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In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action th

In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime. If a person commits a crime, then let courts decide, otherwise it's just mob rule and vigilante "justice". That said, I think it's going to take at least a few more decades before such a ruling is made. I suspect it will come along the lines that internet history is protected speech, and so it's a protected work category and is illegal to fire a person over. Once companies can just point to the law and shrug, then they can ignore the online mob. Additionally, one would think cancelling should fall under libel and slander laws, and the accused would be able to go after the instigators. It's uncomfortable when it's "your side" that finds it's goals at odds with human rights, but in the end we're all better off with defending basic human rights. Policing morality is infinitely more difficult and oppressive, no matter how much it really feels good at the moment.

blablabla123 5y ago
> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: Which actions exactly should be illegal? I assume you don't want to make me force watching movies from certain producers that I don't like anymore. At the same time in some countries retail stores basically have to cater to everyone and already can be made liable if they don't sell something that they advertised for as long as customers stick to terms and conditions. I rather think that excess cancelling and all that comes with it is a result of perceived injustices. Even if you come up with a very creative law unless these injustices are solved the symptoms will pop up elsewhere. That said, standards in society develop over time and probably the capacity for ambivalence is going to rise again. Also people tend to give more credit to things that have been worked for more than things that have been inherited.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment. Most importantly, accusations of bias are also not a valid reason to fire a journalist. There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful. Of course, America has the coercive institution of at-will employment, ruining any attempt at fixing it this way. A good step would be filling class action defamation suit against a class running a smear campaign over barely public and irrelevant things. Consequences for setting up mobs. While platform is not liable, the users are. That could make some people think twice before doing it.
  - dTal 5y ago
    You're going to sue me for running, in my head, the program "if misbehave, then boycott"? Because that's all it takes to be a member of a "mob". Or you're going to sue me for passing on information of <misbehavior>, even if it's true, because you're afraid of being cancelled? That's a fairly horrifying dystopia you're painting. Nobody has to incite a mob. It just happens. It's collective action. There's no one to sue, unless you feel like suing everyone.
    - JackMorgan 5y ago
      I was discussing an individual being attacked for personal thoughts posted in the past. If a company supports things you don't, sure, just don't support that company. But when a group tries to get a person fired for something unpopular that they said in the past, then using a mob to get them fired is vigilante justice.
      - shadowgovt 5y ago
        But a group trying to get someone fired for what they did or said in the past is the individuals in the group exercising their own protected political speech. It's difficult to see how that can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself.
        jimmydorry 5y ago
        It is indeed difficult to see how cancelling can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself. If there was an easy solution though, it would probably already be in place.
        hackinthebochs 5y ago
        If firing for speech is made illegal, then a boycott will be ineffectual and thus not happen. You don't have to outlaw the speech of the mob, just the ability for a company to fire someone over someone's past statements.
- Udik 5y ago
  > Which actions exactly should be illegal? Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob. You are of course free to boycott whoever you want- but my impression is that those threatened boycotts won't really cause much damage to companies. People keep saying that firings are meant to "limit damage" but I have yet to see proof of this. To me it is mostly virtue signalling on the part of the involved businesses- it's not meant to prevent an economic damage but as a form of PR and advertising.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob. So, all I have to do is hire a few Twitter bots once in a while and I’m permanently unfireable?
    - hackinthebochs 5y ago
      You can still be fired for cause. But the company will have to do work to document that to demonstrate it wasn't for past statements.
      - bjl 5y ago
        So you're incentivizing being racist on the internet to make it harder to fire somebody.
        Udik 5y ago
        This is silly. A twitter storm is a pretty well defined, public event. Do you seriously think it would be common to post racist stuff on the internet, and then organise a permanent campaign against yourself, in order to become un-fireable for causes that are work related? A company that wants to fire you for your poor performance can do so, and if you sue them it's not going to be hard for them to prove they have a legitimate cause which has nothing to do with your self-organised mobbing campaigns.
  - bigbillheck 5y ago
ben_w 5y ago
While I agree that the status quo isn’t stable and must change, I don’t think what you’re suggesting will be stable either. The internet is one place where 99.9% compliance with a social norm or law isn’t good enough to prevent the remaining 0.1% from causing enough damage to be un-ignorable, even if you manage to get worldwide agreement on updating the law. (Consider that e.g. the UK does not have American freedom of speech, and if anything considers the American way of doing things to be strange and somewhat anarchic). I sometimes wonder it would help if social media posts had to be deleted after a short period, perhaps a few months or a few years? (The pre-internet social media, being conversations and occasionally letters, was probably >99% forgotten in hours, and most of the rest was hearsay). Or it would help, or make things worse, if it became easy for people to change identity?
- tomjen3 5y ago
  Is there a standard way to convert an encryption key into a human readable name? Because then we could have a service where you signed everything with your key and then you were know as whatever the hash of that key is - and you can create a new identity with a new key, but your name won't be linked to any real world identity. I barely use Facebook or Twitter compared to reddit, and I suspect it is because of the real name issues, that makes those places just not as much fun.
  - swebs 5y ago
    That sounds like the tripcode system you see on imageboards like 4chan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Tripcodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Tripcodes
  - ttt0 5y ago
    GPG?
  - kodah 5y ago
    This is called PGP
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Yes, but people are leaky with regards to OpSec even when they’re trained and motivated to be non-terrible at it, and most people are not trained at all.
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
i have a question. What about "right to be forgotten" ? if doxing would be illegal in future, would that mean the crony capitalists like google and facebook would decide declaring your old photos and "stupid" past as "too important" and just like your AFK history is written and unchangeable.
monkeydreams 5y ago
> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Will it be illegal at the point of expressing an opinion online? Will it be illegal at the point of agreeing or liking an opinion expressed online? Will it be illegal at the point where one is purchasing a product or service and determines where their money will go based on an opinion they hold? People are allowed to have, express and hold opinion. They are allowed to make decisions based on these opinions. > Additionally, one would think cancelling should fall under libel and slander laws, and the accused would be able to go after the instigators. Good news! These laws exist. > It's uncomfortable when it's "your side" that finds it's goals at odds with human rights, but in the end we're all better off with defending basic human rights. When "your side" starts advocating that people should not have, hold or act on opinions, you might start wondering who you're on side with.
- rolandog 5y ago
  Well, I recently was permanently suspended on Reddit, but I've been unable to determine why (also, no previous announcement). I haven't been permanently banned from any subreddit (no message in my 14 year old history indicated this)... but I've been unable to get any human to tell me what exactly I did was against the Reddit Content Policy. The curious thing for me was that my alt account (the one I use to try to have some semblance of free speech) was also permanently suspended. This, to me, felt like I may have been censored in some way (though I really don't know the motive; maybe I was too outspoken against an oppressive government?). It certainly has had a chilling effect on my online activity.
  - monkeydreams 5y ago
    > Well, I recently was permanently suspended on Reddit, but I've been unable to determine why (also, no previous announcement). > The curious thing for me was that my alt account (the one I use to try to have some semblance of free speech) was also permanently suspended. That sucks, especially as there are few ways to appeal these bans. Perhaps you were banned for upvoting your own content from another account? This will result in a ban for both accounts. If not, it could be a number of other reasons that have nothing to do with cancellation or governmental criticism.
ashtonkem 5y ago
> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime. I’m incredibly dubious that you can write a law that accomplishes this that won’t run afoul of the first amendment. And honestly, I think that literally jailing attempted “cancellers” would have way more of a chilling effect than whatever “cancel culture” causes. The solution for this is to change the culture, not to weaponize the power of the state to harm those you dislike. Please stop suggesting it, it will only make things worse.
- II2II 5y ago
  If you walk up to someone and punch them, it is reasonable for that person to press charges even though the repercussions may only last a few minutes. The consequence will be more-or-less immediate, even if it starts and ends with a discussion with a police officer. If you slander someone, their recourse is to sue even though the repercussions may last for months or years. The consequence will not be immediate and the victim may not even have the means to pursue it. I don't know if there is a good solution to the problem. You are perfectly correct in pointing out that the proposed solution can weaponize the power of the state. On the other hand, speech can, and has been, weaponized.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I believe your proposal weaponizes speech even more; giving the ability of someone to accuse someone else of cancellation, which brings with it the threat of criminal action. It seems pretty obvious to me that this would make “cancel culture” markedly worse.
    - II2II 5y ago
      Just to be clear: I am making observations, not proposals. I see the current situation as a problem, but do not see a clear way to resolve it. It is difficult to understand why such an outcome is obvious. At one end of the spectrum, people are making claims that should be actionable through legal measures yet they choose to do make it actionable through speech. There are many reasons why this could be the case: lack of confidence in the legal system, expedience and perceived severity of punishment, or a lack of evidence to support the claims (assuming they are true). Regardless of why, I would classify it as vigilantism. Vigilantism has not place in a civil society that respects the process of law. In cases where the initial act was illegal, I find it difficult to call the threat of criminal action a tool of "cancel culture". Then there are allegations that many may considered as immoral, yet are legal. The people making the allegations cannot use the threat of criminal action to cancel someone, unless they resort to slander (e.g. make up a criminal act). That is pretty much the current situation. On the other hand, those on the receiving end would have more recourse against deliberately malicious acts. Since there would be due process, I find it difficult to think of it as a tool to cancel those making the allegations.
hooande 5y ago
Imagine you start a company and one of your employees says or does something reprehensible. Investors fear a boycott and threaten to pull out of a fundraising round. You either fire that one person, or the whole company goes under and everyone that works for you could lose their job (including you). If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse. It seems like a better system would be one where everyone is responsible for their own behavior.
- mongol 5y ago
  But if it is illegal, then all the people working for cancelling the employee will know it is hopeless.
  - sundaeofshock 5y ago
    They won’t be able to get the person canceled, but they can still boycott the person’s employer. Said employer will be economically harmed, with no way to end the pain. Companies don’t like being harmed in this way, so they will most likely respond by digging very deeply into every job candidate’s past to avoid hiring someone who may be “canceled” at a future date. Here’s the thing: most people have done pretty shitty things in their past. However, most people don’t rise to a level of prominence that it ever matters. They are able to live normal, productive, happy lives. Making “cancel mob” terminations illegal ends all that. Is this really the path we want to go down?
    - account42 5y ago
      > Making “cancel mob” terminations illegal ends all that. Is this really the path we want to go down? Yes? The problem with cancellation is that individuals are targeted which means that for most people it is not a problem and they have no incentive to stop it. The mob cannot go after everyone. Employers cannot filter out everyone - then they have no employees.
- galtwho 5y ago
  > If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse. well then the investors can't ask for the firing, they have to demand something else.
nonameiguess 5y ago
It's really bizarre that you think this. Sexual preference still isn't a federally protected category. Neither is political affiliation. You're protected from the government arresting you for the views you express, but unless you have a separate contract or more protective local laws, a U.S. employer can fire you for being a Democrat or Republican. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...
- ttt0 5y ago
  You're trying to apply current law to mere predictions of what the law might be in the future. He's saying that for example political affiliation might become a protected category. Nothing bizarre about it.
username90 5y ago
Firing people for cases like this is already illegal in most of the developed world. You need a cause and "people on twitter were angry" isn't one.
woodruffw 5y ago
This is an astounding response: in reaction to people bullying each other on the Internet, you want to empower everyone to use the force of the law to silence their critics? In what world is that either (1) a reasonable de-escalation of a social ill, or (2) a net win for free expression? I'm not very old, but I am old enough to know the history of SLAPP lawsuits and anti-SLAPP legislation[1]. Barbara Streisand lost a SLAPP motion so hard that we named an entire effect in free expression after her! Do you really want a world in which well-resourced parties can leverage the courts to silence dissent? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
TechnoTimeStop 5y ago
Except that its in the China Russia KGB CCP interest to hurt American industry wherever and whenever they can. Who actually goes around sifting through all of these peoples content? Its honestly pathetic. Fix social media now. We're all under attack!
webmobdev 5y ago
Right to Privacy - specifically, the Right to Be Forgotten ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten ) - is also very important here. Americans are certainly behind EU on this aspect, as many European countries have successfully passed legislation that a person has the right to get his personal information deleted from internet services (mainly search engines).
pizzazzaro 5y ago
The answer is simple: nuke your social media. If you need them? Start from scratch once a year. It isnt challenging. But privacy takes effort.

blablabla123 5y ago

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: Which actions exactly should be illegal? I assume you don't want to make me force watching movies from certain producers that I don't like anymore. At the same time in some countries retail stores basically have to cater to everyone and already can be made liable if they don't sell something that they advertised for as long as customers stick to terms and conditions. I rather think that excess cancelling and all that comes with it is a result of perceived injustices. Even if you come up with a very creative law unless these injustices are solved the symptoms will pop up elsewhere. That said, standards in society develop over time and probably the capacity for ambivalence is going to rise again. Also people tend to give more credit to things that have been worked for more than things that have been inherited.

AstralStorm 5y ago
Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment. Most importantly, accusations of bias are also not a valid reason to fire a journalist. There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful. Of course, America has the coercive institution of at-will employment, ruining any attempt at fixing it this way. A good step would be filling class action defamation suit against a class running a smear campaign over barely public and irrelevant things. Consequences for setting up mobs. While platform is not liable, the users are. That could make some people think twice before doing it.
- dTal 5y ago
  You're going to sue me for running, in my head, the program "if misbehave, then boycott"? Because that's all it takes to be a member of a "mob". Or you're going to sue me for passing on information of <misbehavior>, even if it's true, because you're afraid of being cancelled? That's a fairly horrifying dystopia you're painting. Nobody has to incite a mob. It just happens. It's collective action. There's no one to sue, unless you feel like suing everyone.
  - JackMorgan 5y ago
    I was discussing an individual being attacked for personal thoughts posted in the past. If a company supports things you don't, sure, just don't support that company. But when a group tries to get a person fired for something unpopular that they said in the past, then using a mob to get them fired is vigilante justice.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      But a group trying to get someone fired for what they did or said in the past is the individuals in the group exercising their own protected political speech. It's difficult to see how that can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself.
      - jimmydorry 5y ago
        It is indeed difficult to see how cancelling can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself. If there was an easy solution though, it would probably already be in place.
      - hackinthebochs 5y ago
        If firing for speech is made illegal, then a boycott will be ineffectual and thus not happen. You don't have to outlaw the speech of the mob, just the ability for a company to fire someone over someone's past statements.
Udik 5y ago
> Which actions exactly should be illegal? Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob. You are of course free to boycott whoever you want- but my impression is that those threatened boycotts won't really cause much damage to companies. People keep saying that firings are meant to "limit damage" but I have yet to see proof of this. To me it is mostly virtue signalling on the part of the involved businesses- it's not meant to prevent an economic damage but as a form of PR and advertising.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob. So, all I have to do is hire a few Twitter bots once in a while and I’m permanently unfireable?
  - hackinthebochs 5y ago
    You can still be fired for cause. But the company will have to do work to document that to demonstrate it wasn't for past statements.
    - bjl 5y ago
      So you're incentivizing being racist on the internet to make it harder to fire somebody.
      - Udik 5y ago
        This is silly. A twitter storm is a pretty well defined, public event. Do you seriously think it would be common to post racist stuff on the internet, and then organise a permanent campaign against yourself, in order to become un-fireable for causes that are work related? A company that wants to fire you for your poor performance can do so, and if you sue them it's not going to be hard for them to prove they have a legitimate cause which has nothing to do with your self-organised mobbing campaigns.
- bigbillheck 5y ago

ben_w 5y ago

While I agree that the status quo isn’t stable and must change, I don’t think what you’re suggesting will be stable either. The internet is one place where 99.9% compliance with a social norm or law isn’t good enough to prevent the remaining 0.1% from causing enough damage to be un-ignorable, even if you manage to get worldwide agreement on updating the law. (Consider that e.g. the UK does not have American freedom of speech, and if anything considers the American way of doing things to be strange and somewhat anarchic). I sometimes wonder it would help if social media posts had to be deleted after a short period, perhaps a few months or a few years? (The pre-internet social media, being conversations and occasionally letters, was probably >99% forgotten in hours, and most of the rest was hearsay). Or it would help, or make things worse, if it became easy for people to change identity?

tomjen3 5y ago
Is there a standard way to convert an encryption key into a human readable name? Because then we could have a service where you signed everything with your key and then you were know as whatever the hash of that key is - and you can create a new identity with a new key, but your name won't be linked to any real world identity. I barely use Facebook or Twitter compared to reddit, and I suspect it is because of the real name issues, that makes those places just not as much fun.
- swebs 5y ago
  That sounds like the tripcode system you see on imageboards like 4chan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Tripcodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Tripcodes
- ttt0 5y ago
  GPG?
- kodah 5y ago
  This is called PGP
- ben_w 5y ago
  Yes, but people are leaky with regards to OpSec even when they’re trained and motivated to be non-terrible at it, and most people are not trained at all.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

i have a question. What about "right to be forgotten" ? if doxing would be illegal in future, would that mean the crony capitalists like google and facebook would decide declaring your old photos and "stupid" past as "too important" and just like your AFK history is written and unchangeable.

monkeydreams 5y ago

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Will it be illegal at the point of expressing an opinion online? Will it be illegal at the point of agreeing or liking an opinion expressed online? Will it be illegal at the point where one is purchasing a product or service and determines where their money will go based on an opinion they hold? People are allowed to have, express and hold opinion. They are allowed to make decisions based on these opinions. > Additionally, one would think cancelling should fall under libel and slander laws, and the accused would be able to go after the instigators. Good news! These laws exist. > It's uncomfortable when it's "your side" that finds it's goals at odds with human rights, but in the end we're all better off with defending basic human rights. When "your side" starts advocating that people should not have, hold or act on opinions, you might start wondering who you're on side with.

rolandog 5y ago
Well, I recently was permanently suspended on Reddit, but I've been unable to determine why (also, no previous announcement). I haven't been permanently banned from any subreddit (no message in my 14 year old history indicated this)... but I've been unable to get any human to tell me what exactly I did was against the Reddit Content Policy. The curious thing for me was that my alt account (the one I use to try to have some semblance of free speech) was also permanently suspended. This, to me, felt like I may have been censored in some way (though I really don't know the motive; maybe I was too outspoken against an oppressive government?). It certainly has had a chilling effect on my online activity.
- monkeydreams 5y ago
  > Well, I recently was permanently suspended on Reddit, but I've been unable to determine why (also, no previous announcement). > The curious thing for me was that my alt account (the one I use to try to have some semblance of free speech) was also permanently suspended. That sucks, especially as there are few ways to appeal these bans. Perhaps you were banned for upvoting your own content from another account? This will result in a ban for both accounts. If not, it could be a number of other reasons that have nothing to do with cancellation or governmental criticism.

ashtonkem 5y ago

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime. I’m incredibly dubious that you can write a law that accomplishes this that won’t run afoul of the first amendment. And honestly, I think that literally jailing attempted “cancellers” would have way more of a chilling effect than whatever “cancel culture” causes. The solution for this is to change the culture, not to weaponize the power of the state to harm those you dislike. Please stop suggesting it, it will only make things worse.

II2II 5y ago
If you walk up to someone and punch them, it is reasonable for that person to press charges even though the repercussions may only last a few minutes. The consequence will be more-or-less immediate, even if it starts and ends with a discussion with a police officer. If you slander someone, their recourse is to sue even though the repercussions may last for months or years. The consequence will not be immediate and the victim may not even have the means to pursue it. I don't know if there is a good solution to the problem. You are perfectly correct in pointing out that the proposed solution can weaponize the power of the state. On the other hand, speech can, and has been, weaponized.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I believe your proposal weaponizes speech even more; giving the ability of someone to accuse someone else of cancellation, which brings with it the threat of criminal action. It seems pretty obvious to me that this would make “cancel culture” markedly worse.
  - II2II 5y ago
    Just to be clear: I am making observations, not proposals. I see the current situation as a problem, but do not see a clear way to resolve it. It is difficult to understand why such an outcome is obvious. At one end of the spectrum, people are making claims that should be actionable through legal measures yet they choose to do make it actionable through speech. There are many reasons why this could be the case: lack of confidence in the legal system, expedience and perceived severity of punishment, or a lack of evidence to support the claims (assuming they are true). Regardless of why, I would classify it as vigilantism. Vigilantism has not place in a civil society that respects the process of law. In cases where the initial act was illegal, I find it difficult to call the threat of criminal action a tool of "cancel culture". Then there are allegations that many may considered as immoral, yet are legal. The people making the allegations cannot use the threat of criminal action to cancel someone, unless they resort to slander (e.g. make up a criminal act). That is pretty much the current situation. On the other hand, those on the receiving end would have more recourse against deliberately malicious acts. Since there would be due process, I find it difficult to think of it as a tool to cancel those making the allegations.

hooande 5y ago

Imagine you start a company and one of your employees says or does something reprehensible. Investors fear a boycott and threaten to pull out of a fundraising round. You either fire that one person, or the whole company goes under and everyone that works for you could lose their job (including you). If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse. It seems like a better system would be one where everyone is responsible for their own behavior.

mongol 5y ago
But if it is illegal, then all the people working for cancelling the employee will know it is hopeless.
- sundaeofshock 5y ago
  They won’t be able to get the person canceled, but they can still boycott the person’s employer. Said employer will be economically harmed, with no way to end the pain. Companies don’t like being harmed in this way, so they will most likely respond by digging very deeply into every job candidate’s past to avoid hiring someone who may be “canceled” at a future date. Here’s the thing: most people have done pretty shitty things in their past. However, most people don’t rise to a level of prominence that it ever matters. They are able to live normal, productive, happy lives. Making “cancel mob” terminations illegal ends all that. Is this really the path we want to go down?
  - account42 5y ago
    > Making “cancel mob” terminations illegal ends all that. Is this really the path we want to go down? Yes? The problem with cancellation is that individuals are targeted which means that for most people it is not a problem and they have no incentive to stop it. The mob cannot go after everyone. Employers cannot filter out everyone - then they have no employees.
galtwho 5y ago
> If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse. well then the investors can't ask for the firing, they have to demand something else.

nonameiguess 5y ago

It's really bizarre that you think this. Sexual preference still isn't a federally protected category. Neither is political affiliation. You're protected from the government arresting you for the views you express, but unless you have a separate contract or more protective local laws, a U.S. employer can fire you for being a Democrat or Republican. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...

ttt0 5y ago
You're trying to apply current law to mere predictions of what the law might be in the future. He's saying that for example political affiliation might become a protected category. Nothing bizarre about it.

username90 5y ago

Firing people for cases like this is already illegal in most of the developed world. You need a cause and "people on twitter were angry" isn't one.

woodruffw 5y ago

This is an astounding response: in reaction to people bullying each other on the Internet, you want to empower everyone to use the force of the law to silence their critics? In what world is that either (1) a reasonable de-escalation of a social ill, or (2) a net win for free expression? I'm not very old, but I am old enough to know the history of SLAPP lawsuits and anti-SLAPP legislation[1]. Barbara Streisand lost a SLAPP motion so hard that we named an entire effect in free expression after her! Do you really want a world in which well-resourced parties can leverage the courts to silence dissent? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

TechnoTimeStop 5y ago

Except that its in the China Russia KGB CCP interest to hurt American industry wherever and whenever they can. Who actually goes around sifting through all of these peoples content? Its honestly pathetic. Fix social media now. We're all under attack!

webmobdev 5y ago

Right to Privacy - specifically, the Right to Be Forgotten ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten ) - is also very important here. Americans are certainly behind EU on this aspect, as many European countries have successfully passed legislation that a person has the right to get his personal information deleted from internet services (mainly search engines).

pizzazzaro 5y ago

The answer is simple: nuke your social media. If you need them? Start from scratch once a year. It isnt challenging. But privacy takes effort.