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Comment by lupire | Hacker News Reader

The company banned talking politics on the work server, not talking politics on personal accounts, even on the company dime.

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The initial blog post did not make that distinction. Not only is that a significant mistake in clarity, it was a significant mistake to announce a change like that via blog post.

With that change they also got rid of the D&I committee established with employee participation. If you're gonna tell your employees 'you have a seat at the table' on something sensitive like D&I, then eliminate that group with no warning, people are gonna feel some kind of way about it. Even Palpatine didn't dissolve the Imperial Senate right away.

I'd presume that heavy usage of personal accounts on company time would have already been frowned upon purely for productivity reasons.

If you needed to report a neo-nazi to hr, would that involve the work server?

I'd say probably a personal visit to the HR office, assuming he was bringing neo-nazi politics into the office. If he was doing it strictly on his own time, not a work issue.

You don't think someone holding views to the effect that jews, gays and black people/slavs should be exterminated is a work issue? If I belonged to any of these groups and found out by chance that the person was a neo-Nazi, even if they never brought it up at work, I would certainly demand that they not work in my vicinity anymore. Then management would get to choose between me and a literal neo-Nazi.

The problem is, at least in my experience, that phrases like "neo-nazi" more commonly refer to Trump supporters, Republicans, edgy Twitter wags, etc and less to Mein Kampf reading would-be perpetrators of genocide.

The problem is when it’s not so clear-cut.

If I worked with a colleague from Iraq can they report me to HR for having been in the military and bombing their country?

I’m sure we can think of lots of cases where it is or isn’t easy to say yes to “report to HR”. It’s a tough topic and the answer to it changes over time and based on geographic social norms.

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