Do you boycott racists who post online?

[eschatological]

Every serious white collar/office/legal job for the past decade plus have scrubbed your social media to see what kind of person you are. When I was applying for jobs coming out of law school, friends of mine literally had printed pages of their FB profiles handed to them by their interviewers with them saying, "Do you want to tell us what's going on here?" Back then, it was mostly about partying too much and being publicly very, very, very drunk, but then again, FB wasn't really political in the '00s.

[Captain N]

Just had to do it recently to a former co-worker that went off on a racist tirade that included claiming he would "love to shoot a N-"

Hope he enjoys being fired a handful of years from retirement -- you don't get a pension if you're fired for an EEO Violation.

[Monster Hunter]

Given many people in America's view that "freedom of speech" equates into "I can say whatever I want because its protected by the government to say whatever I want but nothing bad should happen to me if I do say whatever I want", there has been a huge swing in social media to punish those who say or do things in their own time when not at their job. This could be anything such as attending a KKK rally, attending a white-nationalist event, ANTIFA protest, or whatever. People have been called out to their employer and many have lost their jobs for attending such events or saying something on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc). Do you support such things happening to people who do/say stuff in their off-the-clock time getting fired from their job?

I ask all this because just recently I came across two such assholes as I like to think of them (nicest word I can say on this website to describe them). Both of these examples reference the killing of black man George Floyd to the hands (well technically the knee) of a white police officer in Minneapolis. The first was a man who posted some bullshit on his own personal Facebook. When he got called out for it, he set his Facebook to private and then deleted his Twitter all together. The following are screenshots of what he said about George Floyd, his wife's apology post about his "hacking", and finally a screenshot of his Twitter posts showing a pattern of his racism (or hacking dating back to 2016 depending on what story you want to believe). Follow up on this man, his employer was contacted by several people (myself included) and has since fired him over his online posts. His employer issued the following statement in regards to their now former employee "Over the weekend, we were alerted to comments allegedly made by an employee. We take these matters extremely seriously and the individual is no longer employed at XYZ COMPANY. XYZ COMPANY does not condone or tolerate threats of violence or hate speech of any kind. Our people are united by our core values of Safety, Teamwork, Respect and Integrity. These values underpin our culture and the behavior expected of our people necessary for a safe and productive work environment."






Next is a woman who posted a picture of her with her knee in the neck of a kid who was wearing a t-shirt that said "I can't breathe" (the same statement George Floyd repeated over and over again while the cop had his knee in his neck). She captioned the post "Ready for my Minnesota trip...#asianlivesmatter". She followed up the post/picture that she has since deleted by issuing a statement that she didn't mean it to be racist but to say that Asian lives matter too.




So what are your feelings on the private lives of people and their job being impacted by their choices/actions?

THIS IS NOT A POST TO DISCUSS RACE, RELIGION, OR ANYTHING OF THAT NATURE. THIS IS A POST TO DISCUSS IF YOU THINK WHAT A PERSON SAYS OR DOES OUTSIDE OF THEIR WORK SHOULD AFFECT THE JOB AT THEIR EMPLOYER

BTW note to mods, I wasn't sure if this belonged in the political section or the gen-OT section so I placed it here.

yes, to a point.

if some one posts on twitter a view you just don't like that's different from something out right hateful or an incitement to violence or a threat. the later definitely should have repercussions the former is perfectly fine no matter how much some one might disagree. your examples i think are in the incitement, threats and hate camp, the last one just looks like a simple mistake from ignorance.

like with anything in the world its not as simple as A Vs B, these kind of questions cannot be answered with blanket yes/no and any one who think or tries to say other wise is an idiot one shouldn't take the political advice or opinion of seriously. there is a line, a degree when seeking to get some one fired goes from being justice seeking to just being another douche bag with a different motive, theirs plenty of modern and classic story's that try to highlight just this kind of situation and dilemma.

- - - Updated - - -

Every serious white collar/office/legal job for the past decade plus have scrubbed your social media to see what kind of person you are. When I was applying for jobs coming out of law school, friends of mine literally had printed pages of their FB profiles handed to them by their interviewers with them saying, "Do you want to tell us what's going on here?" Back then, it was mostly about partying too much and being publicly very, very, very drunk, but then again, FB wasn't really political in the '00s.

i miss the 90s and 00s, don't know if it was because i was a kid/teen but everything felt a lot less political. i love discussing politics because i love discussing complex problems and people and politics are two of the most convoluted and deep things you can discuss, but by god do i hate actually engaging in it directly, i hate voting, and i hate having a democracy in the UK, i fully agree with the ancient Chinese guy that said the people should be shielded from politics because it makes them deeply unhappy. and i would go back to a monarchy in a heart beat if it was up to me. or at least look to explore some other ideas than just think democracy is the one size fits all answer to every social issue (which it clearly isn't). but alas this is the world we live in.

[Machismo]

Every serious white collar/office/legal job for the past decade plus have scrubbed your social media to see what kind of person you are. When I was applying for jobs coming out of law school, friends of mine literally had printed pages of their FB profiles handed to them by their interviewers with them saying, "Do you want to tell us what's going on here?" Back then, it was mostly about partying too much and being publicly very, very, very drunk, but then again, FB wasn't really political in the '00s.

Heck, I do it when I work with clients or collaborate on contracts. It's actually part of my sales pitch, as we do data analysis. It has also led to me cancelling a contract we were about to sign, as we discovered two of their guys on the team were white nationalists. It was a very small tech company, very diverse... and the owner seemed shocked that any of his guys would do that. I showed him the extensive trail of bread crumbs, politely excused myself, and never contacted them again. I'm sure the other people in the meeting were rather shocked at the outcome.

Now, the main reason I do that, is to show how easy it is to learn about people over the internet. Considering the field, information, and how you use it, is everything.

[Zantera]

In general i'm against the cancel culture of "that person said something i agree with, we must ruin their life" because believe it or not, people CAN be assholes privately and still function in a workplace and do their job. With that said the current climate definitely seem to bring out the worst in some people with questionable opinions and considering the spotlight can easily be placed on anything you say/do/publish, it definitely comes off as stupid to go full on racist mode on facebook considering how easily that stuff gets thrown back at you.

Thankfully I don't hang around people with such extreme vile views I disagree with and if it was to happen I would probably just keep away from them as best I could. But it's always a balance of how much you disagree with the views and how much it should matter.

[Rennadrel]

Nah but I'm okay with banning everybody that brings up race online. I can't remember a single race discussion that actually did anything good...

Tell that to all the journalists interjecting their idpol bullshit into news. Your identity doesn't matter relative to the news being told, the point is to be objective and present all the info. People wonder why they get trolled all the time, it's because people are sick of hearing how these people are either part of the alphabet people or are some racial minority.

[Machismo]

Tell that to all the journalists interjecting their idpol bullshit into news. Your identity doesn't matter relative to the news being told, the point is to be objective and present all the info. People wonder why they get trolled all the time, it's because people are sick of hearing how these people are either part of the alphabet people or are some racial minority.

here's a thought, don't watch those channels, and go to those sites.

Identity does matter, because ethno-nationalists and racists want it to matter. The same goes for homophobes. Pretending they don't exist is simply trying to ignore their shitty behavior.

[Dezerte]

Sure, I try to avoid people with views that I deem dangerous, rude or ignorant - that's essentially what freedom of association is about.

No, I don't believe a society should be okay with every opinion running free. Opinions are not equal, some are better informed while others are based on hate and ignorance. I think a society that allows total free speech (and no such society/country exists) is doomed to fall because ignorance spreads far easier than awareness does. Social ostracization isn't new, "cancel culture" is just another word for this - something which has happened in societies for millennia.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.

[Endus]

Tell that to all the journalists interjecting their idpol bullshit into news. Your identity doesn't matter relative to the news being told, the point is to be objective and present all the info. People wonder why they get trolled all the time, it's because people are sick of hearing how these people are either part of the alphabet people or are some racial minority.

Watching something you don't like just to make yourself angry about having watched it is one of the single stupidest cultural touchstones of the decade.

Their identity is relevant to their opinion and perspective. It's an element of their voice as a journalist. You're free to not enjoy that particular journalist's perspective, and that means you should just not watch their stuff. A big part of journalism is opinion-based, and that's where opinion and perspective matter.

In many cases, people like yourself try to pretend there is no distinction between factual reporting and opinion pieces, and that's just inappropriate. It's an argument that a minority voice should be silenced because it makes you uncomfortable to be confronted with it. Which is bullshit.

And frankly, telling a reporter who's a minority of some form that their perspective does not matter and should not be included; that's pretty much definitively prejudiced. It's a demand that only the perspective of the majority group should be presented, which is an argument to deliberately bias journalism, rather than giving a voice to a diverse caste of reporters each with unique perspectives.

[renochfino]

The best way is to ignore to answear them is just giving them more fuel.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Just had to do it recently to a former co-worker that went off on a racist tirade that included claiming he would "love to shoot a N-"

Hope he enjoys being fired a handful of years from retirement -- you don't get a pension if you're fired for an EEO Violation.

Damn...
Forgive me, but what is EEO short for?
Edit: Oh, Equal Employment Opportunities?

Well, I just found some reading material!

[Halicia]

In general i'm against the cancel culture of "that person said something i agree with, we must ruin their life" because believe it or not, people CAN be assholes privately and still function in a workplace and do their job. With that said the current climate definitely seem to bring out the worst in some people with questionable opinions and considering the spotlight can easily be placed on anything you say/do/publish, it definitely comes off as stupid to go full on racist mode on facebook considering how easily that stuff gets thrown back at you.

Thankfully I don't hang around people with such extreme vile views I disagree with and if it was to happen I would probably just keep away from them as best I could. But it's always a balance of how much you disagree with the views and how much it should matter.

In general I'm against this sorta thing because...

A) there's no codified law about what constitutes a damnable offense, or appropriate punishment. or due process in investigating the accusation

B) when you boycott a business because one person said something you disagree with, regardless of how highly placed they are, you're punishing many many more people than the one person that committed the crime. If the CEO murders his wife, you don't arrest everyone in the company... but if the CEO calls his wife a racial expletive, suddenly the guy mopping floors for minimum wage is equally to blame.

[Yadryonych]

Just had to do it recently to a former co-worker that went off on a racist tirade that included claiming he would "love to shoot a N-"

Hope he enjoys being fired a handful of years from retirement -- you don't get a pension if you're fired for an EEO Violation.

Ah, good old power-hungry snitching. Too bad they don't send people to gulag for saying wrong things yet. But good thing you can still ruin someone's life for your own pleasure while having a righteous excuse to cover-up your cruelty

[Aurgjelme]

I am concerned that we have people who have identified themselves as healthcare workers, and expressed their opinion that people dying to Covid is a small price to pay for protesting

I wonder what their supervisors would say to that.

[Calfredd]

The best way is to ignore to answear them is just giving them more fuel.

And partake of your shoddy cleaning services?

[stevenho]

It's good to have the People's Militia combing the web for offenders and cancelling their employment.
Just gotta make sure they are OUR militia.

[Kallisto]

i miss the 90s and 00s, don't know if it was because i was a kid/teen but everything felt a lot less political. i love discussing politics because i love discussing complex problems and people and politics are two of the most convoluted and deep things you can discuss, but by god do i hate actually engaging in it directly, i hate voting, and i hate having a democracy in the UK, i fully agree with the ancient Chinese guy that said the people should be shielded from politics because it makes them deeply unhappy. and i would go back to a monarchy in a heart beat if it was up to me. or at least look to explore some other ideas than just think democracy is the one size fits all answer to every social issue (which it clearly isn't). but alas this is the world we live in.

Honestly in the UK we really barely have a functioning Democracy. Our system was outdated before Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. If we had a proper functioning Democracy 90% of the shit the country is in wouldn't even be happening.

[Aurgjelme]

Honestly in the UK we really barely have a functioning Democracy. Our system was outdated before Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. If we had a proper functioning Democracy 90% of the shit the country is in wouldn't even be happening.

I think Brexit was quite indicative that the people's vote counts in the UK.

[Yadryonych]

I am concerned that we have people who have identified themselves as healthcare workers, and expressed their opinion that people dying to Covid is a small price to pay for protestingt.

Opinions like that should be met with "A person died by policemen's hand is a small price for law to be upheld"

[Elegiac]

Opinions like that should be met with "A person died by policemen's hand is a small price for law to be upheld"

If you really can't see the difference between something potentially harmful to stop people being abused or killed by law enforcement (i.e. protesting for their welfare) and something potentially harmful to stop people slighting the authority of the state, that's a you problem.

Maybe if police had to take an oath to the effect of "Do No Harm" there wouldn't be protests during a pandemic, huh?