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You really don't see a problem with this? I consider myself more on the left, but this practice has always seemed highly antithetical to liberal values to me.
by freedomben 2y ago
You really don't see a problem with this? I consider myself more on the left, but this practice has always seemed highly antithetical to liberal values to me.
If somebody in their off hours says something assinine, and telling (some might call that "snitching to") their employer in a public forum like Twitter (in a clear attempt to get a social media frenzy going to ultimately get them fired) is a good thing, then wouldn't it logically follow that an employer should not only be permitted but actively encouraged to monitor employees 100% of the time so they can fire them if they ever step out of the corporate line? Amazon does this to many low-level employees just on-the-job and most people think that's creepy and unfair, I can't imagine extending that to off-hours as well. At a minimum wouldn't it follow that it would be great for employers to set up a snitch line so anybody could (even anonymously) call to make reports on people? Is that a world you'd want to live in?
On the next line, let's say the person is fired from their job for a gross tweet. Should they be able to get a new job after that? If so, how does the previous history get erased so the prospective new employers don't see it and avoid them (this very type of thing is by the way, a huge problem for formerly incarcerated people especially felons). Add in that there was no trial, no standard of evidence, no due process, just a swinging axe from an executioner. Should this person (and often their families) just be relegated to extreme poverty the rest of their lives? Blacklisted from employment like the communists in Hollywood were?
- wat10000 2y agoIn a free country, private employers should be allowed to choose who they employ, with very narrow exceptions for discrimination based on race, religion, etc. In a free country, citizens should be allowed to read what other citizens write in public. Those both seem pretty obvious, but put the two of them together and it means people can lose their jobs or not be hired for stuff they tweet. How do you resolve that? IMO the real issue isn’t that employers can make decisions based on this stuff. It’s that employers are far too big. If we had 20 Amazons, getting fired from one of them wouldn’t be such a big deal.
- freedomben 2y agoI mostly agree with you. > Those both seem pretty obvious, but put the two of them together and it means people can lose their jobs or not be hired for stuff they tweet. How do you resolve that? If the employer happened to see it, then yes I think that's well within rights. But I think having some random stranger see something and actively campaign against the employee to their employer is a little bit different. It's not illegal, nor should it be, but there are plenty of things that are legal but still not good behavior. I would consider this under that umbrella.
- wat10000 2y agoOK, it's bad behavior. Now what? That means nothing.
- freedomben 2y agoShould we encourage bad behavior? I tend to think not. Agreeing it is bad behavior is a critical step! Now we can start discouraging it
- stale2002 2y agoHarassment can be punished by the law. So that is the "now what". No, freedom of speech doesn't mean that you can engage in serious harassment of people, their workplace, or their children or family.
- wat10000 2y agoThe scenario being discussed is employers looking at employees’ public statements, or third parties telling employers about those public statements. I don’t think that’s anything close to harassment.
- stale2002 2y agoNo actually. It is never just that. The question was about "to get a social media frenzy going". And this is never just an employer randomly looking at a tweet, for which they are almost never going to do anything about it. Most employers don't care. Instead, the much more likely scenario is mass points of harassment, stalking, and death threats targeted at people's friends and family, when such a "social media frenzy" happens. You cannot ignore the actual mostly likely result of your advocacy. And when you just say that this is all "free speech" you are doing disservice to the massive amount of illegal harassment that these internet mobs cause. You do not control the mob, yet you are response for its harm anyway if you try to start one.
- immibis 2y agoI agree the pervasiveness of at-will employment and the gig economy, when combined with the way our economy is set up to require employment for survival, are a problem.