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Tripwire CEO 'Steps Down' After Supporting Texas Anti-Abortion Law

51 points by sundaeofshock 5y ago

lucaspm98 5y ago
I understand this is a divisive political issue, but why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media? 39% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases. Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion?
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  I also am concerned that the principle of CEOs not speaking out on issues is not being applied consistently. CEOs are allowed to publicly state their opinion if it is in favor of left leaning positions but not conservative leaning positions. See also the book Woke Inc.
  - marcinzm 5y ago
    They're allowed to state their opinion if it does not negatively impact the finances of the company. That is the life of a CEO. You get the big money and you get the responsibility of being in charge.
    - quotemstr 5y ago
      > They're allowed to state their opinion if it does not negatively impact the finances of the company This is not a principle that the people who got this CEO actually live by or genuinely believe in. It's a post-hoc excuse for collecting a scalp from the other side. Let's speak plainly about what's really going on here.
      - marcinzm 5y ago
        Corporate board aren't some bastion of liberalism, they're generally older white man with money. Conservative much more often than not as that demographic tends to be. They didn't have some sort of magical change of heart in the last 10 years but simply do what is needed to make money.
    - kangnkodos 5y ago
      If instead, he had negatively imapacted the finances of the company by alienating the right, he would still have a job. It's only CEOs who go against the left who actually get fired.
  - midev 5y ago
    > CEOs are allowed to publicly state their opinion if it is in favor of left leaning positions certifications but not conservative leaning positions. The left is the dominate culture in the United States. Places of education and culture are all blue. The right has only won the popular vote once since 1988. Mainstream culture has had it with conservative nonsense. We're tired of trying to drag the bible belt out of the 1950s. If you express conservative viewpoints, the people with all the buying power are not going to tolerate it. I love it. It's the capitalism that conservatives always wanted.
  - moistly 5y ago
    LOL, wut? Every person in the USA has the same right to post their opinion. What would you like—for everyone to be forced into buying his company’s products/services? Cancel the right to (not) associate? Cancel free speech, so no one can spread news about his opinion? Foolish. Everything worked exactly as it is meant to work: freedom of speech and freedom of association, hand in hand.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    > CEOs are allowed to publicly state their opinion if it is in favor of left leaning positions certifications but not conservative leaning positions. No. CEOs of companies that sell to left-leaning consumers can make left-leaning posts. The same goes for the right. This has always been true.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      When was the last time that a CEO got canceled by right-leaning consumers for making a left-leaning post? Most companies sell to both left-leaning and right-leaning consumers, but people only seem to get canceled over right-leaning posts.
      - b0sk 5y ago
        Donald Trump tried to cancel NFL because of black athletes kneeling for social justice and a significant percentage followed through.
        josephcsible 5y ago
        Last time I checked, the NFL still exists and kneeling for social justice still happens.
        nradov 5y ago
        NFL revenue dropped by a quarter in 2020, however that seems to have been mostly due to the pandemic rather than politics. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/03/11/nfl-revenue-drops-from-16-billion-to-12-billion-in-2020/ https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/03/11/nfl-revenue...
        only_as_i_fall 5y ago
        Right, but then the argument isn't that people only get canceled for conservative opinions, it's just that the left is better at it.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Supporting SB8 is not a conservative position, but rather a regressive one. Being truly conservative means supporting the precedent that was decided nearly 50 years ago, and has served us thus far. We need to stop letting this radical religious agenda be whitewashed as conservatism. It's born out of frustration with conservatism, but it is anything but conservative.
    - readflaggedcomm 5y ago
      Dead black babies isn't a conservative position.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Being truly conservative means supporting the precedent that was decided nearly 50 years ago, and has served us thus far. That's a specious argument, since at its core you're just picking an arbitrary reference point that gets you the result you want. Also I don't think that "conservatism," properly understood, is about arbitrarily "conserving" everything.
      - mindslight 5y ago
        I wasn't picking a point in time, rather pointing out that 50 years is a pretty long time - nearly two generations of people. Someone who was 15 years old for Roe v Wade would be 63 years old today. We feel sorry for the twenty-somethings of Afghanistan, who only ever knew freedom, seeing the Taliban take over their country. This is over twice as long. To me, the core of conservatism involves respecting existing institutions and customs, and wanting change to happen slowly. This has direct bearing on the topic, because it's incorrect to say this CEO had to step down due to having a "conservative" opinion. Rather, business is intrinsically conservative. It's just that our societal values in 2021 involve things that religious fundamentalists do not like, such as women's healthcare and rainbow flags. Big business isn't embracing these symbols so they can be activists pushing change, but rather to ingratiate their businesses with consumers by embracing change that has already happened. This CEO didn't have to step down because they were against some change or wanted to slow it down, but rather because they were advocating for a change that most people find repulsive. There would be similar pushback for any political opinion that was equally unpopular.
  - igetspam 5y ago
    Perhaps CEOs should be smart enough to not make their ethics public on divisive issues where they find themselves in the minority. Seems like bad business.
    - epicureanideal 5y ago
      Well, my point is that they do still make their ethics public on divisive issues where they find themselves in the minority... if those positions are typically held by the left.
- willis936 5y ago
  39% of Americans are not public figures. Public figures can and regularly do get shit canned for what they say. That's an integral part of the job.
  - lucaspm98 5y ago
    I can agree there is a greater level of scrutiny on public figures. I'm simply surprised because this is a fairly generic tweet supporting a mainstream political position.
    - tekromancr 5y ago
      The law reinvents stasi with extra steps. I think even people against abortion can see the lack of wisdom incentivizing p2p spying.
  - bronzeage 5y ago
    Cancel culture is out of control. It's disgusting. This isn't some Nazi. People who are against abortion think that it is murder. You can disagree with them but it's not like they are coming from some morally unjustified position. A person speaks out against what he thinks is murder, and ends up cancelled and resigning. I love eating meat, I don't see it as murder but I would never agree to cancel someone because he decides to speak out his mind that meat is murder.
    - subsection1h 5y ago
      > I would never agree to cancel someone because he decides to speak out his mind that meat is murder. There are relatively few vegetarians and vegans, so they aren't a real threat. I doubt you know what you would do if the number of vegetarians and vegans in your country were the same as the number of anti-abortion theocrats and the former were actively pursuing a long-term goal of establishing legally that all animals have personhood.
      - kangnkodos 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
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- marcinzm 5y ago
  It's rather simple, if you're the CEO then you're going to get flak for saying things that make the company lose money. The online response to the tweet was to blacklist the company and block it on steam. If you do then you may be fired for it. The title and salary come with responsibilities.
- midev 5y ago
  > why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media He can, and did, voice his opinion on social media. He was not prevented from doing so in any way. Other people read his opinion and decided they didn't want to work with him anymore. Also their right. Because enough customers and partners decided they didn't want to work with him anymore, he felt like the only way to save his business was to step down. > Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion It's not just an opinion, but legislation that puts millions of women at risk. If you support things that are harmful to women, I don't see why I'd employ you. :shrug: For what it's worth, this is what conservatives have been pushing for decades, the ability to discriminate based on skin color, sexual orientation, and political beliefs. I am all for giving them their wishes on this one.
  - lucaspm98 5y ago
    Saying conservatives are pushing for the ability to discriminate based on skin color, sexual orientation, and political beliefs is not additive to the discussion without further explanation. Conservatives claim the exact same thing about the left on issues like affirmative action and critical race theory.
- skuhn 5y ago
  Yes, he got to voice his opinion on social media. His opinion is gross to me, because the Texas law he is celebrating is (in my opinion) a terrible blow to gender equality, privacy and healthcare access -- which are particularly important things to me. Based on his statement, my response is that I do not want to conduct any sort of business with his company. That's not a major hardship to me (I didn't like Killing Floor), and it's not a major hardship to them. However, there are more people who feel like I do, and apparently some of them WORK at Tripwire. If I was in their position, I would have quit. Perhaps the company leadership didn't want that to happen? In short: who here has misbehaved to your mind? I am not legally required to financially support people who wish harm on me, am I? And let's be clear, people are already being harmed by this law -- this is not a mere disagreement on the finer points of jurisprudence.
  - lucaspm98 5y ago
    I don't think it's illegal in any way. I do think it's a dangerous and impractical strategy to not do business with anyone with a mainstream political belief different than my own. I can understand with extreme views, but on an issue like this I'd prefer discourse over further polarization. It doesn't sound like such a bad idea until it's applied to people/businesses with your beliefs.
    - skuhn 5y ago
      I feel like where we're at odds is in four places: 1. This is not a mainstream political belief. The law at the root of the current issue in Texas is far beyond the mainstream. The intention at some level is to shift the Overton window of what is mainstream in its favor, but that has not occurred yet. 2. It's not my responsibility to educate this guy to my point of view. I don't know him and I don't work with him. Actually the only thing I know about him is that he doesn't respect the rights of others that I feel are important, so I'm doubly disinclined to make his acquaintance. I would presume that some amount of discourse did occur within Tripwire, but I don't think we know. 3. I'm allowed to vote with my dollars. It doesn't have to be a glorious public crusade, and it may not make the slightest bit of difference. In this case, it certainly won't. But those dollars work for me, and I can choose to deploy them so as not to (tacitly or actively) support people or business who wish to harm myself and people who I identify with. That's what I have chosen to do, and others should make their own choices. 4. In a different scenario, I might indeed feel differently. I don't find that the slippery slope is a solid argument for why I can't take (lawful) action to preserve my values though.
- moistly 5y ago
  > why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media He did. So did other people, so everyone’s rights were well-maintained. They also made purchasing decisions. Would you deny them the right to choose a different service provider?
- void_mint 5y ago
  He can voice his opinion. His employer can take action against that opionion, as is at-will employment. He should work for a company that would put up with his views if he'd like to be public about controversial issues like abortion.
- weare138 5y ago
  Shouldn't people get to decide who they do business with or work for? Isn't that how free markets work? Besides it's not like there's a shortage of companies who wouldn't hire people with those views. Look at companies like Koch Industries for example. Having those views obviously isn't hurting their bottom line or the enumerable other corporations with openly conservative views. https://xkcd.com/1357 https://xkcd.com/1357
- oliwarner 5y ago
  Now a significant portion of his company and customers both hate him for it. Not a great CEO move, irrespective of your view on abortion. You can't air opinions like this unless you're happy to only work with and sell to people who think the same.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > 39% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases. I'd assume that many of them would be uncomfortable with the Texas law on a rule of law basis; it's divisive on two axes. Even many of those who approve of the ends would be very uncomfortable with the means.
  - jjgreen 5y ago
    There have been several cases of women having pregnancies after a full hysterectomy, they were pregnant at the point of the operation, the foetus is left in the body-cavity, attaches to the large bowel or other handy blood supply and does its stuff. It strikes me that this offers a way out of the abortion conundrum, those who oppose abortion can offer their bodies as hosts for the precious foetus, women who do not wish to get their way too. This could also involve men opposed to abortion; they would need to be castrated and have large oestrogen injections to create the right chemical environment, but a small price to pay, surely.
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  He absolutely can voice his opinions, but he's also responsible for them. Is there some social more I missed that says forcing 13 year old rape victims to carry children to term is acceptable behavior but not buy videogames from the shitheads who support this policy crosses a line? Why should I support people who are trying to push their religious beliefs on me? Why should I support people who want to regulate what others can do with their own body?
  - tzs 5y ago
    > forcing 13 year old rape victims to carry children to term According to Governor Abbott, this won't be a problem because "Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets" [1]. [1] https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-abortion-bill-wont-force-rape-victims-to-have-babies-texas-will-eliminate-rapists/ https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-abortion-bill-won...
  - kangnkodos 5y ago
    I agree that a woman should get to decide what to do with her own body. Texas SB 8 is bad. But imagine you enter a Twilight Zone episode, and are transferred back to the 1920s. You publicly state your opinion that abortions should be legal, and then you lose your job because of it. How would that feel to you? Even though I think a woman's rights are the most important, I understand that there are lots of people from 1920, or even today who think the unborn baby's rights are the most important. In fact from their point of view, they think people who support abortion are baby killers. That's not right. You and me aren't baby killers. We want to help women. That's all. I don't think people with this other opinion are monsters. They're people. Like you and me. Just people with other opinions. They just want to help unborn babies. That's all.
    - version_five 5y ago
      I don't really agree with the second half of your comment - I won't get into that - but the first half is bang on. It's the same idea as asking people if they'd oppose slavery in the antebellum period, and they all pretend they would, while at the same time only supporting mainstream orthodox views in their own time period.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I understand this is a divisive political issue, but why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media? He can. He did. > 39% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases. Many people who believe that don’t support the Texas law; the people that oppose abortion actually overlap a lot with the people that think that open floodgates for private civil litigation by parties not directly involved in an issue is a very bad way to enforce even good and necessary laws. > Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion? People who can’t restrain their public engagement on controversial issues to positions that the relevant decisionmakers are willing to tie the organization to tend not to be employable in positions where they are perceived as the face of an organization. Having a belief is not the issue.
  - kangnkodos 5y ago
    If he had sent out a public tweet that he was against the Texas law, he would still have a job. Public opinion on the left - OK. Public opinion on the right - You're fired.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  You are free to speak your own opinions and the government won't stop you. You are not free to speak from consequences from other people. Everyone else is free to decide that they think you're an asshole that they don't want to work for. That is what actual FREEDOM looks like.
  - version_five 5y ago
    How original. Then can I fire someone that works for me who advocates for access to abortion? If not, what is different compared to your example? People love to advocate for "freedom" when it agrees with their interests, and advocate for "accepting the consequences of your actions" when they disagree with something. Actual apolitical freedom means having a single standard to apply.
    - lamontcg 5y ago
      Business owners absolutely can, and their fired employees are free to let everyone know about that and boycott them if they want to.
javagram 5y ago
For reference - https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx Views on abortion have been mostly static since 1975 in the US population as a whole. ~30% “legal under any”, ~50% “legal only under certain”, ~20% “illegal in all”. It’s interesting, but unsurprising, to see that publicly speaking in favor of a 70% popular opinion would lead to issues in tech related industries such as gaming. Due to various factors like education polarization, only speaking out in favor of the 30% “Legal under any circumstances” view would be seen as acceptable in the industry.
- b0sk 5y ago
  How is it 70% popular opinion? He's speaking for the draconian ~20% Texas rule.
  - javagram 5y ago
    Hypothetical, but I doubt the response would have been any different if he endorsed a post-12 weeks ban. Fair to point out that the Texas heartbeat law seems like it could have an effect similar to the 20% view (although it and the Supreme Court decision that the developer praised doesn’t apply to RU-486 abortions, which Texas is currently attempting to ban separately[1]. Therefore, even in Texas law, abortion remains legal under some circumstances for now.) [1] https://19thnews.org/2021/09/texas-restrictions-abortion-inducing-medications-ban/ https://19thnews.org/2021/09/texas-restrictions-abortion-ind...
    - b0sk 5y ago
      Texas law forbids abortion even in case of rape/incest. However, per Gallup (your link) 77% of the people think it should be legal for rape/incest.
      - javagram 5y ago
        The criticism of this CEO that I’ve seen in various places did not focus on exclusion/inclusion of such criteria - check his twitter replies or the statements boycotting his company which have no such focus. Currently under Texas law/lack of a stay by SCOTUS which was praised by the CEO, as I mentioned in the previous post, medication abortion via RU-486 would still be available for a woman in this circumstance, although Texas is working to ban it too - this was not discussed in the tweet at issue. You’re absolutely right about the poll numbers generally being in favor of those 2 exceptions.
quotemstr 5y ago
All the comments on this thread will be exactly the same as the comments on the Eich threads from years ago. I'm reminded of what Talleyrand wrote about the Bourbons: they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Look: nobody should ever lose his job for voicing political opinions in his capacity as a private human being --- and yes, this principle applies to political opinions you or I don't like. What's going on right now is no different from 1950s blacklisting except that the sides are flipped. If you object to McCarthyism and don't object to this, then you're just a partisan unmoored to any principle of discourse higher than getting your team to win at any cost. You can be that way if you want, but you should at least be honest with yourself about it.
- b0sk 5y ago
  He didn't lose his job for voicing a political opinion. He lost his job because they started having real financial impact (contractors dropping out etc.). Are you going to decree that others are forbidden to react to his comments?
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    I'm not going to engage at this level of the conversation. I've seen enough of this stuff to know that what's really going on. I think there's a set of political statements that you believe should not result in firing no matter the financial consequences. That makes you a hypocrite, but that's okay: everyone is a hypocrite these days. These days, every conversation is about scoring points for a side, not agreeing on universal principles everyone can agree to live under. On Monday, someone will espouse principle X if it hurts someone on the other team, and then on Tuesday say X doesn't apply to someone on his side. Yeah, okay. The bottom line is this: if normal participation in the political process costs you your job, then you're not living in a free country, and I don't really care about the pretzel logic people use to justify creating our current atmosphere of terror. Either you can speak or you can't.
    - facet1ous 5y ago
      What does this have to do with living in a free country? This isn’t the US government arresting someone because they’re pro-life. It’s a private company firing someone who disrupted their business interests. Pretty sure the US government is still one of the most fierce protectors of free speech and natural rights among developed nations last time I checked. Your qualm is with cultural intolerance for conservative ideas. Which I agree is valid. But yeah, sorry, if you’re running a business and can’t understand that your business partners will be potentially offended by your own political statements, you deserve to get fired. Let’s not pretend this was some no-name engineer at a tech company in SV who got canned because they expressed a normal political opinion and their coworkers “just didn’t like it”. He’s the CEO and is the ultimate ambassador of the company and has a responsibility to read the room. Would you expect BMW or Mercedes to keep their CEOs if they made political statements about the human rights abuses and economic sabotage conducted by China? Let’s be real. Do I sympathize with him that he freely spoke his mind and was inherently punished for it? Yes, in principle. But he’s a complete idiot for thinking he can do so without consequences in his position. There are always going to be cultural factors intwined in economics and sometimes they are not fair, but that’s the way the world has always worked.
skissane 5y ago
I don't agree with this Texas law, but nor do I support how he lost his job as CEO. I think it is important that employees should have the right to express their non-work-related political opinions on social media, and no one should lose their job for doing so. It is justifiable to make an exception to that right for really extreme political opinions, such as praising Hitler or the KKK; but not for politely expressing mainstream political opinions, and agreeing with a recent action by the US Supreme Court is mainstream by definition. I know some people argue it is different because he is CEO, but I don't agree. I actually think it is important that the rule applies to CEOs too. If lower level employees see the CEO speaking their mind on politics and getting away with it, that makes them feel more confident they can too. If the CEO loses their job for doing so, that makes lower level employees worry they might meet the same fate, and arguing that "the rules are different for CEOs" is unlikely to reassure them.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  If you being employed loses the company money you will be fired. That's true for every employee. It's just that people are more likely to boycott a company for something the CEO says. Would you like to ban people from deciding which companies they support or ban companies from firing people that cost them money?
  - skissane 5y ago
    I support laws protecting employees against political discrimination. I know California has such a law, and so do some Australian states (Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria). If people are boycotting a company because one of its employees belongs to a protected class – and laws against political discrimination make political belief a protected class – then it will likely be illegal for the employer to fire that employee on account of the boycott. They may legally have no choice but to endure it. It is no different in principle from people choosing to boycott a company for employing a member of any other kind of protected class.
Bostonian 5y ago
I don't think he should have been forced out for tweeting the following: "Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat. As an entertainer I don’t get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer." The Left is now ascendant in many parts of the culture, but that may not always be the case.
- hodgesrm 5y ago
  One of the responsibilities of being the boss is to avoid alienating customers, employees, or partners. It sounds as if he did all three.
- sterlind 5y ago
  The tweet is also factually wrong. The Supreme Court did not affirm Texas law, they just ruled very narrowly that the plaintiffs didn't have standing to request that Texas judges be preemptively enjoined not to hear cases brought under the law. The law will hit the Supreme Court again, and either it or Roe will be overturned. But from a process perspective, the Court didn't say the law was constitutional.
  - Bostonian 5y ago
    Not understanding the subtleties of Supreme Court rulings should not be a firing offense for a software CEO, although it's better to get things right before tweeting.
draw_down 5y ago
Don’t worry! Cancel culture isn’t real.
ohnobabysmash 5y ago
> Texas’ recent decision to strip women of a basic human right. "basic human right", what the actual F. Kotaku in action indeed.
javajosh 5y ago
Troubling. The Texas law is horrific, but people, even CEOs, should be allowed to espouse "wrong political views" without fear of losing their economic life. In a world where so much speech is paid for, it's valuable for people to speak on their own behalf. It's part of what makes America great. And go ahead and criticize! But firing? Cancelling? Is that the price of the sin of sharing your personal political opinion these days? There were two mistakes made here, but the mistake that chills speech and punishes dissent, without limit, is, in the long run, far worse for our society.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  I suspect you'd agree that people are allowed to choose which companies they support (for whatever reason) and companies are allowed to fire people that cost them money. If you believe those two then this is an obvious outcome.
  - plugger 5y ago
    Agreed. Much like the conversation about Google censoring at the behest of the Russian government yesterday it all boils down to the money. Don't mess with the revenue stream. If you do, be prepared to be let go. It's that simple. It's nothing to do with freedom, free speech, etc. It's always about the money.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Perhaps it would hurt sales, like Orson Scott Card's anti-gay-marriage stance hurt Shadow Complex sales. But even so, I think it's possible to chew gum and walk at the same time, and I can enjoy Ender's Game while thinking Card is a backwards fool. Or enjoy Lethal Weapon while thinking Mel Gibson is a bigoted fool. Or admire George Washington, even though he owned slaves. We can't keep throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Even racists, misogynists and bigots have valuable things to contribute to society. Heck, approx 99% of humans living are bigoted and have "wrong views"; if you take human history, it's 100%. The people who are against gay marriage, and abortion, aren't taking those positions to be horrible people. They have heartfelt, if ignorant, reasons for it. I don't think we're doing anyone any good by taking people's livelihood away for sharing their personal political or religious beliefs. Probably gonna get downvoted. But that's okay. It's not my livelihood.
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
It’s all “don’t tread on me” with these people until it comes to women’s rights. Laughable. At least he stood down.
alex-wallish 5y ago
I wonder if the many commenters here saying things like "If you being employed loses the company money you should be fired" would say the same thing in the case of Colin Kaepernick. Not passing judgement either way, just curious.
- igetspam 5y ago
  Did Kaepernick taking a knee lose (insert team here) a measurable amount of money? Was Kaepernick the head of the organization? I think those are the critical metrics. If whatever team he was on started hurting financially, then let him go. If he was the boss and therefore, even acting independently, his words were associated with the organization because of the potential influence his personal ethics could have AND it was a divisive issue AND he was in the minority then... yeah. Dump him.
  - lmz 5y ago
    I can think of plenty of things that would "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" and cost companies a lot of money. I hope you have the same opinion about that. (e.g. the Houston Rockets controversy https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-daryl-morey-tweet-hong-kong-protests-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-dary... )
    - igetspam 5y ago
      Was this intended for me? I don't know almost anything about any sports controversies. I do my best to not follow sports news. I find it mostly boring. But I do support people fighting against oppression, especially when it comes with physical abuse by those in power.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        >> I can think of plenty of things that would "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" and cost companies a lot of money. I hope you have the same opinion about that. (e.g. the Houston Rockets controversy https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-daryl-morey-tweet-hong-kong-protests-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-dary...) > Was this intended for me? I don't know almost anything about any sports controversies. I do my best to not follow sports news. I find it mostly boring. But I do support people fighting against oppression, especially when it comes with physical abuse by those in power. That isn't a sports controversy. If you care about "fighting against oppression" how did you not get the reference? A link was provided to explain what you're apparently unaware of. tl;dr: the authoritarian PRC government uses the exact same tactics you are approving of to stifle criticism and opposition to its oppression. You might feel differently about those tactics if the context was this guy getting fired for saying it's wrong of the PRC to ship Muslims in Xinjiang off to reeducation camps to crush their culture.
dredmorbius 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail Third rails are hot, live, and tremendously unforgiving to careless or unskilled handling.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  I think you meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail_(politics) But anyway, isn't that supposed to just affect politicians?
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I think I know what I meant. But thanks.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kthejoker2 5y ago
Forest for the trees in this thread ... One of the characteristics of a good CEO is their judgment of risk. That includes their ability to avoid controversy for their organization, and put the organization's message above their own. He knew this tweet might have the risk of financial impact to the company he was specifically and volunatrily selected to protect (among other things) its financial health, and if he had ran it by the board they absolutely would have told him not to post it. The poor judgment on display here is the core issue.
- effingwewt 5y ago
  By this metric Elon Musk is the single worst CEO ever. I can get behind that =) edit to make substantive I don't think we should be firing people for their beliefs, at what point are out jobs separated from our personal lives. Having said that, if you say something as CEO you take what you get, like Elon should have. I'm sure each and every one of us has done things that if captured on camera, or were we CEO and posted it to Twitter as opposed to speaking it, would have gotten us fired. Or we need to get rid of the bullshit and just have political businesses, where left leaning people work for left leaning companies, etc.
- sk2020 5y ago
  I would be a bit skeptical if anyone actually measured or even forecast impacts to sales prior to this decision. I had actually never heard of Tripwire until the story, so it’s excellent for increasing the company’s exposure to a broader market. Mozilla took similar action with respect to Brendan Eich. You can judge how well that worked for them.
  - kthejoker2 5y ago
    First, I'm not sure Tripwire wants to be "heard of" - most video game publishers want their games to be the brand. Second, you don't have to explicitly "forecast" sales impact to understand there might be an impact, and that that impact is guaranteed to be negative. (Again - CEOs are paid to be good at exactly these sorts of judgment calls.) Throwing out tweets on a hot button political topic as the CEO of a games company is, at best, a high-risk, low-reward branding strategy.
RickJWagner 5y ago
More frightening stuff, along the lines of 'cancel culture'. Please don't take part in this sort of nonsense. Respect the rights of everyone to speak freely, without fear of losing their livelihood. In other words, this is bullying. Make it stop.

51 points by sundaeofshock 5y ago

I understand this is a divisive political issue, but why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media? 39% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases. Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion?

epicureanideal 5y ago
I also am concerned that the principle of CEOs not speaking out on issues is not being applied consistently. CEOs are allowed to publicly state their opinion if it is in favor of left leaning positions but not conservative leaning positions. See also the book Woke Inc.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  They're allowed to state their opinion if it does not negatively impact the finances of the company. That is the life of a CEO. You get the big money and you get the responsibility of being in charge.
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    > They're allowed to state their opinion if it does not negatively impact the finances of the company This is not a principle that the people who got this CEO actually live by or genuinely believe in. It's a post-hoc excuse for collecting a scalp from the other side. Let's speak plainly about what's really going on here.
    - marcinzm 5y ago
      Corporate board aren't some bastion of liberalism, they're generally older white man with money. Conservative much more often than not as that demographic tends to be. They didn't have some sort of magical change of heart in the last 10 years but simply do what is needed to make money.
  - kangnkodos 5y ago
    If instead, he had negatively imapacted the finances of the company by alienating the right, he would still have a job. It's only CEOs who go against the left who actually get fired.
- midev 5y ago
  > CEOs are allowed to publicly state their opinion if it is in favor of left leaning positions certifications but not conservative leaning positions. The left is the dominate culture in the United States. Places of education and culture are all blue. The right has only won the popular vote once since 1988. Mainstream culture has had it with conservative nonsense. We're tired of trying to drag the bible belt out of the 1950s. If you express conservative viewpoints, the people with all the buying power are not going to tolerate it. I love it. It's the capitalism that conservatives always wanted.
- moistly 5y ago
  LOL, wut? Every person in the USA has the same right to post their opinion. What would you like—for everyone to be forced into buying his company’s products/services? Cancel the right to (not) associate? Cancel free speech, so no one can spread news about his opinion? Foolish. Everything worked exactly as it is meant to work: freedom of speech and freedom of association, hand in hand.
- void_mint 5y ago
  > CEOs are allowed to publicly state their opinion if it is in favor of left leaning positions certifications but not conservative leaning positions. No. CEOs of companies that sell to left-leaning consumers can make left-leaning posts. The same goes for the right. This has always been true.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    When was the last time that a CEO got canceled by right-leaning consumers for making a left-leaning post? Most companies sell to both left-leaning and right-leaning consumers, but people only seem to get canceled over right-leaning posts.
    - b0sk 5y ago
      Donald Trump tried to cancel NFL because of black athletes kneeling for social justice and a significant percentage followed through.
      - josephcsible 5y ago
        Last time I checked, the NFL still exists and kneeling for social justice still happens.
        nradov 5y ago
        NFL revenue dropped by a quarter in 2020, however that seems to have been mostly due to the pandemic rather than politics. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/03/11/nfl-revenue-drops-from-16-billion-to-12-billion-in-2020/ https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/03/11/nfl-revenue...
        only_as_i_fall 5y ago
        Right, but then the argument isn't that people only get canceled for conservative opinions, it's just that the left is better at it.
- mindslight 5y ago
  Supporting SB8 is not a conservative position, but rather a regressive one. Being truly conservative means supporting the precedent that was decided nearly 50 years ago, and has served us thus far. We need to stop letting this radical religious agenda be whitewashed as conservatism. It's born out of frustration with conservatism, but it is anything but conservative.
  - readflaggedcomm 5y ago
    Dead black babies isn't a conservative position.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Being truly conservative means supporting the precedent that was decided nearly 50 years ago, and has served us thus far. That's a specious argument, since at its core you're just picking an arbitrary reference point that gets you the result you want. Also I don't think that "conservatism," properly understood, is about arbitrarily "conserving" everything.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      I wasn't picking a point in time, rather pointing out that 50 years is a pretty long time - nearly two generations of people. Someone who was 15 years old for Roe v Wade would be 63 years old today. We feel sorry for the twenty-somethings of Afghanistan, who only ever knew freedom, seeing the Taliban take over their country. This is over twice as long. To me, the core of conservatism involves respecting existing institutions and customs, and wanting change to happen slowly. This has direct bearing on the topic, because it's incorrect to say this CEO had to step down due to having a "conservative" opinion. Rather, business is intrinsically conservative. It's just that our societal values in 2021 involve things that religious fundamentalists do not like, such as women's healthcare and rainbow flags. Big business isn't embracing these symbols so they can be activists pushing change, but rather to ingratiate their businesses with consumers by embracing change that has already happened. This CEO didn't have to step down because they were against some change or wanted to slow it down, but rather because they were advocating for a change that most people find repulsive. There would be similar pushback for any political opinion that was equally unpopular.
- igetspam 5y ago
  Perhaps CEOs should be smart enough to not make their ethics public on divisive issues where they find themselves in the minority. Seems like bad business.
  - epicureanideal 5y ago
    Well, my point is that they do still make their ethics public on divisive issues where they find themselves in the minority... if those positions are typically held by the left.
willis936 5y ago
39% of Americans are not public figures. Public figures can and regularly do get shit canned for what they say. That's an integral part of the job.
- lucaspm98 5y ago
  I can agree there is a greater level of scrutiny on public figures. I'm simply surprised because this is a fairly generic tweet supporting a mainstream political position.
  - tekromancr 5y ago
    The law reinvents stasi with extra steps. I think even people against abortion can see the lack of wisdom incentivizing p2p spying.
- bronzeage 5y ago
  Cancel culture is out of control. It's disgusting. This isn't some Nazi. People who are against abortion think that it is murder. You can disagree with them but it's not like they are coming from some morally unjustified position. A person speaks out against what he thinks is murder, and ends up cancelled and resigning. I love eating meat, I don't see it as murder but I would never agree to cancel someone because he decides to speak out his mind that meat is murder.
  - subsection1h 5y ago
    > I would never agree to cancel someone because he decides to speak out his mind that meat is murder. There are relatively few vegetarians and vegans, so they aren't a real threat. I doubt you know what you would do if the number of vegetarians and vegans in your country were the same as the number of anti-abortion theocrats and the former were actively pursuing a long-term goal of establishing legally that all animals have personhood.
    - kangnkodos 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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marcinzm 5y ago
It's rather simple, if you're the CEO then you're going to get flak for saying things that make the company lose money. The online response to the tweet was to blacklist the company and block it on steam. If you do then you may be fired for it. The title and salary come with responsibilities.
midev 5y ago
> why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media He can, and did, voice his opinion on social media. He was not prevented from doing so in any way. Other people read his opinion and decided they didn't want to work with him anymore. Also their right. Because enough customers and partners decided they didn't want to work with him anymore, he felt like the only way to save his business was to step down. > Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion It's not just an opinion, but legislation that puts millions of women at risk. If you support things that are harmful to women, I don't see why I'd employ you. :shrug: For what it's worth, this is what conservatives have been pushing for decades, the ability to discriminate based on skin color, sexual orientation, and political beliefs. I am all for giving them their wishes on this one.
- lucaspm98 5y ago
  Saying conservatives are pushing for the ability to discriminate based on skin color, sexual orientation, and political beliefs is not additive to the discussion without further explanation. Conservatives claim the exact same thing about the left on issues like affirmative action and critical race theory.
skuhn 5y ago
Yes, he got to voice his opinion on social media. His opinion is gross to me, because the Texas law he is celebrating is (in my opinion) a terrible blow to gender equality, privacy and healthcare access -- which are particularly important things to me. Based on his statement, my response is that I do not want to conduct any sort of business with his company. That's not a major hardship to me (I didn't like Killing Floor), and it's not a major hardship to them. However, there are more people who feel like I do, and apparently some of them WORK at Tripwire. If I was in their position, I would have quit. Perhaps the company leadership didn't want that to happen? In short: who here has misbehaved to your mind? I am not legally required to financially support people who wish harm on me, am I? And let's be clear, people are already being harmed by this law -- this is not a mere disagreement on the finer points of jurisprudence.
- lucaspm98 5y ago
  I don't think it's illegal in any way. I do think it's a dangerous and impractical strategy to not do business with anyone with a mainstream political belief different than my own. I can understand with extreme views, but on an issue like this I'd prefer discourse over further polarization. It doesn't sound like such a bad idea until it's applied to people/businesses with your beliefs.
  - skuhn 5y ago
    I feel like where we're at odds is in four places: 1. This is not a mainstream political belief. The law at the root of the current issue in Texas is far beyond the mainstream. The intention at some level is to shift the Overton window of what is mainstream in its favor, but that has not occurred yet. 2. It's not my responsibility to educate this guy to my point of view. I don't know him and I don't work with him. Actually the only thing I know about him is that he doesn't respect the rights of others that I feel are important, so I'm doubly disinclined to make his acquaintance. I would presume that some amount of discourse did occur within Tripwire, but I don't think we know. 3. I'm allowed to vote with my dollars. It doesn't have to be a glorious public crusade, and it may not make the slightest bit of difference. In this case, it certainly won't. But those dollars work for me, and I can choose to deploy them so as not to (tacitly or actively) support people or business who wish to harm myself and people who I identify with. That's what I have chosen to do, and others should make their own choices. 4. In a different scenario, I might indeed feel differently. I don't find that the slippery slope is a solid argument for why I can't take (lawful) action to preserve my values though.
moistly 5y ago
> why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media He did. So did other people, so everyone’s rights were well-maintained. They also made purchasing decisions. Would you deny them the right to choose a different service provider?
void_mint 5y ago
He can voice his opinion. His employer can take action against that opionion, as is at-will employment. He should work for a company that would put up with his views if he'd like to be public about controversial issues like abortion.
weare138 5y ago
Shouldn't people get to decide who they do business with or work for? Isn't that how free markets work? Besides it's not like there's a shortage of companies who wouldn't hire people with those views. Look at companies like Koch Industries for example. Having those views obviously isn't hurting their bottom line or the enumerable other corporations with openly conservative views. https://xkcd.com/1357 https://xkcd.com/1357
oliwarner 5y ago
Now a significant portion of his company and customers both hate him for it. Not a great CEO move, irrespective of your view on abortion. You can't air opinions like this unless you're happy to only work with and sell to people who think the same.
rsynnott 5y ago
> 39% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases. I'd assume that many of them would be uncomfortable with the Texas law on a rule of law basis; it's divisive on two axes. Even many of those who approve of the ends would be very uncomfortable with the means.
- jjgreen 5y ago
  There have been several cases of women having pregnancies after a full hysterectomy, they were pregnant at the point of the operation, the foetus is left in the body-cavity, attaches to the large bowel or other handy blood supply and does its stuff. It strikes me that this offers a way out of the abortion conundrum, those who oppose abortion can offer their bodies as hosts for the precious foetus, women who do not wish to get their way too. This could also involve men opposed to abortion; they would need to be castrated and have large oestrogen injections to create the right chemical environment, but a small price to pay, surely.
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
He absolutely can voice his opinions, but he's also responsible for them. Is there some social more I missed that says forcing 13 year old rape victims to carry children to term is acceptable behavior but not buy videogames from the shitheads who support this policy crosses a line? Why should I support people who are trying to push their religious beliefs on me? Why should I support people who want to regulate what others can do with their own body?
- tzs 5y ago
  > forcing 13 year old rape victims to carry children to term According to Governor Abbott, this won't be a problem because "Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets" [1]. [1] https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-abortion-bill-wont-force-rape-victims-to-have-babies-texas-will-eliminate-rapists/ https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-abortion-bill-won...
- kangnkodos 5y ago
  I agree that a woman should get to decide what to do with her own body. Texas SB 8 is bad. But imagine you enter a Twilight Zone episode, and are transferred back to the 1920s. You publicly state your opinion that abortions should be legal, and then you lose your job because of it. How would that feel to you? Even though I think a woman's rights are the most important, I understand that there are lots of people from 1920, or even today who think the unborn baby's rights are the most important. In fact from their point of view, they think people who support abortion are baby killers. That's not right. You and me aren't baby killers. We want to help women. That's all. I don't think people with this other opinion are monsters. They're people. Like you and me. Just people with other opinions. They just want to help unborn babies. That's all.
  - version_five 5y ago
    I don't really agree with the second half of your comment - I won't get into that - but the first half is bang on. It's the same idea as asking people if they'd oppose slavery in the antebellum period, and they all pretend they would, while at the same time only supporting mainstream orthodox views in their own time period.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I understand this is a divisive political issue, but why can he not voice his opinion on his personal social media? He can. He did. > 39% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases. Many people who believe that don’t support the Texas law; the people that oppose abortion actually overlap a lot with the people that think that open floodgates for private civil litigation by parties not directly involved in an issue is a very bad way to enforce even good and necessary laws. > Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion? People who can’t restrain their public engagement on controversial issues to positions that the relevant decisionmakers are willing to tie the organization to tend not to be employable in positions where they are perceived as the face of an organization. Having a belief is not the issue.
- kangnkodos 5y ago
  If he had sent out a public tweet that he was against the Texas law, he would still have a job. Public opinion on the left - OK. Public opinion on the right - You're fired.
lamontcg 5y ago
You are free to speak your own opinions and the government won't stop you. You are not free to speak from consequences from other people. Everyone else is free to decide that they think you're an asshole that they don't want to work for. That is what actual FREEDOM looks like.
- version_five 5y ago
  How original. Then can I fire someone that works for me who advocates for access to abortion? If not, what is different compared to your example? People love to advocate for "freedom" when it agrees with their interests, and advocate for "accepting the consequences of your actions" when they disagree with something. Actual apolitical freedom means having a single standard to apply.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    Business owners absolutely can, and their fired employees are free to let everyone know about that and boycott them if they want to.

javagram 5y ago

For reference - https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx Views on abortion have been mostly static since 1975 in the US population as a whole. ~30% “legal under any”, ~50% “legal only under certain”, ~20% “illegal in all”. It’s interesting, but unsurprising, to see that publicly speaking in favor of a 70% popular opinion would lead to issues in tech related industries such as gaming. Due to various factors like education polarization, only speaking out in favor of the 30% “Legal under any circumstances” view would be seen as acceptable in the industry.

b0sk 5y ago
How is it 70% popular opinion? He's speaking for the draconian ~20% Texas rule.
- javagram 5y ago
  Hypothetical, but I doubt the response would have been any different if he endorsed a post-12 weeks ban. Fair to point out that the Texas heartbeat law seems like it could have an effect similar to the 20% view (although it and the Supreme Court decision that the developer praised doesn’t apply to RU-486 abortions, which Texas is currently attempting to ban separately[1]. Therefore, even in Texas law, abortion remains legal under some circumstances for now.) [1] https://19thnews.org/2021/09/texas-restrictions-abortion-inducing-medications-ban/ https://19thnews.org/2021/09/texas-restrictions-abortion-ind...
  - b0sk 5y ago
    Texas law forbids abortion even in case of rape/incest. However, per Gallup (your link) 77% of the people think it should be legal for rape/incest.
    - javagram 5y ago
      The criticism of this CEO that I’ve seen in various places did not focus on exclusion/inclusion of such criteria - check his twitter replies or the statements boycotting his company which have no such focus. Currently under Texas law/lack of a stay by SCOTUS which was praised by the CEO, as I mentioned in the previous post, medication abortion via RU-486 would still be available for a woman in this circumstance, although Texas is working to ban it too - this was not discussed in the tweet at issue. You’re absolutely right about the poll numbers generally being in favor of those 2 exceptions.

quotemstr 5y ago

All the comments on this thread will be exactly the same as the comments on the Eich threads from years ago. I'm reminded of what Talleyrand wrote about the Bourbons: they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Look: nobody should ever lose his job for voicing political opinions in his capacity as a private human being --- and yes, this principle applies to political opinions you or I don't like. What's going on right now is no different from 1950s blacklisting except that the sides are flipped. If you object to McCarthyism and don't object to this, then you're just a partisan unmoored to any principle of discourse higher than getting your team to win at any cost. You can be that way if you want, but you should at least be honest with yourself about it.

b0sk 5y ago
He didn't lose his job for voicing a political opinion. He lost his job because they started having real financial impact (contractors dropping out etc.). Are you going to decree that others are forbidden to react to his comments?
- quotemstr 5y ago
  I'm not going to engage at this level of the conversation. I've seen enough of this stuff to know that what's really going on. I think there's a set of political statements that you believe should not result in firing no matter the financial consequences. That makes you a hypocrite, but that's okay: everyone is a hypocrite these days. These days, every conversation is about scoring points for a side, not agreeing on universal principles everyone can agree to live under. On Monday, someone will espouse principle X if it hurts someone on the other team, and then on Tuesday say X doesn't apply to someone on his side. Yeah, okay. The bottom line is this: if normal participation in the political process costs you your job, then you're not living in a free country, and I don't really care about the pretzel logic people use to justify creating our current atmosphere of terror. Either you can speak or you can't.
  - facet1ous 5y ago
    What does this have to do with living in a free country? This isn’t the US government arresting someone because they’re pro-life. It’s a private company firing someone who disrupted their business interests. Pretty sure the US government is still one of the most fierce protectors of free speech and natural rights among developed nations last time I checked. Your qualm is with cultural intolerance for conservative ideas. Which I agree is valid. But yeah, sorry, if you’re running a business and can’t understand that your business partners will be potentially offended by your own political statements, you deserve to get fired. Let’s not pretend this was some no-name engineer at a tech company in SV who got canned because they expressed a normal political opinion and their coworkers “just didn’t like it”. He’s the CEO and is the ultimate ambassador of the company and has a responsibility to read the room. Would you expect BMW or Mercedes to keep their CEOs if they made political statements about the human rights abuses and economic sabotage conducted by China? Let’s be real. Do I sympathize with him that he freely spoke his mind and was inherently punished for it? Yes, in principle. But he’s a complete idiot for thinking he can do so without consequences in his position. There are always going to be cultural factors intwined in economics and sometimes they are not fair, but that’s the way the world has always worked.

skissane 5y ago

I don't agree with this Texas law, but nor do I support how he lost his job as CEO. I think it is important that employees should have the right to express their non-work-related political opinions on social media, and no one should lose their job for doing so. It is justifiable to make an exception to that right for really extreme political opinions, such as praising Hitler or the KKK; but not for politely expressing mainstream political opinions, and agreeing with a recent action by the US Supreme Court is mainstream by definition. I know some people argue it is different because he is CEO, but I don't agree. I actually think it is important that the rule applies to CEOs too. If lower level employees see the CEO speaking their mind on politics and getting away with it, that makes them feel more confident they can too. If the CEO loses their job for doing so, that makes lower level employees worry they might meet the same fate, and arguing that "the rules are different for CEOs" is unlikely to reassure them.

colinmhayes 5y ago
If you being employed loses the company money you will be fired. That's true for every employee. It's just that people are more likely to boycott a company for something the CEO says. Would you like to ban people from deciding which companies they support or ban companies from firing people that cost them money?
- skissane 5y ago
  I support laws protecting employees against political discrimination. I know California has such a law, and so do some Australian states (Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria). If people are boycotting a company because one of its employees belongs to a protected class – and laws against political discrimination make political belief a protected class – then it will likely be illegal for the employer to fire that employee on account of the boycott. They may legally have no choice but to endure it. It is no different in principle from people choosing to boycott a company for employing a member of any other kind of protected class.

Bostonian 5y ago

I don't think he should have been forced out for tweeting the following: "Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat. As an entertainer I don’t get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer." The Left is now ascendant in many parts of the culture, but that may not always be the case.

hodgesrm 5y ago
One of the responsibilities of being the boss is to avoid alienating customers, employees, or partners. It sounds as if he did all three.
sterlind 5y ago
The tweet is also factually wrong. The Supreme Court did not affirm Texas law, they just ruled very narrowly that the plaintiffs didn't have standing to request that Texas judges be preemptively enjoined not to hear cases brought under the law. The law will hit the Supreme Court again, and either it or Roe will be overturned. But from a process perspective, the Court didn't say the law was constitutional.
- Bostonian 5y ago
  Not understanding the subtleties of Supreme Court rulings should not be a firing offense for a software CEO, although it's better to get things right before tweeting.

draw_down 5y ago

Don’t worry! Cancel culture isn’t real.

ohnobabysmash 5y ago

> Texas’ recent decision to strip women of a basic human right. "basic human right", what the actual F. Kotaku in action indeed.

javajosh 5y ago

Troubling. The Texas law is horrific, but people, even CEOs, should be allowed to espouse "wrong political views" without fear of losing their economic life. In a world where so much speech is paid for, it's valuable for people to speak on their own behalf. It's part of what makes America great. And go ahead and criticize! But firing? Cancelling? Is that the price of the sin of sharing your personal political opinion these days? There were two mistakes made here, but the mistake that chills speech and punishes dissent, without limit, is, in the long run, far worse for our society.

marcinzm 5y ago
I suspect you'd agree that people are allowed to choose which companies they support (for whatever reason) and companies are allowed to fire people that cost them money. If you believe those two then this is an obvious outcome.
- plugger 5y ago
  Agreed. Much like the conversation about Google censoring at the behest of the Russian government yesterday it all boils down to the money. Don't mess with the revenue stream. If you do, be prepared to be let go. It's that simple. It's nothing to do with freedom, free speech, etc. It's always about the money.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Perhaps it would hurt sales, like Orson Scott Card's anti-gay-marriage stance hurt Shadow Complex sales. But even so, I think it's possible to chew gum and walk at the same time, and I can enjoy Ender's Game while thinking Card is a backwards fool. Or enjoy Lethal Weapon while thinking Mel Gibson is a bigoted fool. Or admire George Washington, even though he owned slaves. We can't keep throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Even racists, misogynists and bigots have valuable things to contribute to society. Heck, approx 99% of humans living are bigoted and have "wrong views"; if you take human history, it's 100%. The people who are against gay marriage, and abortion, aren't taking those positions to be horrible people. They have heartfelt, if ignorant, reasons for it. I don't think we're doing anyone any good by taking people's livelihood away for sharing their personal political or religious beliefs. Probably gonna get downvoted. But that's okay. It's not my livelihood.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

It’s all “don’t tread on me” with these people until it comes to women’s rights. Laughable. At least he stood down.

alex-wallish 5y ago

I wonder if the many commenters here saying things like "If you being employed loses the company money you should be fired" would say the same thing in the case of Colin Kaepernick. Not passing judgement either way, just curious.

igetspam 5y ago
Did Kaepernick taking a knee lose (insert team here) a measurable amount of money? Was Kaepernick the head of the organization? I think those are the critical metrics. If whatever team he was on started hurting financially, then let him go. If he was the boss and therefore, even acting independently, his words were associated with the organization because of the potential influence his personal ethics could have AND it was a divisive issue AND he was in the minority then... yeah. Dump him.
- lmz 5y ago
  I can think of plenty of things that would "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" and cost companies a lot of money. I hope you have the same opinion about that. (e.g. the Houston Rockets controversy https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-daryl-morey-tweet-hong-kong-protests-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-dary... )
  - igetspam 5y ago
    Was this intended for me? I don't know almost anything about any sports controversies. I do my best to not follow sports news. I find it mostly boring. But I do support people fighting against oppression, especially when it comes with physical abuse by those in power.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      >> I can think of plenty of things that would "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" and cost companies a lot of money. I hope you have the same opinion about that. (e.g. the Houston Rockets controversy https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-daryl-morey-tweet-hong-kong-protests-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/nba-china-feud-timeline-dary...) > Was this intended for me? I don't know almost anything about any sports controversies. I do my best to not follow sports news. I find it mostly boring. But I do support people fighting against oppression, especially when it comes with physical abuse by those in power. That isn't a sports controversy. If you care about "fighting against oppression" how did you not get the reference? A link was provided to explain what you're apparently unaware of. tl;dr: the authoritarian PRC government uses the exact same tactics you are approving of to stifle criticism and opposition to its oppression. You might feel differently about those tactics if the context was this guy getting fired for saying it's wrong of the PRC to ship Muslims in Xinjiang off to reeducation camps to crush their culture.

dredmorbius 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail Third rails are hot, live, and tremendously unforgiving to careless or unskilled handling.

josephcsible 5y ago
I think you meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail_(politics) But anyway, isn't that supposed to just affect politicians?
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  I think I know what I meant. But thanks.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kthejoker2 5y ago

Forest for the trees in this thread ... One of the characteristics of a good CEO is their judgment of risk. That includes their ability to avoid controversy for their organization, and put the organization's message above their own. He knew this tweet might have the risk of financial impact to the company he was specifically and volunatrily selected to protect (among other things) its financial health, and if he had ran it by the board they absolutely would have told him not to post it. The poor judgment on display here is the core issue.

effingwewt 5y ago
By this metric Elon Musk is the single worst CEO ever. I can get behind that =) edit to make substantive I don't think we should be firing people for their beliefs, at what point are out jobs separated from our personal lives. Having said that, if you say something as CEO you take what you get, like Elon should have. I'm sure each and every one of us has done things that if captured on camera, or were we CEO and posted it to Twitter as opposed to speaking it, would have gotten us fired. Or we need to get rid of the bullshit and just have political businesses, where left leaning people work for left leaning companies, etc.
sk2020 5y ago
I would be a bit skeptical if anyone actually measured or even forecast impacts to sales prior to this decision. I had actually never heard of Tripwire until the story, so it’s excellent for increasing the company’s exposure to a broader market. Mozilla took similar action with respect to Brendan Eich. You can judge how well that worked for them.
- kthejoker2 5y ago
  First, I'm not sure Tripwire wants to be "heard of" - most video game publishers want their games to be the brand. Second, you don't have to explicitly "forecast" sales impact to understand there might be an impact, and that that impact is guaranteed to be negative. (Again - CEOs are paid to be good at exactly these sorts of judgment calls.) Throwing out tweets on a hot button political topic as the CEO of a games company is, at best, a high-risk, low-reward branding strategy.

RickJWagner 5y ago

More frightening stuff, along the lines of 'cancel culture'. Please don't take part in this sort of nonsense. Respect the rights of everyone to speak freely, without fear of losing their livelihood. In other words, this is bullying. Make it stop.