Current Events > The Google employee who wrote that manifesto got fired

(+) Yeah! (+)

Capn Circus posted...

Romulox28 posted...

Protip for people working in corporate America: regardless of your social/political views, keep your mouth shut and do your fucking job.

I bet if this guy just kept his views to himself and did his job (which I bet is entirely unrelated to analyzing the diversity measures of google), he'd be at home now chilling and enjoying the fat Google paychecks instead of applying for COBRA

Years and years ago, almost in an entirely different America, people held beliefs and talked about whatever they wanted to (within reason of course) without the backlash and firings we currently see.

We don't have to live in this walking-on-eggshells-world if we don't want to. It's a small part of why Trump had popularity. People want their freedom and American culture back. People are tired of thinking, "Oh no did I say the wrong thing? Did I offend someone?" --- It wasn't always like that and it doesn't have to be now.

People got away with all sorts of toxic shit back in the day. This isn't the best argument.
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Bad_Mojo posted...

There is a lot above, but I'm not just talking about this. I don't know a single thing about what was written. I'm talking about in general. White males seem to be the only ones that don't have the protection of free speech. Yes, I understand you represent the company at work, but not while you're not at work. What about colleges around the Country and even the world now where the rights of free speech are being taken away from a select group of people? It drives me crazy.

See above as see above the comment. We have black guy being black balled for taking a Knee while a song that talked about killed slaves played. People claimed that it disrespected our troops. Yet the President make fun of POWs and is elected into office.
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Darmik posted...

Capn Circus posted...

Romulox28 posted...

Protip for people working in corporate America: regardless of your social/political views, keep your mouth shut and do your fucking job.

I bet if this guy just kept his views to himself and did his job (which I bet is entirely unrelated to analyzing the diversity measures of google), he'd be at home now chilling and enjoying the fat Google paychecks instead of applying for COBRA

Years and years ago, almost in an entirely different America, people held beliefs and talked about whatever they wanted to (within reason of course) without the backlash and firings we currently see.

We don't have to live in this walking-on-eggshells-world if we don't want to. It's a small part of why Trump had popularity. People want their freedom and American culture back. People are tired of thinking, "Oh no did I say the wrong thing? Did I offend someone?" --- It wasn't always like that and it doesn't have to be now.

People got away with all sorts of toxic shit back in the day. This isn't the best argument.

These things shouldn't really apply under "toxic ****", though. In this specific example, I would somewhat be indifferent if people weren't already getting fired left and right for things much more benign than this.

You say one thing and someone screams bloody murder, "Ohhh thats offensive I'm offended!! Waaaaahhh!" and you're career is done. It's ridiculous.
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Bad_Mojo posted...

I don't know a single thing about what was written.

Let's fix that.
http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

It goes off on Rand-ish rambling around the middle, so have some coffee first.

Conservatives itt again proving that they don't know much about the amendments

"Wahh, my freedom of speech!"

Yeah, you're wrong tho
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Capn Circus posted...

These things shouldn't really apply under "toxic ****", though. In this specific example, I would somewhat be indifferent if people weren't already getting fired left and right for things much more benign than this.

You say one thing and someone screams bloody murder, "Ohhh thats offensive I'm offended!! Waaaaahhh!" and you're career is done. It's ridiculous.

He didn't just blab out an innocent statement though. He spread around a manifesto that he intended to disrupt Google's current policies. So it's a bit different. I think firing him is a bit overkill but USA doesn't exactly have the best track record with protecting employees.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Bad_Mojo posted...

I don't know a single thing about what was written.

Let's fix that.
http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

It goes off on Rand-ish rambling around the middle, so have some coffee first.

Tbh if he didn't have the stuff about biology impacting work roles, behaviour and ethics and just made it about Google's practices he probably wouldn't have had much of an issue. But I think causing a ruckus was one of his intentions.
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cjsdowg posted...

See above as see above the comment. We have black guy being black balled for taking a Knee while a song that talked about killed slaves played. People claimed that it disrespected our troops. Yet the President make fun of POWs and is elected into office.

He can do whatever the hell he wants during the anthem, but he's got to expect people to be upset over it. Just like someone at Christmas can not bow they're head in thanks at a dinner with your religious family because they don't believe in God. Go ahead if that's what you want, but people are going to judge you for it.

What Kaepernick did, he has every right to. I'm fine with it, I don't care about it. It's one guy doing something that he has every right to. But the people upset with him have every right to be upset with something they disagree with. So they also can voice their opinion no matter what.

Trump as every right to say whatever stupid shit he wants. I'm fine with it, I don't care about it. Trump believes what he says, voices his opinion how he wants. Just like people have every right to not like him based on his opinions. So they also voice their opinion no matter what.

You see, I don't give a fuck either way. Whites talking shit about blacks, blacks talking shit about whites. You don't like gay people? Fine. You think there are over 100 genders? Fine. You think the Earth is flat? Fine, I don't care.

If I think you're an asshole, I won't bother myself with you. If I think you're a decent person, okay, let's hang. My issue is that online, out in the real world, at your job, at your school, it's not okay to think a certain way now. You shouldn't be losing your job because of your political views. You shouldn't be getting kicked out of school because of your political views. I hate racist people, I hate homophobic people. So I don't do anything with those people. But why should what I not like be banned, but not what other people don't like? Everything has to be equal, and it's not.

White people have to go to learn to not be racist. White people can't tell offensive jokes. Men can't make more than a woman. A strait person is a homophobic piece of shit if he doesn't want to see two guys making out in public.

You can't do that because it's a slippery slope. As much as you hate it, you can't shut down people's opinions because you wouldn't want your own opinion shut down. So why do we allow only certain views to not be spoken and let the extreme flip-side views shine on stage?

/ramble, lol. It just bothers me. Only white people can be racist, give me a fucking break, lol
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Skasa posted...

Freedom of speech is being eradicated in America.

If you own a company and everyday some employees said they would love to rape your mom, sister, wife/gf and they called you a stupid little cuck you shouldn't fire them. Free speech right?

Oakland510_ posted...

If you own a company and everyday some employees said they would love to rape your mom, sister, wife/gf and they called you a stupid little cuck you shouldn't fire them. Free speech right?

Of course I would fire him. I would fire a racist too. But I would fire a black racist just as well as a white racist, but a lot of people wouldn't. That's the issue, IMO
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Bad_Mojo posted...

He can do whatever the hell he wants during the anthem, but he's got to expect people to be upset over it. Just like someone at Christmas can not bow they're head in thanks at a dinner with your religious family because they don't believe in God. Go ahead if that's what you want, but people are going to judge you for it.....

They are upset because a black guy is standing up for himself. Like I said before you cannot attack a question back for not standing when a song plays. Because you think he "disrespects" the troops. And then you vote for a man who disrespects the troops personally time after time.

You keep talking about how hard white people have it. When I am pointing out to you that a white guy who did something worst then a black person is reward for it , while the black person is black balled. And that is not even getting into Trump and his NeoNazi postings.
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kaepernick's real problem was promoting castro and che while wanting to go to miami of all places

miami

fucking cuban refugees everywhere

praising castro

like what
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Bad_Mojo posted...

Of course I would fire him. I would fire a racist too. But I would fire a black racist just as well as a white racist, but a lot of people wouldn't. That's the issue, IMO

What's an example of a black racist who didn't get fired?
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cjsdowg posted...

They are upset because a black guy is standing up for himself. Like I said before you cannot attack a question back for not standing when a song plays. Because you think he "disrespects" the troops. And then you vote for a man who disrespects the troops personally time after time.

Yes, you're right. It's hypercritical. Hypercritical people are what I'm upset about. Just like how I hate it when black people say calling them the n-word is horrible (which is is), but then call people f-word[s], which is also highly offensive. It is also hypercritical, which again you're also upset with here in your example, to say that all white people are racists, which is also racist.

I don't understand how we disagree here. You hate that he's getting blasted for his freedom of speech while Trump is celebrated, right? Yes, I agree, that's bull shit. But do you not agree that a black person should get fired from their job for saying they hate white people the same as a white person gets fired from their job for saying they hate black people? I hate the double standard, just like you. What are we arguing about?
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Darmik posted...

What's an example of a black racist who didn't get fired?

I don't have any examples, because I don't have any. This isn't something I'm that interested in. But it seems like you are, do you have any examples of black people getting fired from their jobs for being racist against white people? Because I can find a lot of examples of white people getting fired. I bet I can even find some really stupid ones, too, if I look hard enough.
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Bad_Mojo posted...

If I think you're an asshole, I won't bother myself with you. If I think you're a decent person, okay, let's hang. My issue is that online, out in the real world, at your job, at your school, it's not okay to think a certain way now. You shouldn't be losing your job because of your political views. You shouldn't be getting kicked out of school because of your political views. I hate racist people, I hate homophobic people. So I don't do anything with those people. But why should what I not like be banned, but not what other people don't like? Everything has to be equal, and it's not.

If your political views include thinking X% of people don't deserve to be at your job because of their gender or race, then you should probably keep it to yourself.

Imagine we're a group of 10 people who need to work together to complete a job. Say the make-up of these 10 people is 6 white dudes, 2 white women, 1 minority man, and 1 minority woman. Let's say, say one of those dudes says. "It's really great that we're diverse, and we should continue striving for it. However, leftism has made diversification a huge deal, and due to lowered standards, we're letting in people who shouldn't be in here based on gender or race."

That one dude may not have been talking about all of the women and minorities, but he's talking about at least one of them, and they know it. So now it's really hard to get these 10 people to work together, because 4 of them hate this dude.

You have two options. You can A. Force everyone to get over the fact that this person thinks and has outwardly stated that some of the people he works with shouldn't be working there and work with him or B. Fire him and replace him with someone who nobody hates.

That's with 10 people. Just to make it obvious the problem with statements like that. He created a hostile environment with his comments and gave people a justifiable reason to not work with him. Because you cannot state that the methods of diversification have yielded sub-par results without implicitly implying that some or all of the people who add to diversity are sub-par.

The reason why leftist ideology doesn't get the same vilification as the opposite alternative is because it is fundamentally inclusive of people based on things they cannot control/hide. You're not gonna get fired for going on a rant as to how gay people should be accepted in society, because fundamentally nobody is affected negatively by that except people who think they shouldn't be. You WILL get fired for going on a rant about the opposite. If someone posted a manifesto about how many white men there were and how it's absolutely ridiculous, they'd probably get fired too and the left would be up in arms. That's why the people that WOULD do that are people who don't work for the company.
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Darmik posted...

Bad_Mojo posted...

Of course I would fire him. I would fire a racist too. But I would fire a black racist just as well as a white racist, but a lot of people wouldn't. That's the issue, IMO

What's an example of a black racist who didn't get fired?

I donno but there's plenty of examples of black people getting fired for offensive comments. Hell there was that one professor Lisa Durden that got fired. This isn't exclusive to race or sex. If you say something offensive and it makes it to public you'd better be prepared for consequences especially if your workplace is in the public eye

@Bad_Mojo

Search lisa durden

Very good points, thank you

It's just the double standard I don't like, like I said. I'm sorry that I want ANYONE that's racist to be judged the same way.
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Axiom posted...

I donno but there's plenty of examples of black people getting fired for offensive comments. Hell there was that one professor Lisa Durden that got fired. This isn't exclusive to race or sex. If you say something offensive and it makes it to public you'd better be prepared for consequences especially if your workplace is in the public eye

@Bad_Mojo

Search lisa durden

Thank you, I might do that some time. But honestly, this isn't the subject for me. I'm the most passive person you'll meet. I just get really riled up when I watch videos on YouTube, lmao.

Everyone have a great night
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Bad_Mojo posted...

It's just the double standard I don't like, like I said. I'm sorry that I want ANYONE that's racist to be judged the same way.

I think that this is a bad mindset, at this time. Ideally, this is how things should be, but it's wrong to ignore the context and implications of someone's speech. If a minority says something awful about the majority, there's not the same threat as if someone in the majority says the same thing about a minority group. So while the literal words may be identical (or nearly), what is said could change quite a lot based on who said it.

Sad to see he lost his job over speaking up, but this is to be expected.
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lderivedx posted...

If a minority says something awful about the majority, there's not the same threat as if someone in the majority says the same thing about a minority group.

And why exactly is that?
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Axiom posted...

I donno but there's plenty of examples of black people getting fired for offensive comments. Hell there was that one professor Lisa Durden that got fired. This isn't exclusive to race or sex. If you say something offensive and it makes it to public you'd better be prepared for consequences especially if your workplace is in the public eye

Lisa Durden was given chance after chance before getting fired. She was spewing her racism for nearly a year in multiple nationally televised interviews before she got fired.

Look up her name on YouTube you will find quite a few racist interviews. Certain people are giving more chances than others.
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WaterLink posted...

lderivedx posted...

If a minority says something awful about the majority, there's not the same threat as if someone in the majority says the same thing about a minority group.

And why exactly is that?

For the same reason why the laissez-faire approach is misleading.

Some people, and for understandable reasoning, think that affirmative action in any form in discriminatory, and the removal of that would make pure merit based hiring. However, that assumes that people are objective. They aren't.

When it comes to hiring and interviewing, people are drawn to people with personalities and characteristics like themselves. This causes a dangerous cycle. People from X neighborhood hire people from that neighborhood and neighborhoods like it, getting the same kinds of people. They're not consciously hating on other people, but due to the incongruities, they don't feel the same connection and thus give preferential treatment.

The reason why minority against majority hatred isn't as impactful as vice versa is because the minority has no way of actually implementing their hatred to harm the majority. Just replace words with fists. You see 10 people wailing on one guy, and that one guy throwing punches back, whose safety are you concerned with, all other things equal?
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Bad_Mojo posted...

I don't know a single thing about what was written.

Let's fix that.
http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

It goes off on Rand-ish rambling around the middle, so have some coffee first.

It should be pointed out that Gizmodo cuts all his charts and sources out of the document to make his statements look unverified.
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Awesome, Google doing gods work again
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AdviceMan posted...

WaterLink posted...

lderivedx posted...

If a minority says something awful about the majority, there's not the same threat as if someone in the majority says the same thing about a minority group.

And why exactly is that?

For the same reason why the laissez-faire approach is misleading.

Some people, and for understandable reasoning, think that affirmative action in any form in discriminatory, and the removal of that would make pure merit based hiring. However, that assumes that people are objective. They aren't.

When it comes to hiring and interviewing, people are drawn to people with personalities and characteristics like themselves. This causes a dangerous cycle. People from X neighborhood hire people from that neighborhood and neighborhoods like it, getting the same kinds of people. They're not consciously hating on other people, but due to the incongruities, they don't feel the same connection and thus give preferential treatment.

The reason why minority against majority hatred isn't as impactful as vice versa is because the minority has no way of actually implementing their hatred to harm the majority. Just replace words with fists. You see 10 people wailing on one guy, and that one guy throwing punches back, whose safety are you concerned with, all other things equal?

Sure connections are a thing.

But if person isn't cut out for a job, they're not going to last long inevitably. Regardless of connections.

But if they are cut out for the job, then what's the problem? If people know each other or have prior connections or mutual friends, then sure they may be more prone to hire them. This goes for whatever the race may be. A white guy could be hired over another white guy with similar qualifications simply because the other one has an in. It's not racism or privilege then, but simply change the color of the skin then all of a sudden it's bias.

The fact of that matter is, for the purpose of what we're discussing and the ideology behind it, it's who you know. There are white people that probably don't particularly care for other white people in power but they'll still use those vague connections and kiss ass to get a job or whatever. But if black man does the same thing, he's an Uncle Tom for sucking up to the white man. But in reality, lower white men do the same thing to higher white men. So is it the white man's fault for the kind of perception? Really?

So that's not really a white privilege thing, it's more of a class privelege thing. Just so happens that white people make more of the upper class, and I mean what are you gonna do? White people make up most of the population. It doesn't mean that just because you're white that it means you're priveleged.
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AdviceMan posted...

WaterLink posted...

lderivedx posted...

If a minority says something awful about the majority, there's not the same threat as if someone in the majority says the same thing about a minority group.

And why exactly is that?

For the same reason why the laissez-faire approach is misleading.

Some people, and for understandable reasoning, think that affirmative action in any form in discriminatory, and the removal of that would make pure merit based hiring. However, that assumes that people are objective. They aren't.

When it comes to hiring and interviewing, people are drawn to people with personalities and characteristics like themselves. This causes a dangerous cycle. People from X neighborhood hire people from that neighborhood and neighborhoods like it, getting the same kinds of people. They're not consciously hating on other people, but due to the incongruities, they don't feel the same connection and thus give preferential treatment.

The reason why minority against majority hatred isn't as impactful as vice versa is because the minority has no way of actually implementing their hatred to harm the majority. Just replace words with fists. You see 10 people wailing on one guy, and that one guy throwing punches back, whose safety are you concerned with, all other things equal?

Sure connections are a thing.

But if person isn't cut out for a job, they're not going to last long inevitably. Regardless of connections.

But if they are cut out for the job, then what's the problem? If people know each other or have prior connections or mutual friends, then sure they may be more prone to hire them. This goes for whatever the race may be. A white guy could be hired over another white guy with similar qualifications simply because the other one has an in. It's not racism or privilege then, but simply change the color of the skin then all of a sudden it's bias.

The fact of that matter is, for the purpose of what we're discussing and the ideology behind it, it's who you know. There are white people that probably don't particularly care for other white people in power but they'll still use those vague connections and kiss ass to get a job or whatever. But if black man does the same thing, he's an Uncle Tom for sucking up to the white man. But in reality, lower white men do the same thing to higher white men. So is it the white man's fault for the kind of perception? Really?

So that's not really a white privilege thing, it's more of a class privilege thing. Just so happens that white people make more of the upper class, and I mean what are you gonna do? White people make up most of the population. It doesn't mean that just because you're white that it means you're privileged.
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FULL UNCENSORED COMPLETE version of the MEMO!

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf

Most news sites are posting an edited version.
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HellsingOrg posted...

FULL UNCENSORED COMPLETE version of the MEMO!

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf

Most news sites are posting an edited version.

Thanks for this, it's really despicable how Gizmodo cuts out all the parts that prove what this guy is saying is accurate.
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Nobody cares about your opinions, Mal. They're literally always shitty.
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Sephiroth1288 posted...

HellsingOrg posted...

FULL UNCENSORED COMPLETE version of the MEMO!

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf

Most news sites are posting an edited version.

Thanks for this, it's really despicable how Gizmodo cuts out all the parts that prove what this guy is saying is accurate.

I am totally shocked that they would do such a thing. Shocked I tell you.
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Transcendentia posted...

https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond

The opinion of the second scientist pretty much echoes my reading of the arguments made around biological differences.

The key part is this:

But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance (e.g., not being able to handle stressful assignments), the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10% of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm. Moreover, men are more emotional than women in certain ways, too. Sex differences in emotion depend on the type of emotion, how it is measured, where it is expressed, when it is expressed, and lots of other contextual factors.

As to sex differences in mate preferences and status-seeking, these topics also have been heavily researched across cultures (for a review, see here). Again, though, most of these sex differences are moderate in size and in my view are unlikely to be all that relevant to the Google workplace (accounting for, perhaps, a few percentage points of the variability between men’s and women’s performances). Sex differences in occupational interests, personal values, and certain cognitive abilities are a bit larger in size (see here), but most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway (see here.)

I don't think many would argue against the existence of biological differences (and those that do are wrong, quite frankly), but they can't, on their own, be used to explain gender representation in the field. The differences are typically small to moderate and not enough to make one gender ill suited to tech jobs. Past history shows this is not the case (at least with regard to programming, which was once largely a female profession).

And then the final paragraph:

Now, treating people as dichotomous sexes is exactly what many affirmative action policies do. As this is not my area of expertise, I can only offer my non-expert opinion on this issue, which is this: There have been (and likely will continue to be) many socio-structural barriers to women working in technological jobs. These include culturally-embedded gender stereotypes, biased socialization practices, in some cultures explicit employment discrimination, and a certain degree of masculinization of technological workplaces. Within this sea of gender bias, should Google use various practices (affirmative action is not just one thing) to especially encourage capable women of joining (and enjoying) the Google workplace? I vote yes. At the same time, should we be able to openly discuss and be informed by some of the real psychological sex differences that might account for variation in men’s and women’s workplace performance? In the right context, I vote yes to that, too.

Here he agrees that there are "socio-structural" barriers to women working in tech, but that affirmative action is a bit of a blunt instrument that doesn't tackle these issues, and that there are other things that Google can do to tackle them.

To be fair to the manifesto writer, he makes many of these contentions, e.g.: "differences are small... overlap between men and women... can't say anything about an individual given these population level distributions."

Skasa posted...

Freedom of speech is being eradicated in America.

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kislev posted...

Skasa posted...

Freedom of speech is being eradicated in America.

And my god these types of people actually exist. So up in arms over a fucking memo the CEO had to leave vacation to address their tears
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Of course no apology from the guy who made the assertion, " cant be a white guy, his name didnt come out right away ". Seriously
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HellsingOrg posted...

FULL UNCENSORED COMPLETE version of the MEMO!

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf

Most news sites are posting an edited version.

@Mal_Fet
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reading bits of his manifesto, and not really in depth.

it doesn't seem as if his intentions were cruel.

and he seems to have done plenty of research to formulate this opinion.

this is what an argument presented properly should look like.
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Skasa posted...

Freedom of speech is being eradicated in America.

Why does your side always get the details of Freedom of Speech wrong?
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The government should forcefully put everyone who works at google in jail for seven years with no parole and no trial and hand over ownership of the company to the "manifesto writer" to protect free speech.

Pretty sure the CEO of my company voted for Trump and I'd probably be fired if I passed around a memo like that anyway.

1. I'm an engineer, I have no business circulating a shit-starting memo around the office
2. Even if I worked in HR or something, the memo serves no purpose except to generate conflict in what is otherwise a well oiled machine
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There's more than a few bigots on this board that need to learn that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence.
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I'm honestly surprised it took this long to even happen. If you want to express overly controversial & probably dissenting opinions like this, even if they did have merit, it's best done in anonymity.
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the purpose of a job is to earn money

if you are distributing your political opinions widely across your employer you are basically saying "i don't care if i lose this method of earning money, i care more about people seeing my opinions"

even something like this that didn't piss off the workers would be potentially impacting productivity and best responded to with a swift kick in the paycheck

Twinmold posted...

There's more than a few bigots on this board that need to learn that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence.

that's not really the issue at all

the issue is that freedom of speech is specifically relating to freedom from suppression by government

the US government did not suppress his speech

when you're speaking on someone else's platform they absolutely have the right to censor you.
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Darkman124 posted...

the purpose of a job is to earn money

if you are distributing your political opinions widely across your employer you are basically saying "i don't care if i lose this method of earning money, i care more about people seeing my opinions"

even something like this that didn't piss off the workers would be potentially impacting productivity and best responded to with a swift kick in the paycheck

Twinmold posted...

There's more than a few bigots on this board that need to learn that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence.

that's not really the issue at all

the issue is that freedom of speech is specifically relating to freedom from suppression by government

the US government did not suppress his speech

when you're speaking on someone else's platform they absolutely have the right to censor you.

NO. freedom of speech does not refer only to speech by the government. read some fucking john stuart mill(probably one of the most influential people when it came to liberalism) before making this dumbass point.

and btw he does have a case for incorrect dismissal
ttps://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google-to-punish-engineer-over-anti-diversity-memo-commentary.html
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"The First Amendment's constitutional right of free speech, which is applicable to state and local governments under the incorporation doctrine,[1] only prevents government restrictions on speech, not restrictions imposed by private individuals or businesses unless they are acting on behalf of the government."

Lmao someone calling Darkman a dumbass.
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Xeno14 posted...

read some fucking john stuart mill(probably one of the most influential people when it came to liberalism

But it's liberals trying to take away freedom of speech.
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Xeno14 posted...

NO. freedom of speech does not refer only to speech by the government. read some f***ing john stuart mills(probably one of the most influential people when it came to liberalism) before making this dumbass point.

if you want to understand legally upheld free speech in the US you have to look at the warren court rulings, and they are all pretty clearly written about government's limitations on censorship and regulation of speech

Xeno14 posted...

and btw he does have a case for incorrect dismissal

the expansion of right to work will eventually wipe this out. but since CA doesn't have it yet, it may be possible for him to secure some assets for incorrect dismissal.

still, i expect that google would be successful in using a defense of 'creating hostile workplace environment' due to the vagueness of that justification

Bio1590 posted...

Lmao someone calling Darkman a dumbass.

xeno is probably my biggest hater here but he usually makes a point and follows it with an insult. so i just focus on the point; he's not a dumbass himself and has sometimes changed my perspective

in this case i think his point is misinformed as he may be referring to freedom of speech as a social contract rather than as a constitutional right in the US and twinmold/myself are looking at it from the latter perspective

tbh most of the people crying about it are prob looking at it from the former. and there is some reason to do that. as our government has been eroded by libertarian-leaning corporatists, there is a certain fear that employers will be our new kings. and there's a lot less limiting what they can do to us.
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Bio1590 posted...

"The First Amendment's constitutional right of free speech, which is applicable to state and local governments under the incorporation doctrine,[1] only prevents government restrictions on speech, not restrictions imposed by private individuals or businesses unless they are acting on behalf of the government."

When talking about free speech, there are two main meanings that are used.

The first is the right guaranteed under the first amendment, that is that Congress cannot make laws that interfere with free speech. This is the one people usually use when they're bashing others for citing free speech.

The second is the idea that people should be able to say anything, provided that they're not inciting violence, making threats, and such. This is what people usually mean when they cite free speech as an ideal.

Remember that free speech doesn't require a government, and trying to claim it does is disingenuous. Now a government can help support free speech through things like the US First Amendment, but a government can also suppress free speech like North Korea.
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QassTank posted...

The second is the idea that people should be able to say anything, provided that they're not inciting violence, making threats, and such. This is what people usually mean when they cite free speech as an ideal.

yeah, i agree with you and i think xeno and myself are essentially talking about the two different definitions here

there is not a legal obligation for google to provide freedom of speech, but rather a social contract implying they would provide it. that contract has only become more important over time as the power of government to regulate what google does to their employees has been significantly reduced

i think generally how it goes is the company respects the social contract until you do something way over the top that kind of violates it as well

which i guess calls into question whether you ever really had a social contract for some.
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Xeno14 posted...

NO. freedom of speech does not refer only to speech by the government.

Beyond the context of limiting government power, free speech is a virtue and ideal, but unfortunately not so legally binding on the private realm beyond more esoteric cases like (perhaps) the one raised in your article.
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