a case around 8-10 years ago when an employer or university admissions dept forcefully asked someone for their Facebook username and password - she declined but offered to login on a computer in the office for them to see - which they agreed to, and her profile had details the interviewers were not legally entitled to receive, and she sued and she won... - or something. Does anyone else remember?
  - hertzrat 6y ago
    Social media accounts are not credentials, and that requirement is bogus for 99% of jobs unless your job is social media publicity
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      Call it "bogus" but the evidence suggests it's happening - most likely by old-world companies run by paternalistic owners big enough to care about their PR but not big enough to hire competent HR lawyers to advise them not to do that at all. ...otherwise we wouldn't have law bloggers writing articles like this: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-ask-passwords-my-social-media-accounts.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-ask-pa...
    - sneak 6y ago
      Forget about credentials, hiring someone is a risk and you basically go into it as an employer flying blind. I request social media links (not passwords, just profile links) from everyone I'm considering hiring, because any/all information I can use to winnow potentially problem hires out before I make an offer is extremely valuable to me. You can tell a lot about a person from their social media profiles and posts.
      - elastolin 6y ago
        Is this satire? The fact that you even specify that you "do not ask for passwords" for social media accounts of potential hires, is sketchy as fuck. I'm sorry for the desperate people that go along with this shit.
        sneak 6y ago
        I wanted to clarify as there are reports of employers asking for people's social media login credentials (to log in as them and archive/review old/private posts) as a condition for hiring. I think that's insane and abusive. Asking to see someone's public webpage isn't.
        6y ago
  - CGamesPlay 6y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the employer is asking about this, it's to make sure that you don't post anything stupid that would get them on the wrong side of the in-group. If you were in this position, your tepid kid and travel photos would get a passing grade.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    > future employer asks to see some social credentials So it's no longer enough to just keep your "wrong" opinions to yourself, you have to actually prove that you have the "right" opinions. Enjoy having the right opinions at the moment, I guess - until fashions change, anyway.
- lqet 6y ago
  > the best long running decision I've ever made I feel exactly the same way, although initially, this wasn't a conscious decision. I just did not understand the hype and ignored it. For me, as a 90ies kid, social media was IRC, messengers, and email. It still is. When I first read about Twitter, I thought that technologically, it was only one step away from a Hello World web application.
mandragon 6y ago
Was the agent fired for writing something specifically, or simply for signing up for these networks?
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  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?)
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    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-predicted-parler-is-banning-users-it-doesnt-like.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr... 1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/06/27/parlers-founder-explains-why-he-built-trumps-new-favorite-social-media-app/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/06/27/parlers-f...
    - yurielt 6y ago
kderbyma 6y ago
how can they say with a. straight face they value equal opportunity and then ban someone for their personal use.....sorry. but I see stupidity leeching into society everyhere.... stupidity is a nice way of saying hate..
- mhh__ 6y ago
  To play devils advocate, if you're fired because of your actions and not the colour of your skin isn't that equal opportunity? You aren't born with your political beliefs - some people really don't like Women and Gay people, that's on them, should all beliefs be protected?
Minor49er 6y ago
I thought it was going to turn out that the employee was making bad posts, but from the quote by De Chiara, it's simply because the agent was even on those platforms at all. My surprise lessened after I Googled the name of the agency. It seems like De Chiara has been flippant with her business partners in the past: https://www.deangoodman.com/jennifer-de-chiara/ https://www.deangoodman.com/jennifer-de-chiara/
- lqet 6y ago
  The email exchange is surreal. Goodman: [...] If you could represent our interests “enthusiastically,” per our deal – and honestly – that would be appreciated. We’ve all worked too hard to see this fall apart now. Dean Goodman. De Chiara: [...] I don’t appreciate your attitude. I don’t deserve it... Just read your email again–now you’re calling me dishonest? Go to hell.
kderbyma 6y ago
hope the woman gets a job and the president is sacked (in every way)
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. We're trying to avoid that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ubermonkey 6y ago
You can tell a lot about a person by who they decide to associate themselves with. If you're a public-facing employee in an industry where image is very important, publicly affiliating with platforms that mostly exist because Twitter isn't sufficiently accommodating to Nazis is maybe not the best career move.
- tomcam 6y ago
  Deeply insightful. HN has some white supremacists participating here from time to time. Now we know a lot about you and the people you hang out with... right?
- gedy 6y ago
  Parler was passed around in many conversations with everyday, normal people who signed up thinking "I'll check this out". Signing up wasn't some pact with evil to them. And there are plenty of fascists on Twitter.
  - dhosek 6y ago
    But from everything I've heard from people who have signed up thinking "I'll check this out," the net response is, "oh my God, this is so much worse than I could have ever imagined."
    - gedy 6y ago
      And that's fine, but this "guilt by association" sounded a bit like an unreasonable witch hunt if someone just signed up.
    - swirepe 6y ago
      We've all hung around too long, curious about how bad the fire can get. That doesn't mean we're arsonists.
- djanogo 6y ago
  So she installed 2 apps, which has millions of people on it and lets them discuss diverse topics, and you associate her with nazi's? How did the intelligence/reasoning of people fall so low that they are so blinded by their political association?
common_crow 6y ago
Reminds me of Dawn Frederick, a literary agent who was "cancelled" for calling 911 on looters who rammed a van into the gas station on her apartment block: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/people/article/83469-three-agents-resign-after-red-sofa-literary-owner-s-tweet.html https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/p... This happened during the BLM protests this summer in St. Loius. The looters she reported were blocks away from any BLM protest, and other looting bands were setting fires on nearby blocks. Frederick was a vocal advocate and financial supporter of BLM and had attended protests in the past. Didn't stop the hordes from calling her racist and threatening to ruin the careers of agents who dared to work for her literary agency, and authors represented by her. Her agency was gutted. All over calling 911 to report people crashing a van into a small business to raid it. (Edited to add: I worked in publishing for years. I left because of the censorship in the arena. And I'm a proud lefty. It's gotten really crazy. Authors getting death threats. Books literally ripped off the shelves and destroyed. (No, not rabid white supremacist books. Books by PoC authors.) But industry professionals insist this is NOT censorship, just business decisions. And if you disagree? You're a dirty, filthy -ist.) Another edit to add links to the incidents I was referring to: Black author/illustrator team had their book ripped off shelves and pulped: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/25/censorship-childrens-book-smiling-slave-birthday-cake-washington https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/25/censorship-chi... Asian author was threatened and intimidated into cancelling the publication of her novel: https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/ya-twitter-forces-rising-star-author-to-self-cancel.html https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/ya-twitter-forces-rising-sta... Black author was intimidated into cancelling publication of book: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-the-line-between-criticism-and-cancel-culture https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-... I can think of 10+ more books that belong on this list. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
- D13Fd 6y ago
  I honestly don't know why people use "post what you're thinking" style social media at all at this point. With employers being so sensitive, how can the cost/benefit analysis ever really result in a determination that it's a good idea to be active on Twitter/Facebook (or Gab, Parler, TheDonald.win, etc.)? Maybe that's part of what makes things get so extreme on those sites. The most reasonable people know enough not to risk their livelihoods by jumping in and posting, and that leaves the less reasonable people to just sit there and escalate.
InTheArena 6y ago
That statement by De Chiara is going to cost them a lot of money as that statement is prima facie a violation of any number of employment laws. If had identified specifically objectionable content, it would at least be a case.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Which law does it violate? I can’t think of any.
  - 300bps 6y ago
    The fired agent telegraphed which law she believed has been violated when she said, "I just got fired because I'm a Christian and a conservative." https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination
    - belltaco 6y ago
      She can say what she wants. Is being active on Gab and Parler a Christian religious activity?
      - swirepe 6y ago
        I think Jesus is a Craigslist guy
      - Proziam 6y ago
        A huge percentage of content on Gab is based around religion. If that's where your religious community is (and most people can't see others in person for worship at the moment) then yes, it absolutely is a religious activity.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      Political affiliation is not a protected class. Being "a Christian" (whatever that means...) is a protected class - but where in the Bible did Moses or Jesus command people to use Gab, Parler - or even be "conservative"? You can be fired for being a selfish ass (I'm referring to the donkey hybrid, as befits the biblical narrative) - and that's my interpretation of what happened. What matters now is if the law will allow her to use her religion as the basis for being an ass - or not.
chrisjharris 6y ago
Frequently I feel that there is a conflation of the inherent attributes of a platform like Gab or Parler, and its user base. Though they may pitch themselves at a certian audience, social media platforms don't ultimately get to choose their users, and I'm not sure to what extent it is fair to judge them by their users. If we do judge them by their users (and I don't mean to sound like I'm criticizing Gab/Parler users here, it's entirely hypothetical) then you can have perverse outcomes, eg one way to shut down a social media site would be to have bots purporting to be, say, militia members spam it with messages. I've not done a great deal of research, but prima facie it seems like Parler actually had some quite attractive inherent characteristics, eg they were good on privacy and didn't monetize your data. On the other hand, to say that something like 4chan is inherently neutral and that the demographic of their users is nothing to do with them feels like it's taking the arguemnt too far.
- threeseed 6y ago
  > social media platforms don't ultimately get to choose their users Of course they can. They simply ban/allow people until they get the mix of people they want. It happens all the time on Reddit e.g. /r/the_donald, /r/conspiracy.
  - chrisjharris 6y ago
    I think those were subreddits, not users.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      Right, so it's a bit more coarse then banning or allowing users, but if you selectively ban or allow topics that certain kinds of users want to talk about (or don't want talked about), you can definitely shape your user base.
      - Zuider 6y ago
        Selective banning carried out by reacting to infractions is is a relatively coarse tool compared to whitelisting a set of users on the basis of credentials or avowed common interest.
deanCommie 6y ago
> "I just got fired because I'm a Christian and a conservative." Suspicions rising dramatically. This is a common dog whistle amongst the rightwing self-victimization crowd (see also: Consequences for actions being dubbed "cancel culture" or "political correctness") There's more to this story. If all she did was install Parler/Gab and didn't post then why would she associate platforms that were overrun with Nazis and full of hateful rhetoric as "Christian/Conservative"?
- jariel 6y ago
  Well, most of the world's best thinkers would disagree, to the point wherein they had to get together to make a public point that 'cancel culture exists and is a problem' [1] Which is of course, not to say that perpetuation of false victimhood doesn't happen, nor that some people should not be cancelled. But we see both of those things happen all the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_on_Justice_and_Open_Debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_on_Justice_and_Open_D...
  - deanCommie 6y ago
    I fully agree cancel culture exists, and is taken too far in plenty of circumstances. I also fully believe that it is a term that's abused to the point of losing all meaning - a bit like "fake news" became just "facts inconvenient to me". Everyone facing consequences for their shitty actions - including Donald Trump's impeachment trial is being dubbed "cancel culture" by those facing those consequences. Do I believe people should be fired for tweets they made a decade ago as a teenager? No. Do I believe that JK Rowling (one of the signees) should lose fans and book sales because those fans don't like her outdated and problematic views on trans people? Well actually that's the beauty - it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what her fans think, and they think it's fair. That's consequences. That's not cancel culture.
    - jariel 6y ago
      Ok, yes - except that with Rowling it's 100% cancel culture - and it has to stop, now. Rowling's views are not 'dated' (that's your opinion) - they are thought out, and reasonable. They are controversial, possibly. Of course, nobody has to buy her books. It's a little infantile, but it's fine. I don't. The issue is not 'people not buying her books' - the issue is that people are trying to suppress and silence her, and stop the publication of her books & material. It's 100% 'cancel culture' for groups to organize and vent their petty, minority opinions towards instilling fear in publishers, distributors, points-of-sale, and pressure other groups (i.e. Hollywood, Netflix) to suppress the voices of those they disagree with. That is exactly cancel culture - and it's why so many of those luminary thinkers had to take out a page in Harper's. If we were allowed to do anonymous voting on these things it would be snuffed out immediately, the antagonizing base is very small.
jariel 6y ago
Most groups operate with some kernel of legitimacy, with which the more radical elements tend to use to interpret everything. When one group does something unassailable bad - like raid capitol hill - it embolden radicals from other groups, just raising the bar below which acceptable actions happen. We're going to see a lot more arbitrary banning among people who might have done 'very bad things' and maybe deserved some kind of censure.
Simulacra 6y ago
Thoughts Crimes.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
candybar 6y ago
Btw, the agent that was fired, Colleen Oefelein, was also the victim of an attempted kidnap plot by her current husband's ex-mistress in 2007. This story, dubbed, the "Astronaut Love Triangle" because her husband and the ex were astronauts, was all over the news and even made into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm. https://people.com/crime/astronaut-love-triangle-nine-years-later-victim-colleen-shipman-on-new-life/ https://people.com/crime/astronaut-love-triangle-nine-years-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_in_the_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_in_the_Sky
- intuitionist 6y ago
  Wow, I knew the name sounded vaguely familiar, but I never would have made the connection!
  - casefields 6y ago
    Oh snap. The diapers astronaut lady.
tptacek 6y ago
Just a reminder that Newsweek ceased publication back in 2013, and the rights to its brand were purchased by an odd Christian sect, somewhat along the lines of The Washington Times and the Reunification Church. The new "Newsweek" capitalizes on the brand reputation of the old one, but has no connections to it; a good thing to do with Newsweek pieces is to check the byline and look up what their background is.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  I pictured you looking exactly like the “Ackchyually” meme. I found pics of you and it turns out I’m right.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  According to Wikipedia, it was bought by IBT Media in 2013, then spun-off as an independent entity in 2018 that I assume is owned by the same people as IBT. I found claims that IBT's other notable property, the International Business Times (which I haven't heard of), has been a content farm, but I only glossed over it. I can't seem to find Newsweek on the Median Bias chart, but it's ranked similarly to CNN. https://www.adfontesmedia.com/newsweek-bias-and-reliability/ https://www.adfontesmedia.com/newsweek-bias-and-reliability/ https://www.adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Media-Bias-Chart-5.1-Licensed-1.pdf https://www.adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Med... My take is it's mostly accurate, but I wouldn't use it as a primary source.
  - dguaraglia 6y ago
    See, the best trick for pushing propaganda isn't fabricating stories, but choosing carefully what stories you publish and which ones you don't. The perfect example of that is Breitbart's infamous 'black crime' tag: Breitbart didn't need to invent stories, they'd just go and pick up out of the bunch of criminal prosecutions happening every single day in a country with >300 million inhabitants. But by choosing to focus on crimes committed by black people - and conveniently leaving out similar crimes committed by your average white criminal - it reaffirmed on their readers their 'intuition' that black people are clearly more inclined to commit crime. So, you should always consider who is publishing a story and why.
snicker7 6y ago
At this point, companies might as well just have an explicit policy of not hiring anyone registered as a Republican. Party affiliation is not a protected class, after all.
- sneak 6y ago
  This feels a bit snarky. There seems to me, looking at all of this US hyperpartisan nonsense as an outsider, to be quite a bit of difference between the frothy Gab/Parler/etc contingent and an average median republican (who I don't really imagine spends a ton of time on niche social media).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cooper12 6y ago
    They're quick to tell on themselves. When Biden condemned white supremacy, a lot of conservative leaders were outraged at the attack against them: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/why-are-conservatives-angry-biden-denounced-white-supremacy.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/why-are-conservative....
    - 1MachineElf 6y ago
      It's because conservatives see rhetoric about "white supremacy" as a weak man argument used against them. They don't believe themselves to be white supremacists. It's kind of like centrist Democrats being annoyed when conservatives call them socialists and communists. To see this as telling on themselves in this context is a bit like McCarthy saying only a communist would deny being a communist.
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    She wasn't fired for what she'd posted on those sites, though. She was fired for simply having an account.
- gnicholas 6y ago
at_a_remove 6y ago
This new wave of McCarthyism is really exciting from a historical perspective. And, you know, perversely, my long-standing belief that so many "historical" victims are eager to strap on the jackboots themselves gets yet another data point.
- etangent 6y ago
  that's because victim/oppressor is a false dichotomy. the true dichotomy is friend/enemy
  - igravious 6y ago
    um, in-group/out-group ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group
    - etangent 6y ago
      The political philosophers got there before social psychologists https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schmitt/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schmitt/ “the specific political distinction … is that between friend and enemy.”
- esja 6y ago
  Today's Red Guards will never achieve this level of self-awareness: "Hans, are we the baddies?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWvpvlT9pJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWvpvlT9pJU
perryizgr8 6y ago
I suppose the agency has the right to fire/hire whoever it wants. The person who was fired is free to start her own agency. What's the problem here?
- tomcam 6y ago
  No problem at all. Until it happens to you and yours when the political winds change, and they will.
- pochamago 6y ago
  It is possible to think an individual should have certain rights without thinking they should act on them.
Animats 6y ago
The political correctness now required by both the US Left and Right is distressing. A big complaint of young people was that there wasn't any real difference between the two major US parties. Well, that's over.
- speeder 6y ago
  To be honest, there still isn't one. I am not from US, but from what I saw generally both parties act the same, the exceptions are basically a few personalities that warp the VOTERs around them, but not the people in power. Trump for the GOP (that seemly only joined the GOP because he could win their primaries... if you take a look on his pre-GOP relationships he had strong ties to democratic party) and Sanders for Democrats (and he is not even officially in the party if I remember correctly, he in the Senate was listed as "independent that sits with Democrats") Even AOC that famously claim to be socialist got nicknamed in some circles as "Fraud Squad" because despite claiming to be socialist she is voting along status-quo US politics (that is: generally pro-corporations). Voters believe the parties are different now, but the people elected aren't that different, it is why in USA accusing someone of doing "partisan blocking" makes sense, it is because often when a party is blocking the other, they are doing so for shenanigans, not because they truly believe the proposal is bad, often both parties believe in the proposal but want to play political games.
qqj 6y ago
You used to get bullied for being a "faggot", now you're bullied for being a "conservative". Progress, indeed.
babesh 6y ago
People are walking chimps, organizing into tribes and beating the other tribe. Like, our cousins, we take visceral emotional satisfaction in demeaning the other tribe. Today’s US is just a grand example of this at Internet scale and energized by social media. Welcome to shit throwing and the tearing off of genitals. What you have now are threat displays to keep the losing tribe in its place. People identifying with the winning tribe feel good that there is a lesser party to trample on. Calls for unity happen after a change in power because constant struggle is destructive. After a change in power, lesser chimps (tech) pay fealty to the new alphas (Democratic Congress and Presidency). This whole system works because cooperation within a group allows the group as a whole to compete effectively against other groups. We are organized fractally in this way. To the victor go the spoils.
- babesh 6y ago
  People seem to be doing what losers do when facing destruction: move away. You see movement in both physical and virtual spaces. In people and in companies to different states. In people moving to different social media. People stop fighting with you, they just avoid you. China is going to be the obvious dominant world power within Biden’s term.
  - jansan 6y ago
    In Germany there is the term "inner emmigration", if people oppose to the current system, but keep silent in fear of repression. This was coined during Nazi time, but also used to describe part of the opposition during socialism in East Germany. What it basically describes people who: - are opposed to the current political system (originally the Nazi regime) - cannot speak their opinion for fear of repressions . cannot or do not want ot leave their country - do not want to adapt to the political system Currently we have inner emmigration among conservatives. It is almost impossible to speak out as a conservative without fearing consequences. People are not revolting, but they are bascially done with the political system.
    - LarvaFX 6y ago
      My guess is that the fallout of the right wing's promised "tickle down" economics and the neoliberal politics of thatcherism is making people angry.
walrus01 6y ago
Conservatives getting upset about the results of a Free Market.
- CountDrewku 6y ago
  Liberals promoting monopolistic capitalism and bigotry. Cognitive dissonance much? Btw Conservatives promote less government not zero government interference. I think you’re confusing it with hardcore libertarianism.
libraryatnight 6y ago
This is the plausible deniability the far right has baked into their platform that's gotten us where we are. Parler isn't for racists and far right nationalists - it's for free speech. Someone calls you out for hate speech? It was a joke. Ligthen up. I was edgelording. Can't say anything around these snowflakes. We don't hate minorities, we support the police, they're heroes - you're not talking bad about heroes are you? That said, I don't agree with this firing. "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - Mencken
jl6 6y ago
It seems guilt by association is transitive, leading to a 2-means clustering of society. We now live in the future, where everybody is either a Communist or a Fascist.
Uhrheber 6y ago
The USA had always had a tendency towards witch hunts. And that's exactly whats happening now. I'm not saying that there aren't people that had it coming, but it's never a good idea to switch your brain off and run with the crowd.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
MrMember 6y ago
>"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" This honestly reads like satire. Why were they "distressed" by this and who could possibly be affected or offended by something so trivial?
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > This honestly reads like satire. 20 years ago, it would have been satire, as the 1st Amendment was widely adopted and valued by the public even beyond govt. Since 2016, Marxism has infiltrated US society, most notably starting with Obama's identity politics during and after his election. https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/first-amendment https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/fi... > Why were they "distressed" Leftists are distressed when somebody disagrees with their narrative of that particular day [Dave Rubin.] Additionally, they're afraid of associating with somebody off narrative [Glenn Greenwald], for fear the Bolshevik Red Terror or Maoist Cultural Revolution will come for them too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution A topical example of the above is deplatforming and impeaching Trump before any investigation, despite none of his public statements causing the Capitol riot. (Pelosi actually declined to increase Capitol security before the rally, and one of the first people to enter the Capitol admitted to being BLM/antifa. Talk about inconvenient truths!)
- vidarh 6y ago
  These platforms are seen as far right and extremist by a lot of people. Whether or not that assessment is accurate, it will distress a lot of people who do agree with that assessment. Depending on the demographics of the authors they represent, it may well be a significant negative for their business to be associated with those platforms.
  - vergessenmir 6y ago
    A lot of people being the media in the US that pushes the narrative to the extreme. You could make the argument ( perhaps weakly for Parler now) that they are right leaning social platforms that contain extremes. The same way Twitter is left leaning and contains left and right extremes. Companies in the states appear to wear their political allegiances as a badge of honour eliciting an us-or-them reaction. Left and Right ideologies often have wants which flip from side to side, generation to generation. It's worrying and baffling that someone's source of income can be severed when there has been no evidence of misconduct.
sto_hristo 6y ago
Being canceled for what you write, think, your opinions... That is a major part of life in any communist regime. Difference being that in communism it's the state that does the monitoring and canceling, while here - the people themselves.
- LarvaFX 6y ago
  True for right-wing regimes as well.
- evilsetg 6y ago
  I would say this is true for any dictatorship or even some authoritarian regimes. How is it related specifically to communism? Full disclosure: I am a communist.
- MagnumOpus 6y ago
  So it is not like communism at all you mean?
chovybizzass 6y ago
I'm not surprised. I mean companies will do this depending on what you say online. That's why you USE A FUCKING ALIAS.
dmingod666 6y ago
I just find it comical that liberals went from being happy peace loving hippies, to being uptight ultra-orthodox in their thinking and have this deep urge everyone must just comply. I jokingly like to call it the ultra-orthodox church of the right. Everyone should be "good" with my exact definition of good, in thinking, feeling, actions and reactions to things.
- ecf 6y ago
  It’s entertaining to read people like you and your exaggerated posts about the world coming to an end after a reporter was fired after their reputation was put into question.
rbanffy 6y ago
The relevant thing is unsaid. What was going on on Parler and Gab that warranted such action? I've seen pretty horrifying things on Gab that makes that "Camp Auschwitz Staff" hoodie seem office-appropriate.
nojvek 6y ago
The most deadliest thing about Tech companies is how massive they are and going about their merry things while little ants like us get squished left and right. Also the whole cancel culture is crazy since it’s so trigger happy. In many ways it feels like a witch hunt. Someone says something, the crowd follows (without much evidence) and makes a ton of noise on social media. The companies see a hit on their brand and do whatever the mob is asking and pretend to be the good guys/girls. We really do need a society that encourages fact checking and hearing both sides of the story. Amplifying filter bubbles doesn’t end well for our society.
- Threeve303 6y ago
  > Also the whole cancel culture is crazy since it’s so trigger happy. I have given this a great deal of thought and I'm still torn on what to believe. On one hand, everyone wants to be judge, jury, and executioner. This means that the power the state has to determine these things is eroded. Probably as a result of the general loss of trust in institutions. On the other hand, the United States specifically has a long history of what is considered community justice. Often this happens when the institutions to provide it do not exist yet or fail in their goals. Similar to losing any kind of arbiter of truth, we are also losing truth in justice. Truth takes time, the mob is fickle, and the pitchforks are heavy.
  - spiralx 6y ago
    There certainly wasn't this hysteria about cancel culture when it was solely the tool of large, well-funded conservative and religious organisations - Mothers Against Dungeons & Dragons is the example that comes to mind for me immediately from when I was younger. Now that just any old pleb can express an opinion on the actions and comments of their betters it seems that collective expressions of disapproval with the intent of exerting power is a bad thing! "Cancelling" is a boycott in the marketplace of ideas. The left and the right should find something to appeal to them there!
bslyke 6y ago
Reminds me of this classic post: https://twitter.com/LizardRumsfeld/status/1071540537075863553/photo/1 https://twitter.com/LizardRumsfeld/status/107154053707586355... Being against cancel culture but from the right is "The problems (getting cancelled out of a job) are bad... but the causes (at-will employment), the causes are good."
zajio1am 6y ago
Seems to me that the core issue here is at-will employment. Currently, it is triggered by political purity spiral, but in other times there may be other impulses to cancel people. Here in Czechia, emplyees generally cannot be fired for issues unrelated to work, and even most work excesses must be first handled by written admonishment before firing.
d50ce6477f82 6y ago
Things will only get real once HN gets people fired. You cannot delete past HN comments.
helen___keller 6y ago
Putting aside the specifics of this particular instance of culture war, global social media is a huge liability to be associated with your public persona and everyone should be aware of this, even the tech illiterate. If you post something for the world to see, assume that the wrong person will see it at the worst possible time, even if it's years in the future. If you aren't comfortable with that, take your posts private or suspend your account, or delete your old posts, ASAP. At one point I literally walked through years of reddit history to delete any posts that might be embarrassing, even though I post pseudonymously
eplanit 6y ago
The Left is using psychological projection as a technique. They accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they themselves are doing. They'll call you a fascist while they burn books. They'll call you racist while accusing you of "white privilege". Like you say, they'll destroy people's lives, based on racial hatred, while accusing those people of racial hatred. Domestic terrorism.
- cpursley 6y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Communists and Fascists share a lot of the same authoritarian tactics.
  - hairofadog 6y ago
    It’s because they’re positing that it’s only people on the left that do this. I’ve heard it said that the enemy of extremists isn't the extremist on the other side, it’s the moderates. Extremists are itching for a fight, and they’ll continue fighting forever. Moderates and pragmatists stand in the way of that goal. If an extremist group were to win and completely eliminate the other side, they’d draw some other battle lines within their own group. “Othering” is important to extremists, and the’ll find a way to do it. I’m another proud lefty. I marched with Black Lives Matter last summer, voted for Elizabeth Warren in the primaries, I’m vegan for all the reasons people think are stupid. All of that is true, and it infuriates me to see leftist extremists getting dressed up in black and setting buildings on fire. It infuriates me to see leftists gatekeeping on Twitter, and taking such joy from tweeting people’s employers to try to get them fired for the crime of making a joke that didn’t pass a purity test, or for having a counterintuitive take on something complex. Internet pile ons are the worst. All that said, it confounds me that people on the right seem to be unable to see these traits within their own party, and aren’t working harder to rid their ranks of QAnon, Proud Boys, and Trumpism. It seems like anyone on the right who has the temerity to point out these problems gets branded as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and expelled from the party. Jeff Sessions – JEFF SESSIONS – was cancelled by the right for not being right enough. So, yeah, there’s a lot of projection going on all around.
gotoeleven 6y ago
I wish the left would just publish a list of the things you're allowed to say so that we could avoid all this trouble.
RickJWagner 6y ago
This is insane. I don't use either Parler or Gab, but may sign up just to show support for free speech. Enough of the authoritarianism.

403 points by DeusExMachina 6y ago

Ridiculous.

I feel like my choice to not participate in non-anonymous social media in any but the absolute most bland and uninteresting ways is the best long running decision I've ever made. The end of anonymized internet is the end of my participation in it and sadly I think that day is fast approaching.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
That’s nice faggot but if you actually read the fucking article you’ll notice that the person was punished for visiting the sites at all, not for participating.
cblconfederate 6y ago
but if a future employer asks to see some social credentials and they don't see any, they ll be suspicious
- HDMI_Cable 6y ago
  If said employer is asking for your private social media, then they're probably not worth working for anyway.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    Tens of millions of people in the US alone don't have the privilege of being on the supply-side for a high-demand skillset. "they're probably not worth working for anyway" is not a reasonable nor helpful response to people in that situation.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - HDMI_Cable 6y ago
      That's a sad thing though, that people don't have enough leverage against their employer for more benefits.
      - evilsetg 6y ago
        I think this is what unions are for. Powerless alone but strong together.
        skinkestek 6y ago
        I've been anti union for almost my entire life as you cannot really be a member of a union without at the same time supporting a number of unrelated cases that I disagree wildly with. That said I am starting to feel that we could need something like unions, only they should avoid messing with international affairs, avoid supporting any political parties and stick to working for their members directly.
        DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
        > avoid supporting any political parties Unions represent their workers and by extension must advocate politically for workers' rights. How can a union fight for workers' rights if they're barred from political activity? If companies can engage in political activity, it follows that workers' unions are just as entitled.
        skinkestek 6y ago
        > How can a union fight for workers' rights if they're barred from political activity? You are replying to something I didn't write. I want them barred from supporting specific parties, not from influencing laws, negotiating, organizing, providing legal support etc. Around here unions largely align with what is probably Labour elsewhere, which makes sense. But I personally feel I cannot in good conscience be found supporting someone who directly time and time again organizes boycotts against middle Easts only somehow working democracy. I cannot live with supporting companies that are openly hostile to values I find important. So I end up outside the unions, at least until someone creates one that promises to not do that. > If companies can engage in political activity, it follows that workers' unions are just as entitled. Yep. And that's ok. But I won't support them as long as they try to meddle in international affairs or even push national lawmaking in directions I think are abhorrent.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  If a future employer expects such social "credentials" from me, I'll be suspicious and tell them where to go.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    I'd ask them where I should report phishing attempts.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    My favourite take I read about was to give them the credentials for a social-media account that is full of personal information that directly fields the "illegal interview questions"[1] (in US law, at least) - assuming one gets a rejection from the company you have grounds to sue them for discrimination because they essentially asked questions they're not allowed to. [1] https://www.betterteam.com/illegal-interview-questions https://www.betterteam.com/illegal-interview-questions I recall a case around 8-10 years ago when an employer or university admissions dept forcefully asked someone for their Facebook username and password - she declined but offered to login on a computer in the office for them to see - which they agreed to, and her profile had details the interviewers were not legally entitled to receive, and she sued and she won... - or something. Does anyone else remember?
- hertzrat 6y ago
  Social media accounts are not credentials, and that requirement is bogus for 99% of jobs unless your job is social media publicity
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    Call it "bogus" but the evidence suggests it's happening - most likely by old-world companies run by paternalistic owners big enough to care about their PR but not big enough to hire competent HR lawyers to advise them not to do that at all. ...otherwise we wouldn't have law bloggers writing articles like this: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-ask-passwords-my-social-media-accounts.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-ask-pa...
  - sneak 6y ago
    Forget about credentials, hiring someone is a risk and you basically go into it as an employer flying blind. I request social media links (not passwords, just profile links) from everyone I'm considering hiring, because any/all information I can use to winnow potentially problem hires out before I make an offer is extremely valuable to me. You can tell a lot about a person from their social media profiles and posts.
    - elastolin 6y ago
      Is this satire? The fact that you even specify that you "do not ask for passwords" for social media accounts of potential hires, is sketchy as fuck. I'm sorry for the desperate people that go along with this shit.
      - sneak 6y ago
        I wanted to clarify as there are reports of employers asking for people's social media login credentials (to log in as them and archive/review old/private posts) as a condition for hiring. I think that's insane and abusive. Asking to see someone's public webpage isn't.
        6y ago
- CGamesPlay 6y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the employer is asking about this, it's to make sure that you don't post anything stupid that would get them on the wrong side of the in-group. If you were in this position, your tepid kid and travel photos would get a passing grade.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > future employer asks to see some social credentials So it's no longer enough to just keep your "wrong" opinions to yourself, you have to actually prove that you have the "right" opinions. Enjoy having the right opinions at the moment, I guess - until fashions change, anyway.
lqet 6y ago
> the best long running decision I've ever made I feel exactly the same way, although initially, this wasn't a conscious decision. I just did not understand the hype and ignored it. For me, as a 90ies kid, social media was IRC, messengers, and email. It still is. When I first read about Twitter, I thought that technologically, it was only one step away from a Hello World web application.

mandragon 6y ago

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

TeaDrunk 6y ago
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?)
- pwinnski 6y ago
  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-predicted-parler-is-banning-users-it-doesnt-like.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr... 1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/06/27/parlers-founder-explains-why-he-built-trumps-new-favorite-social-media-app/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/06/27/parlers-f...
  - yurielt 6y ago

kderbyma 6y ago

how can they say with a. straight face they value equal opportunity and then ban someone for their personal use.....sorry. but I see stupidity leeching into society everyhere.... stupidity is a nice way of saying hate..

mhh__ 6y ago
To play devils advocate, if you're fired because of your actions and not the colour of your skin isn't that equal opportunity? You aren't born with your political beliefs - some people really don't like Women and Gay people, that's on them, should all beliefs be protected?

Minor49er 6y ago

I thought it was going to turn out that the employee was making bad posts, but from the quote by De Chiara, it's simply because the agent was even on those platforms at all. My surprise lessened after I Googled the name of the agency. It seems like De Chiara has been flippant with her business partners in the past: https://www.deangoodman.com/jennifer-de-chiara/ https://www.deangoodman.com/jennifer-de-chiara/

lqet 6y ago
The email exchange is surreal. Goodman: [...] If you could represent our interests “enthusiastically,” per our deal – and honestly – that would be appreciated. We’ve all worked too hard to see this fall apart now. Dean Goodman. De Chiara: [...] I don’t appreciate your attitude. I don’t deserve it... Just read your email again–now you’re calling me dishonest? Go to hell.

kderbyma 6y ago

hope the woman gets a job and the president is sacked (in every way)

dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. We're trying to avoid that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ubermonkey 6y ago

You can tell a lot about a person by who they decide to associate themselves with. If you're a public-facing employee in an industry where image is very important, publicly affiliating with platforms that mostly exist because Twitter isn't sufficiently accommodating to Nazis is maybe not the best career move.

tomcam 6y ago
Deeply insightful. HN has some white supremacists participating here from time to time. Now we know a lot about you and the people you hang out with... right?
gedy 6y ago
Parler was passed around in many conversations with everyday, normal people who signed up thinking "I'll check this out". Signing up wasn't some pact with evil to them. And there are plenty of fascists on Twitter.
- dhosek 6y ago
  But from everything I've heard from people who have signed up thinking "I'll check this out," the net response is, "oh my God, this is so much worse than I could have ever imagined."
  - gedy 6y ago
    And that's fine, but this "guilt by association" sounded a bit like an unreasonable witch hunt if someone just signed up.
  - swirepe 6y ago
    We've all hung around too long, curious about how bad the fire can get. That doesn't mean we're arsonists.
djanogo 6y ago
So she installed 2 apps, which has millions of people on it and lets them discuss diverse topics, and you associate her with nazi's? How did the intelligence/reasoning of people fall so low that they are so blinded by their political association?

common_crow 6y ago

Reminds me of Dawn Frederick, a literary agent who was "cancelled" for calling 911 on looters who rammed a van into the gas station on her apartment block: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/people/article/83469-three-agents-resign-after-red-sofa-literary-owner-s-tweet.html https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/p... This happened during the BLM protests this summer in St. Loius. The looters she reported were blocks away from any BLM protest, and other looting bands were setting fires on nearby blocks. Frederick was a vocal advocate and financial supporter of BLM and had attended protests in the past. Didn't stop the hordes from calling her racist and threatening to ruin the careers of agents who dared to work for her literary agency, and authors represented by her. Her agency was gutted. All over calling 911 to report people crashing a van into a small business to raid it. (Edited to add: I worked in publishing for years. I left because of the censorship in the arena. And I'm a proud lefty. It's gotten really crazy. Authors getting death threats. Books literally ripped off the shelves and destroyed. (No, not rabid white supremacist books. Books by PoC authors.) But industry professionals insist this is NOT censorship, just business decisions. And if you disagree? You're a dirty, filthy -ist.) Another edit to add links to the incidents I was referring to: Black author/illustrator team had their book ripped off shelves and pulped: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/25/censorship-childrens-book-smiling-slave-birthday-cake-washington https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/25/censorship-chi... Asian author was threatened and intimidated into cancelling the publication of her novel: https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/ya-twitter-forces-rising-star-author-to-self-cancel.html https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/ya-twitter-forces-rising-sta... Black author was intimidated into cancelling publication of book: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-the-line-between-criticism-and-cancel-culture https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-... I can think of 10+ more books that belong on this list. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

D13Fd 6y ago
I honestly don't know why people use "post what you're thinking" style social media at all at this point. With employers being so sensitive, how can the cost/benefit analysis ever really result in a determination that it's a good idea to be active on Twitter/Facebook (or Gab, Parler, TheDonald.win, etc.)? Maybe that's part of what makes things get so extreme on those sites. The most reasonable people know enough not to risk their livelihoods by jumping in and posting, and that leaves the less reasonable people to just sit there and escalate.

InTheArena 6y ago

That statement by De Chiara is going to cost them a lot of money as that statement is prima facie a violation of any number of employment laws. If had identified specifically objectionable content, it would at least be a case.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Which law does it violate? I can’t think of any.
- 300bps 6y ago
  The fired agent telegraphed which law she believed has been violated when she said, "I just got fired because I'm a Christian and a conservative." https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination
  - belltaco 6y ago
    She can say what she wants. Is being active on Gab and Parler a Christian religious activity?
    - swirepe 6y ago
      I think Jesus is a Craigslist guy
    - Proziam 6y ago
      A huge percentage of content on Gab is based around religion. If that's where your religious community is (and most people can't see others in person for worship at the moment) then yes, it absolutely is a religious activity.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    Political affiliation is not a protected class. Being "a Christian" (whatever that means...) is a protected class - but where in the Bible did Moses or Jesus command people to use Gab, Parler - or even be "conservative"? You can be fired for being a selfish ass (I'm referring to the donkey hybrid, as befits the biblical narrative) - and that's my interpretation of what happened. What matters now is if the law will allow her to use her religion as the basis for being an ass - or not.

chrisjharris 6y ago

Frequently I feel that there is a conflation of the inherent attributes of a platform like Gab or Parler, and its user base. Though they may pitch themselves at a certian audience, social media platforms don't ultimately get to choose their users, and I'm not sure to what extent it is fair to judge them by their users. If we do judge them by their users (and I don't mean to sound like I'm criticizing Gab/Parler users here, it's entirely hypothetical) then you can have perverse outcomes, eg one way to shut down a social media site would be to have bots purporting to be, say, militia members spam it with messages. I've not done a great deal of research, but prima facie it seems like Parler actually had some quite attractive inherent characteristics, eg they were good on privacy and didn't monetize your data. On the other hand, to say that something like 4chan is inherently neutral and that the demographic of their users is nothing to do with them feels like it's taking the arguemnt too far.

threeseed 6y ago
> social media platforms don't ultimately get to choose their users Of course they can. They simply ban/allow people until they get the mix of people they want. It happens all the time on Reddit e.g. /r/the_donald, /r/conspiracy.
- chrisjharris 6y ago
  I think those were subreddits, not users.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Right, so it's a bit more coarse then banning or allowing users, but if you selectively ban or allow topics that certain kinds of users want to talk about (or don't want talked about), you can definitely shape your user base.
    - Zuider 6y ago
      Selective banning carried out by reacting to infractions is is a relatively coarse tool compared to whitelisting a set of users on the basis of credentials or avowed common interest.

deanCommie 6y ago

> "I just got fired because I'm a Christian and a conservative." Suspicions rising dramatically. This is a common dog whistle amongst the rightwing self-victimization crowd (see also: Consequences for actions being dubbed "cancel culture" or "political correctness") There's more to this story. If all she did was install Parler/Gab and didn't post then why would she associate platforms that were overrun with Nazis and full of hateful rhetoric as "Christian/Conservative"?

jariel 6y ago
Well, most of the world's best thinkers would disagree, to the point wherein they had to get together to make a public point that 'cancel culture exists and is a problem' [1] Which is of course, not to say that perpetuation of false victimhood doesn't happen, nor that some people should not be cancelled. But we see both of those things happen all the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_on_Justice_and_Open_Debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_on_Justice_and_Open_D...
- deanCommie 6y ago
  I fully agree cancel culture exists, and is taken too far in plenty of circumstances. I also fully believe that it is a term that's abused to the point of losing all meaning - a bit like "fake news" became just "facts inconvenient to me". Everyone facing consequences for their shitty actions - including Donald Trump's impeachment trial is being dubbed "cancel culture" by those facing those consequences. Do I believe people should be fired for tweets they made a decade ago as a teenager? No. Do I believe that JK Rowling (one of the signees) should lose fans and book sales because those fans don't like her outdated and problematic views on trans people? Well actually that's the beauty - it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what her fans think, and they think it's fair. That's consequences. That's not cancel culture.
  - jariel 6y ago
    Ok, yes - except that with Rowling it's 100% cancel culture - and it has to stop, now. Rowling's views are not 'dated' (that's your opinion) - they are thought out, and reasonable. They are controversial, possibly. Of course, nobody has to buy her books. It's a little infantile, but it's fine. I don't. The issue is not 'people not buying her books' - the issue is that people are trying to suppress and silence her, and stop the publication of her books & material. It's 100% 'cancel culture' for groups to organize and vent their petty, minority opinions towards instilling fear in publishers, distributors, points-of-sale, and pressure other groups (i.e. Hollywood, Netflix) to suppress the voices of those they disagree with. That is exactly cancel culture - and it's why so many of those luminary thinkers had to take out a page in Harper's. If we were allowed to do anonymous voting on these things it would be snuffed out immediately, the antagonizing base is very small.

jariel 6y ago

Most groups operate with some kernel of legitimacy, with which the more radical elements tend to use to interpret everything. When one group does something unassailable bad - like raid capitol hill - it embolden radicals from other groups, just raising the bar below which acceptable actions happen. We're going to see a lot more arbitrary banning among people who might have done 'very bad things' and maybe deserved some kind of censure.

Simulacra 6y ago

Thoughts Crimes.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

candybar 6y ago

Btw, the agent that was fired, Colleen Oefelein, was also the victim of an attempted kidnap plot by her current husband's ex-mistress in 2007. This story, dubbed, the "Astronaut Love Triangle" because her husband and the ex were astronauts, was all over the news and even made into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm. https://people.com/crime/astronaut-love-triangle-nine-years-later-victim-colleen-shipman-on-new-life/ https://people.com/crime/astronaut-love-triangle-nine-years-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_in_the_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_in_the_Sky

intuitionist 6y ago
Wow, I knew the name sounded vaguely familiar, but I never would have made the connection!
- casefields 6y ago
  Oh snap. The diapers astronaut lady.

tptacek 6y ago

Just a reminder that Newsweek ceased publication back in 2013, and the rights to its brand were purchased by an odd Christian sect, somewhat along the lines of The Washington Times and the Reunification Church. The new "Newsweek" capitalizes on the brand reputation of the old one, but has no connections to it; a good thing to do with Newsweek pieces is to check the byline and look up what their background is.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
I pictured you looking exactly like the “Ackchyually” meme. I found pics of you and it turns out I’m right.
dehrmann 6y ago
According to Wikipedia, it was bought by IBT Media in 2013, then spun-off as an independent entity in 2018 that I assume is owned by the same people as IBT. I found claims that IBT's other notable property, the International Business Times (which I haven't heard of), has been a content farm, but I only glossed over it. I can't seem to find Newsweek on the Median Bias chart, but it's ranked similarly to CNN. https://www.adfontesmedia.com/newsweek-bias-and-reliability/ https://www.adfontesmedia.com/newsweek-bias-and-reliability/ https://www.adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Media-Bias-Chart-5.1-Licensed-1.pdf https://www.adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Med... My take is it's mostly accurate, but I wouldn't use it as a primary source.
- dguaraglia 6y ago
  See, the best trick for pushing propaganda isn't fabricating stories, but choosing carefully what stories you publish and which ones you don't. The perfect example of that is Breitbart's infamous 'black crime' tag: Breitbart didn't need to invent stories, they'd just go and pick up out of the bunch of criminal prosecutions happening every single day in a country with >300 million inhabitants. But by choosing to focus on crimes committed by black people - and conveniently leaving out similar crimes committed by your average white criminal - it reaffirmed on their readers their 'intuition' that black people are clearly more inclined to commit crime. So, you should always consider who is publishing a story and why.

snicker7 6y ago

At this point, companies might as well just have an explicit policy of not hiring anyone registered as a Republican. Party affiliation is not a protected class, after all.

sneak 6y ago
This feels a bit snarky. There seems to me, looking at all of this US hyperpartisan nonsense as an outsider, to be quite a bit of difference between the frothy Gab/Parler/etc contingent and an average median republican (who I don't really imagine spends a ton of time on niche social media).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cooper12 6y ago
  They're quick to tell on themselves. When Biden condemned white supremacy, a lot of conservative leaders were outraged at the attack against them: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/why-are-conservatives-angry-biden-denounced-white-supremacy.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/why-are-conservative....
  - 1MachineElf 6y ago
    It's because conservatives see rhetoric about "white supremacy" as a weak man argument used against them. They don't believe themselves to be white supremacists. It's kind of like centrist Democrats being annoyed when conservatives call them socialists and communists. To see this as telling on themselves in this context is a bit like McCarthy saying only a communist would deny being a communist.
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  She wasn't fired for what she'd posted on those sites, though. She was fired for simply having an account.
gnicholas 6y ago

at_a_remove 6y ago

This new wave of McCarthyism is really exciting from a historical perspective. And, you know, perversely, my long-standing belief that so many "historical" victims are eager to strap on the jackboots themselves gets yet another data point.

etangent 6y ago
that's because victim/oppressor is a false dichotomy. the true dichotomy is friend/enemy
- igravious 6y ago
  um, in-group/out-group ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group
  - etangent 6y ago
    The political philosophers got there before social psychologists https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schmitt/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schmitt/ “the specific political distinction … is that between friend and enemy.”
esja 6y ago
Today's Red Guards will never achieve this level of self-awareness: "Hans, are we the baddies?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWvpvlT9pJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWvpvlT9pJU

perryizgr8 6y ago

I suppose the agency has the right to fire/hire whoever it wants. The person who was fired is free to start her own agency. What's the problem here?

tomcam 6y ago
No problem at all. Until it happens to you and yours when the political winds change, and they will.
pochamago 6y ago
It is possible to think an individual should have certain rights without thinking they should act on them.

Animats 6y ago

The political correctness now required by both the US Left and Right is distressing. A big complaint of young people was that there wasn't any real difference between the two major US parties. Well, that's over.

speeder 6y ago
To be honest, there still isn't one. I am not from US, but from what I saw generally both parties act the same, the exceptions are basically a few personalities that warp the VOTERs around them, but not the people in power. Trump for the GOP (that seemly only joined the GOP because he could win their primaries... if you take a look on his pre-GOP relationships he had strong ties to democratic party) and Sanders for Democrats (and he is not even officially in the party if I remember correctly, he in the Senate was listed as "independent that sits with Democrats") Even AOC that famously claim to be socialist got nicknamed in some circles as "Fraud Squad" because despite claiming to be socialist she is voting along status-quo US politics (that is: generally pro-corporations). Voters believe the parties are different now, but the people elected aren't that different, it is why in USA accusing someone of doing "partisan blocking" makes sense, it is because often when a party is blocking the other, they are doing so for shenanigans, not because they truly believe the proposal is bad, often both parties believe in the proposal but want to play political games.

qqj 6y ago

You used to get bullied for being a "faggot", now you're bullied for being a "conservative". Progress, indeed.

babesh 6y ago

People are walking chimps, organizing into tribes and beating the other tribe. Like, our cousins, we take visceral emotional satisfaction in demeaning the other tribe. Today’s US is just a grand example of this at Internet scale and energized by social media. Welcome to shit throwing and the tearing off of genitals. What you have now are threat displays to keep the losing tribe in its place. People identifying with the winning tribe feel good that there is a lesser party to trample on. Calls for unity happen after a change in power because constant struggle is destructive. After a change in power, lesser chimps (tech) pay fealty to the new alphas (Democratic Congress and Presidency). This whole system works because cooperation within a group allows the group as a whole to compete effectively against other groups. We are organized fractally in this way. To the victor go the spoils.

babesh 6y ago
People seem to be doing what losers do when facing destruction: move away. You see movement in both physical and virtual spaces. In people and in companies to different states. In people moving to different social media. People stop fighting with you, they just avoid you. China is going to be the obvious dominant world power within Biden’s term.
- jansan 6y ago
  In Germany there is the term "inner emmigration", if people oppose to the current system, but keep silent in fear of repression. This was coined during Nazi time, but also used to describe part of the opposition during socialism in East Germany. What it basically describes people who: - are opposed to the current political system (originally the Nazi regime) - cannot speak their opinion for fear of repressions . cannot or do not want ot leave their country - do not want to adapt to the political system Currently we have inner emmigration among conservatives. It is almost impossible to speak out as a conservative without fearing consequences. People are not revolting, but they are bascially done with the political system.
  - LarvaFX 6y ago
    My guess is that the fallout of the right wing's promised "tickle down" economics and the neoliberal politics of thatcherism is making people angry.

walrus01 6y ago

Conservatives getting upset about the results of a Free Market.

CountDrewku 6y ago
Liberals promoting monopolistic capitalism and bigotry. Cognitive dissonance much? Btw Conservatives promote less government not zero government interference. I think you’re confusing it with hardcore libertarianism.

libraryatnight 6y ago

This is the plausible deniability the far right has baked into their platform that's gotten us where we are. Parler isn't for racists and far right nationalists - it's for free speech. Someone calls you out for hate speech? It was a joke. Ligthen up. I was edgelording. Can't say anything around these snowflakes. We don't hate minorities, we support the police, they're heroes - you're not talking bad about heroes are you? That said, I don't agree with this firing. "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - Mencken

jl6 6y ago

It seems guilt by association is transitive, leading to a 2-means clustering of society. We now live in the future, where everybody is either a Communist or a Fascist.

Uhrheber 6y ago

The USA had always had a tendency towards witch hunts. And that's exactly whats happening now. I'm not saying that there aren't people that had it coming, but it's never a good idea to switch your brain off and run with the crowd.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

MrMember 6y ago

>"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" This honestly reads like satire. Why were they "distressed" by this and who could possibly be affected or offended by something so trivial?

redis_mlc 6y ago
> This honestly reads like satire. 20 years ago, it would have been satire, as the 1st Amendment was widely adopted and valued by the public even beyond govt. Since 2016, Marxism has infiltrated US society, most notably starting with Obama's identity politics during and after his election. https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/first-amendment https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/fi... > Why were they "distressed" Leftists are distressed when somebody disagrees with their narrative of that particular day [Dave Rubin.] Additionally, they're afraid of associating with somebody off narrative [Glenn Greenwald], for fear the Bolshevik Red Terror or Maoist Cultural Revolution will come for them too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution A topical example of the above is deplatforming and impeaching Trump before any investigation, despite none of his public statements causing the Capitol riot. (Pelosi actually declined to increase Capitol security before the rally, and one of the first people to enter the Capitol admitted to being BLM/antifa. Talk about inconvenient truths!)
vidarh 6y ago
These platforms are seen as far right and extremist by a lot of people. Whether or not that assessment is accurate, it will distress a lot of people who do agree with that assessment. Depending on the demographics of the authors they represent, it may well be a significant negative for their business to be associated with those platforms.
- vergessenmir 6y ago
  A lot of people being the media in the US that pushes the narrative to the extreme. You could make the argument ( perhaps weakly for Parler now) that they are right leaning social platforms that contain extremes. The same way Twitter is left leaning and contains left and right extremes. Companies in the states appear to wear their political allegiances as a badge of honour eliciting an us-or-them reaction. Left and Right ideologies often have wants which flip from side to side, generation to generation. It's worrying and baffling that someone's source of income can be severed when there has been no evidence of misconduct.

sto_hristo 6y ago

Being canceled for what you write, think, your opinions... That is a major part of life in any communist regime. Difference being that in communism it's the state that does the monitoring and canceling, while here - the people themselves.

LarvaFX 6y ago
True for right-wing regimes as well.
evilsetg 6y ago
I would say this is true for any dictatorship or even some authoritarian regimes. How is it related specifically to communism? Full disclosure: I am a communist.
MagnumOpus 6y ago
So it is not like communism at all you mean?

chovybizzass 6y ago

I'm not surprised. I mean companies will do this depending on what you say online. That's why you USE A FUCKING ALIAS.

dmingod666 6y ago

I just find it comical that liberals went from being happy peace loving hippies, to being uptight ultra-orthodox in their thinking and have this deep urge everyone must just comply. I jokingly like to call it the ultra-orthodox church of the right. Everyone should be "good" with my exact definition of good, in thinking, feeling, actions and reactions to things.

ecf 6y ago
It’s entertaining to read people like you and your exaggerated posts about the world coming to an end after a reporter was fired after their reputation was put into question.

rbanffy 6y ago

The relevant thing is unsaid. What was going on on Parler and Gab that warranted such action? I've seen pretty horrifying things on Gab that makes that "Camp Auschwitz Staff" hoodie seem office-appropriate.

nojvek 6y ago

The most deadliest thing about Tech companies is how massive they are and going about their merry things while little ants like us get squished left and right. Also the whole cancel culture is crazy since it’s so trigger happy. In many ways it feels like a witch hunt. Someone says something, the crowd follows (without much evidence) and makes a ton of noise on social media. The companies see a hit on their brand and do whatever the mob is asking and pretend to be the good guys/girls. We really do need a society that encourages fact checking and hearing both sides of the story. Amplifying filter bubbles doesn’t end well for our society.

Threeve303 6y ago
> Also the whole cancel culture is crazy since it’s so trigger happy. I have given this a great deal of thought and I'm still torn on what to believe. On one hand, everyone wants to be judge, jury, and executioner. This means that the power the state has to determine these things is eroded. Probably as a result of the general loss of trust in institutions. On the other hand, the United States specifically has a long history of what is considered community justice. Often this happens when the institutions to provide it do not exist yet or fail in their goals. Similar to losing any kind of arbiter of truth, we are also losing truth in justice. Truth takes time, the mob is fickle, and the pitchforks are heavy.
- spiralx 6y ago
  There certainly wasn't this hysteria about cancel culture when it was solely the tool of large, well-funded conservative and religious organisations - Mothers Against Dungeons & Dragons is the example that comes to mind for me immediately from when I was younger. Now that just any old pleb can express an opinion on the actions and comments of their betters it seems that collective expressions of disapproval with the intent of exerting power is a bad thing! "Cancelling" is a boycott in the marketplace of ideas. The left and the right should find something to appeal to them there!

bslyke 6y ago

Reminds me of this classic post: https://twitter.com/LizardRumsfeld/status/1071540537075863553/photo/1 https://twitter.com/LizardRumsfeld/status/107154053707586355... Being against cancel culture but from the right is "The problems (getting cancelled out of a job) are bad... but the causes (at-will employment), the causes are good."

zajio1am 6y ago

Seems to me that the core issue here is at-will employment. Currently, it is triggered by political purity spiral, but in other times there may be other impulses to cancel people. Here in Czechia, emplyees generally cannot be fired for issues unrelated to work, and even most work excesses must be first handled by written admonishment before firing.

d50ce6477f82 6y ago

Things will only get real once HN gets people fired. You cannot delete past HN comments.

helen___keller 6y ago

Putting aside the specifics of this particular instance of culture war, global social media is a huge liability to be associated with your public persona and everyone should be aware of this, even the tech illiterate. If you post something for the world to see, assume that the wrong person will see it at the worst possible time, even if it's years in the future. If you aren't comfortable with that, take your posts private or suspend your account, or delete your old posts, ASAP. At one point I literally walked through years of reddit history to delete any posts that might be embarrassing, even though I post pseudonymously

eplanit 6y ago

The Left is using psychological projection as a technique. They accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they themselves are doing. They'll call you a fascist while they burn books. They'll call you racist while accusing you of "white privilege". Like you say, they'll destroy people's lives, based on racial hatred, while accusing those people of racial hatred. Domestic terrorism.

cpursley 6y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Communists and Fascists share a lot of the same authoritarian tactics.
- hairofadog 6y ago
  It’s because they’re positing that it’s only people on the left that do this. I’ve heard it said that the enemy of extremists isn't the extremist on the other side, it’s the moderates. Extremists are itching for a fight, and they’ll continue fighting forever. Moderates and pragmatists stand in the way of that goal. If an extremist group were to win and completely eliminate the other side, they’d draw some other battle lines within their own group. “Othering” is important to extremists, and the’ll find a way to do it. I’m another proud lefty. I marched with Black Lives Matter last summer, voted for Elizabeth Warren in the primaries, I’m vegan for all the reasons people think are stupid. All of that is true, and it infuriates me to see leftist extremists getting dressed up in black and setting buildings on fire. It infuriates me to see leftists gatekeeping on Twitter, and taking such joy from tweeting people’s employers to try to get them fired for the crime of making a joke that didn’t pass a purity test, or for having a counterintuitive take on something complex. Internet pile ons are the worst. All that said, it confounds me that people on the right seem to be unable to see these traits within their own party, and aren’t working harder to rid their ranks of QAnon, Proud Boys, and Trumpism. It seems like anyone on the right who has the temerity to point out these problems gets branded as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and expelled from the party. Jeff Sessions – JEFF SESSIONS – was cancelled by the right for not being right enough. So, yeah, there’s a lot of projection going on all around.

gotoeleven 6y ago

I wish the left would just publish a list of the things you're allowed to say so that we could avoid all this trouble.

RickJWagner 6y ago

This is insane. I don't use either Parler or Gab, but may sign up just to show support for free speech. Enough of the authoritarianism.