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Comment by frgtpsswrdlame | Hacker News Reader

It would be a funny assertion to say that you're less free to speak in SV where the worst you'll get is a tongue-lashing vs China where the worst you'll get is quite a lot worse.

How would you even fix this freedom? Somehow constrain people to not speak their mind when they disagree with you? Constraining them through government would obviously make us less free so that's out. Constraining them through culture is no different than what's already happening, it just makes people like Sam the winner instead of people who disagree with him. So again no freedom difference.

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"The worst you'll get is a tongue-lashing?" Not even close. It is quite ordinary for SV employees to be fired or "resign" after being caught participating in wrongthink. Eich is the most famous example, but Apple's former chief of diversity is a more recent one.

No, this is not quite as severe as being arrested and imprisoned for thinking the wrong things. But career-wise, at least, it can be almost as disastrous.

Woah. I had no idea about Apple's chief of diversity; she was an African American woman who even agreed with a need for gender and race diversity, but merely added ideological diversity. Apple firing her and backpedaling on a need for ideological diversity is really disappointing to me, and this will seriously affect my decision on buying a HomePod next year / future Apple devices.

It surprises me that Sam didn't include instances like that in his essay; maybe he wanted to avoid specifics so his argument couldn't be attacked on an individual case level, but nonetheless.

Side note: Are there any other alternatives that take privacy as seriously as Apple?

Well, as I said in the other subthread, I don't necessarily blame Apple for this - they're just doing what's best for business. And what are your other options for spy-speaker providers? Amazon and Google? Do we think that they wouldn't have done the same thing if one of their employers had faced the same backlash?

You can't place the companies you buy from under too strict an ideological purity test, either in one direction or the other, or else you'll never be able to buy anything.

You're very much right.

I recall Facebook arguing that Peter Thiel offered diversity to their board, and I don't think anyone was fired for it.. sadly, though, they're also arguably the most frightening behemoth when it comes to tracking users.

Okay but how do you solve that? You take away the right of companies to fire people for speech? I see no way to increase freedom from the status quo here.

In Europe companies can't fire you for legal activities done while not working. It's not such a crazy idea.

That's exactly what you do. Maybe we could use some employee protection laws to protect employees exercising their right to free speech. E.g., protection from being fired when they are not acting as official representatives of their employers, or talking privately, or using personal social media accounts. Don't we already have similar anti-discrimination laws?

In most of these cases, I don't think the company itself really wants to fire the employee. But the wrongthink the employee has done gets so notorious among a certain group of people that it becomes a face-saving measure.

Yes, just like we took away the right of companies to fire people for being black.

It is quite ordinary for SV employees to be fired or "resign" after being caught participating in wrongthink. Eich is the most famous example

Eich was free to think whatever he wanted, and he spent many years doing exactly that. What he turned out not to be free to do was enforce certain ideals he held on others.

Here's a difference - in the US, this is a power that corporations have over you that they can exercise randomly, and outside of general visibility. In China, iut's a power that the government has, which they can exercise randomly (but less so recently) but very visibly.

In the US, there is a long history of self-appointed leaders in moral and political panics shutting down dissent via social norms and pressure, with or without the blessing of a government institution.

The beauty of the U.S. is in its freedom, and as such, individuals cannot be constrained.

That's why we have an appeal from Sam who is suggesting that people willingly open their minds to debating ideas and not demonizing the people espousing them.

This is a freedom that could be fixed only through the people's choice to acknowledge it and fix it.

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