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Comment by Svoka | Hacker News Reader

Unconstitutional? Like, did you try to read first amendment? Here it is:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So, did Congress of the USA have to do anything about it? No, "free speech" does not mean you can say anything you want without facing consequences from people who hired you or your friends. Blizzard hired player to play in tournament, and they can fire him if they want. There is nothing illegal in Blizzard's actions.

Morally, though...

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> No, "free speech" does not mean you can say anything you want without facing consequences from people who hired you or your friends. Blizzard hired player to play in tournament, and they can fire him if they want. There is nothing illegal in Blizzard's actions.

The only ones that hold these sorts of views are the ones with nothing interesting to say.

>> Morally, though

>The only ones that hold these sorts of views are the ones with nothing interesting to say.

I'm confused by your response; what is it you are trying to say?

They were making a legal description of why the 1st amendment doesn't prevent a private entity from censoring; not a moral one.

From a legal perspective, they are right. The constitution prevents the government (and only the government) from restricting speech.

If this guy was going to jail or being fined by the US Government because he said FreeHK, then that would be a rights violation.

He isn't going to jail; so, now it is up to the terms of his contract with Blizzard/EA as to whether there is a Civil or Criminal legal violation (and any applicable labor laws in whatever jurisdiction can be applied); and even if there is a legal violation, that would be a contract law issue and not a rights law issue (or a local labor law issue).

The biggest clue that you're involved in a strawman is your quoting a part of the other poster that I didn't quote and applying it to my response.

Fine, I'll be more specific about my problem with your statement:

To me, it sounded like you were judging the previous poster as if he was making a moral defense of Blizzard/EAs actions.

While skipping the section of his email where he alluded to their actions being immoral -- thus doing the same thing to them that you are claiming I did to you.

The comment I quoted mirrors a very common sentiment a segment of the population uses to defend their shitty behavior, and I was pointing out that this sentiment only truly makes sense to those who have nothing inoffensive to say.

Whether that applies to the poster in question or not, I couldn't tell you.

thanks. that's the kind of clarification i was requesting.

It is illegal for a company to punish an employee for political demonstrations.

He's not an employee though. And in general, if you do your protest on company time using company resources and damaging the company (by i.e. saying from their Twitter account that $largeCustomer is evil and stupid), would you still be protected?

That varies on a state-by-state basis. Even in states like California where it's illegal to discriminate based on political beliefs or activities, there's still some wiggle room for a company to fire someone if their activities make the company look bad or make someone's coworkers feel uncomfortable.

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