4 ms·

She didn’t have to agree to the contract. I don’t really want some arbitrary govt limit restricting what private parties can do with each other.

• roywiggins 6mo ago
  The only way these sorts of contracts can be enforced is if private parties have recourse to government powers- civil courts- to enforce them. Governments could just not help them do that.
• Dylan16807 6mo ago
  I very much want the government restricting employment-related contracts myself. And NDAs and similar, with their entire purpose being restricting speech, should also be restricted pretty strongly.
• johnnyanmac 6mo ago
  > I don’t really want some arbitrary govt limit restricting what private parties can do with each other. Given that this runs tangential with whistleblowing and free speech, this is exactly where I want a government to draw a line.
  • wavemode 6mo ago
    But it was a severance agreement. She accepted a sum of money for agreeing to not disparage. You don't see anything wrong with someone knowingly accepting these funds, and then turning around and immediately violating the agreement by writing a book (making even more money in the process)? If it's about whistleblowing and doing the right thing, why not just refuse the money?
    • throwaway173738 6mo ago
      There should be a statute of limitations on this stuff. Otherwise we’ll see things like chemical plant employees who signed such an agreement keeping stories of dumping to their deathbeds.
      • prepend 6mo ago
        Or, hopefully, not signing such agreements and accepting such payments. Disclosing illegal activities cannot be silenced by these agreements.
    • ab5tract 6mo ago
      In a better world, disparagement would not legally refer to the dissemination of factual accounts. In such a world it would only add to penalties for proven libel. It’s a pretty simple concept: if the truth hurts, you’ve got no one but yourself to blame. NDAs theoretically should never be able to paper over illegal actions. In a similar vein, non disparagement clauses should not be able to paper over the publication of legitimate insider experience of terrible — even if legal — behavior.
• lokar 6mo ago
  I’m certain that if these clauses were banned, exactly zero contracts that would otherwise have been agreed would be abandoned. They are completely one sided, and superfluous to the goals of the contract.
  • antonvs 6mo ago
    > superfluous to the goals of the contract. How so? The goal of these companies is generally to exercise the maximum possible control over what employees do and say.
    • lokar 6mo ago
      Fair, the primary goal. An exchange of labor and expertise for pay.
• Samson_Corwell 6mo ago
  > She didn't have to agree to the contract. Everyone is aware of that. > I don't really want some arbitrary govt limit restricting what private parties can do with each other. Great! Then you surely don't want the government to censor this author if she were to criticize Meta, a.k.a., "enforcing the non-disparagement agreement". If I'm wrong, and you do think it should be enforced, then my alternative response is this: You are confused. It is the enforcement of the non-disaparagement agreement that is the government limitation and restriction of private parties. I'm a staunch defender of civil liberties, so I think the government should stay out this affair by declaring the agreement to be unenforceable.