Is people's right to be offended killing free speech?

Custardpi

smash wrote: »

It might cost them a customer in a backwards country but it would increase their publicity and public image for the rest of the world and it would show that they stand by their values. I'm not sure what you're even trying to say here, you're comparing racism with equality. The scenarios couldn't be any different.

No, I'm comparing one scenario where people are offended with another. It would be by no means certain that the financial benefit of "standing by their values" would outweigh the costs of doing so. The "backwards" country could be quite a wealthy one, some of them are.

smash

kunst nugget wrote: »

Except the Sacco tweet was a joke about cosseted white privilege but you're choosing to interpret it as a racist slur.

Would it be ok if she'd said something like "going to Japan. Hope I don't get swept away by a tsunami. Only joking, I'm white so I can swim"

It has the same implications. Is it racist?

osarusan

Permabear wrote: »

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I think there is an enormous contradiction there to be honest.

Custardpi

smash wrote: »

Would it be ok if she'd said something like "going to Japan. Hope I don't get swept away by a tsunami. Only joking, I'm white so I can swim"

It has the same implications. Is it racist?

Nope, since anyone with half a brain would realise that such a ludicrous statement was not meant to be taken at face value. If you genuinely believe that Sacco, who comes from an ANC supporting background was being sincere in that tweet then you're probably not intelligent enough to be allowed cross the road on your own. As a matter of interest, were you part of the twitter response yourself?

smash

Custardpi wrote: »

No, I'm comparing one scenario where people are offended with another. It would be by no means certain that the financial benefit of "standing by their values" would outweigh the costs of doing so. The "backwards" country could be quite a wealthy one, some of them are.

No, you're comparing the moral values of one company with another. They can decide not to do business if there's a conflict. What she did was publicly conflict with the values of her employer so they decided not to employ her any more.

Annasopra

Custardpi wrote: »

The Justine Sacco case was utterly disgusting & an example of how vicious the self righteous jackals of Twitter can be. Only the most moronic of dullards would genuinely believe that the tweet was an honest belief about the transmittability of the AIDS virus. Yet these sanctimonious arseholes, spurred on by a writer from Gawker made it their business to pillory this woman almost to the point of madness. There's a great account of the incident in Jon Ronson's book "So You've Been Publically Shamed". I hope at least some of the hundreds of thousands who engaged in that feeding frenzy read it.

But. That's free speech.

smash

Custardpi wrote: »

Nope, since anyone with half a brain would realise that such a ludicrous statement was not meant to be taken at face value. If you genuinely believe that Sacco, who comes from an ANC supporting background was being sincere in that tweet then you're probably not intelligent enough to be allowed cross the road on your own. As a matter of interest, were you part of the twitter response yourself?

I don't genuinely believe it so don't question my intelligence. I also don't believe that only gay people get aids but if I tweeted under an account which has/had depicted me as an employee of a company that "it's gay pride weekend and I'm going to town tonight, hope I don't catch aids. Only joking, I'm straight" then my employer has a right to terminate me for misconduct. And no I was not part of the Twitter response either so stop clutching at straws.

kunst nugget

smash wrote: »

Would it be ok if she'd said something like "going to Japan. Hope I don't get swept away by a tsunami. Only joking, I'm white so I can swim"

It has the same implications. Is it racist?

Are Asians stereotyped as being bad swimmers?

‘When Barack Obama was giving his speech after being elected as president, he had to do it behind three inch thick bullet-proof glass. I thought that was a bit harsh – just because he’s black doesn’t mean he’s going to shoot anyone.’

That's a joke by Frankie Boyle. Is this racist or is it playing with people's perception of racial stereotypes? I'll give you a hint. It's the latter. It's all about context.

Custardpi

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

But. That's free speech.

Absolutely, which is why I said dealing with this sort of thing legally would create a cure worse than the disease. However, should we morally feel entitled to go absolutely insane every time someone says something we can interpret (even if we have to be wilfully obtuse to do so) as being contrary to our views? Is that a useful way to behave or should such people (the twitter mobs) be laughed at & not taken so seriously as they currently are?

smash

kunst nugget wrote: »

Are Asians stereotyped as being bad swimmers?

‘When Barack Obama was giving his speech after being elected as president, he had to do it behind three inch thick bullet-proof glass. I thought that was a bit harsh – just because he’s black doesn’t mean he’s going to shoot anyone.’

That's a joke by Frankie Boyle. Is this racist or is it playing with people's perception of racial stereotypes? I'll give you a hint. It's the latter. It's all about context.

Stop with the daft comparisons lads. Frankie Boyle is a comedian known for his edgy satirical remarks.

osarusan

smash wrote: »

I don't genuinely believe it so don't question my intelligence. I also don't believe that only gay people get aids but if I tweeted "it's gay pride weekend and I'm going to town tonight, hope I don't catch aids. Only joking, I'm straight" then my employer has a right to terminate me for misconduct. And no I was not part of the Twitter response either so stop clutching at straws.

You give what you might call extreme examples that many reasonable people would likely take offence to.

But I and others have given some other scenarios - in which some posts/tweets that many people would see as reasonable (something in support of same-sex marriage, for example) could still be focused on and be potentially harmful to business.

Do you, like permabear, favour no restrictions at all on when a company can decide to let an employee go for behaviour that could be at odds with the values of its customers?

Permabear

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smash

osarusan wrote: »

You give what you might call extreme examples that many reasonable people would likely take offence to.

Which is exactly what she did.

osarusan wrote: »

But I and others have given some other scenarios

Which do not compare.

osarusan wrote: »

Do you, like permabear, favour no restrictions at all on when a company can decide to let an employee go for behaviour that could be at odds with the values of its customers?

It's not to do with the values of it's customers, it's to do with the values of the company itself which you sign a contract to abide by.

Azalea

Permabear wrote: »

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But those weren't Sacco's views - she was lampooning people with those views.
But I can see why the organisation had to pander to the mob who don't understand irony, even though it's a pity.

Permabear

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osarusan

smash wrote: »

Which do not compare.

They do compare.

It's entirely plausible that posting on Twitter in favour of same-sex marriage could be something that is at odds with a company's core values.

In such a case, do you still support the company's right to terminate the employee's contract?

smash

osarusan wrote: »

They do compare.

They don't. At all.

osarusan wrote: »

It's entirely plausible that posting on Twitter in favour of same-sex marriage could be something that is at odds with a company's core values.

Only in a country where being gay is illegal. If it's not illegal to be gay, then an employee working for equal rights for gay people can not be misinterpreted as damaging to the companies equality policies.

osarusan wrote: »

In such a case, do you still support the company's right to terminate the employee's contract?

If this is the company's stance because it is against the law in that country then yes, they do have a right.

kunst nugget

smash wrote: »

Stop with the daft comparisons lads. Frankie Boyle is a comedian known for his edgy satirical remarks.

And the trawl through her Twitter account reporters made would suggest she never made any other racist tweets but had made other off colour jokes making the context of her famous tweet easier to understand. Jon Ronson has written a book and several articles on the topic that are very informative but some people have taken the opinion that he is supporting a racist by being sympathetic to Sacco.

walshyn93

Azalea wrote: »

I'm not being disingenuous - I genuinely am baffled at the outrage over her tweet. Strikes me as verrrry selective. It's a photo of a home in a town where there was an election. Perhaps it was a dig at the far-right look of it - I'll certainly grant you that. But it is beyond me how it could be a dig at working class people. Unless it's correct to assume all working class people have far right leanings, which of course they don't.

No proof either that she didn't have a working-class upbringing and that her brothers didn't work on building sites. I'm middle-class and my brothers and father worked on building sites!

I think the point was that it was snobby. Not a right left thing. Tbh I would have assumed the typical white van man was the type to vote Labour, which makes it all the worse.

Miliband was embarrassed that she exposed the fact that Labour is no longer the party of the working class, miner, type people. It was now the party of the bourgeoise elites and their cheap foreign nannies.

walshyn93

Custardpi wrote: »

And I agree with that stance. The online mob should not be entitled to see Sacco or anyone else fired for an offhand joke which had nothing to do with her work. The company's action was cowardly, if completely understandable (there's no profit in honour or loyalty sadly). It's a difficult one for companies to negotiate of course but I'd still fall on the side of protecting the speech (so long as it's clear it doesn't represent company policy) rights of employees over that of the company.

Of course if employers wish they can request that employees sign contracts relating to out of hours social media behaviour at the start of a contract of employment.

I think such a term of contract should be illegal.

kunst nugget

smash wrote: »

Only in a country where being gay is illegal. If it's not illegal to be gay, then an employee working for equal rights for gay people can not be misinterpreted as damaging to the companies equality policies.

What if you work for the Catholic Church or an organisation like the Iona Institute?

smash

kunst nugget wrote: »

And the trawl through her Twitter account reporters made would suggest she never made any other racist tweets but had made other off colour jokes making the context of her famous tweet easier to understand. Jon Ronson has written a book and several articles on the topic that are very informative but some people have taken the opinion that he is supporting a racist by being sympathetic to Sacco.

It. Does. Not. Matter!

She can joke all she wants, but if she over steps the line of the company ethos with even one of these jokes then she can be held responsible and her employment terminated.

walshyn93

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Yes. My point has always been if the company was legally prohibited from sacking her then there would be no negative repercussions for the company for keeping her on. They would have no choice.

smash

kunst nugget wrote: »

What if you work for the Catholic Church or an organisation like the Iona Institute?

What of it? If an Iona Institute employee decided today that they wanted to tweet that they were happy to see a gay couple getting married then Iona can't fire them because being gay is legal, and gay marriage is legal. A company's ethos must be within the law and their company ethos can not conflict with the law. If they fired them, they'd have a hell of a law suite on their hands.

Custardpi

walshyn93 wrote: »

I think such a term of contract should be illegal.

It would certainly be totalitarian alright but I'm no lawyer so possibly not the best person to comment on the legality of it.

Permabear

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walshyn93

People who support private censorship of employees are divided into two camps.

One is the libertarian freedom of contract and at-will-employment camp.

The other is the "my moral values are universal" camp. They think it's perfectly legitimate for someone who supports UKIP or Donald Trump (someone used these as examples earlier) to be barred from expressing that opinion at work because it might create a "hostile work environment" (whatever that means), whereas presumably someone supporting Labour or Hillary Clinton would not.

walshyn93

Custardpi wrote: »

It would certainly be totalitarian alright but I'm no lawyer so possibly not the best person to comment on the legality of it.

They have these in the US and it's protected under freedom of contract. We have much less respect for freedom of contract in Ireland and more respect for employee rights so I can see such a law working here.

osarusan

smash wrote: »

They don't. At all.

Only in a country where being gay is illegal. If it's not illegal to be gay, then an employee working for equal rights for gay people can not be misinterpreted as damaging to the companies equality policies.


If this is the company's stance because it is against the law in that country then yes, they do have a right.

You continue to miss the point and go on about countries where being gay is illegal, so let me give you a concrete example.


Dan Cathy is the CEO of Chick-A-Fil, a fast food company in the USA, a country where homosexuality is obviously legal. (Chick-A-Fil has a charity called Winshape Foundation, which has donated millions to organisations which are opposed to LGBT causes.)

Here is what he had to say about his company's support of 'traditional marriage values':

"We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. ... We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized. "We intend to stay the course," he said. "We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."



If Dan Cathy decides to 'operate on Biblical principles' and terminates the contract of an employee for tweeting in support of LGBT, or mentioning it round the office, do you support that decision?

EDIT: Sorry, i just saw this:

smash wrote: »

What of it? If an Iona Institute employee decided today that they wanted to tweet that they were happy to see a gay couple getting married then Iona can't fire them because being gay is legal, and gay marriage is legal. A company's ethos must be within the law and their company ethos can not conflict with the law. If they fired them, they'd have a hell of a law suite on their hands.

So I guess you would not support their decision.

Still, a 'company ethos' can be a very very vague term, and I'd look at it much the same way as Permabear's earlier post about a Donald Trump supporter in the office - a way to get rid of people whose opinions you don't like.

walshyn93

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

They didn't sack her for lack of professional judgement. That should have been evident from her prior work history not her twitter account and if it wasn't then they have no business sacking her on that basis. They sacked her because of twitter outrage.