Discussion on answer by Richard U: How can I protect my self from fallout with my employer over my political blog

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04:34

93

A: How can I protect my self from fallout with my employer over my political blog

Unless you are willing to make a political blog your fulltime job, take it down or publish under a pseudonym. At this point in history, we are seeing entire careers ended for things as tame as an intemperate or ironic joke, or an insult. Case in point An intemperate joke Just type in "lost job ...

Keeta

i.e. Free Speech is free in that you can speak whatever you want. It is not free in that you cannot assume there will be zero consequences in speaking whatever you want freely.

Richard U

@Keeta I dare say that there is a vast chasm between "no consequences" and "hunting down someone with a hate mob and ruining their lives, inundating them with death threats, swatting them, and forcing them to live in abject terror" that is if they don't commit suicide from the "consequences" as you put it.

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thumbtackthief

There may be a vast chasm but neither has anything to do with free speech being legally regulated by the government.

Keeta

@RichardU Fully agreed. Just pointing out that many people assume that if we have the right to free speech, that an employer is somehow prohibited from judging that speech and acting accordingly. This assumption is wrong. I was trying to keep the comment within the scope of the question (employer based retribution).

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Richard U

@thumbtackthief nowhere was the government mentioned.

Jake

04:34

@RichardU True. But none of the things that you mentioned are protected speech and therefore do not fall under freedom of speech and thus no consequences. Keeta was just summarizing this answer: That freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.

Richard U

@Jake I believe I was quite clear on that in my answer, and here in the comments of just how severe those consequences can be, as noted in the link in my answer. If I have not addressed them sufficiently, please point out how I could improve my answer, or, provide one of your own if you wish

Džuris

Why would you want to keep working at a place that dislikes your thoughts so much to fire you for them?

Kilisi

Yep, use a pseudonym, or work for a boss that has the same political views

Will

09:32

@Džuris Because by your definition of such a place you would be ruling yourself out of entire industries. Indeed, organisations whose revenue doesn't originate from a broad section of the public, some of whom care about people's thoughts when they fall into certain categories enough to make financially meaningful choices when made aware of them, are probably the exception rather than the rule.

@Džuris Of course you can take a principled stand against this feature of public life if you wish, but you are not going to escape its effects or accomplish any global change in the short or medium term.

amoe

10:24

In the UK you can't be sacked for political affiliation, cf en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redfearn_v_United_Kingdom

also see cloisters.com/news/…

Richard U

10:35

@amoe That won't be the official reason. They'll just find another "official" reason

Flater

11:05

@RichardU: An employer is always capable of "finding another official reason" regardless of the political blog or not. There is nothing preventing them of "finding another official reason" when you've e.g. taken a second sick day in the last five years. Which is obviously excessive, but the point is that you can't ever truly prevent the company from doing what it wants to do.

@RichardU: The discussion of "finding another official reason" is very important to have, but it is moot for the current discussion.

Richard U

@Flater because you say it is? good to know.

Flater

11:30

@RichardU Why the facetious response? I'm saying that what you say is correct but doesn't really make a distinction here as it is universally applicable.

Will

14:22

@Flater - comments for answers are not for expressing disagreement with the fundamental thesis of an answer. That is what downvotes are for. If you think a good answer is one that expresses exactly the opposite of another answer, that is a great motivation to write such an answer.

@Flater AND @RichardU - comments are also not for discussing comment protocol. Please keep it here or discuss it on meta. If you don't want legitimate discussion of the answer to end up binned by a moderator in a bulk purge I'd strongly recommend self-deleting the comments of yours that are wholly off-topic.

Too late, it seems.

Flater

14:54

@Will: Where in this thread did I express disagreement with the fundamental thesis of the answer? Or discuss comment protocol? I suspect you are confusing threads.

Will

15:11

@Flater - obviously harder to refer back to this now it has been deleted, but the dispute was over `The only way to completely protect yourself is to take it down.` and whether this would "completely protect yourself". Maybe there was a third party who started the dispute I should have tagged too.

Discussing comment protocol: you posted at least one comment purely to ask another commenter to be more civil towards you. Not for answer comments. Flag or bring it to the chat.

Keeta

15:28

I don't understand why my comments were moved to chat when they were: A) working to improve the answer B) Agreeing with the answer C) well within the scope of the question

Will

@Keeta I don't think suggesting stuff to add to an answer is within the scope of comment policy. A bunch of answers to the same questions are inevitably going to have overlapping ideas. Unless you're dealing with an issue that makes an answer incomplete your additional ideas are best applied in a new answer alongside the ideas from the original answer that you agree with.

Richard U

17:33

@Will welcome to the workplace. We do tend to remind users to refrain from providing their own answers in the comments section here and encourage them to provide their own.

Keeta

From the main: "When should I comment:" (listing 1 of the 3 items) "Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated)" -- Sorry, but my first comment is EXACTLY that. stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/comment

Richard U

@Keeta um, no. You misinterpreted the answer, and then took it completely off topic.

In fact, the entire answer was about consequences, including those that happened to the person in the link

I refrain from mentioning her by name, as she's suffered enough

Keeta

I am so confused. I was agreeing that the OP post should be removed because although he has a right to speak it, he can gain unintended consequences. Are you saying that he should remove it because the consequences he would gain are discriminatory?

I guess I need a better understanding of what your underlying premise is.

If you are focusing on the discriminatory aspect of it, could you edit your answer to better explain this?

Richard U

@Keeta Simple: If you have a job, anything posted online could get you fired, or worse.

discrimination is one of many possible outcomes.

Keeta

And I totally agree with that. I don't see that my comment disagrees with that. I guess my comment needed more to show support for your answer. It was attempting to defuse what many people assume about free speech.

Richard U

17:41

In the case of the link, the person made an ironic joke.

@Keeta your attempt to talk about free speech had nothing to do with the answer, that's the point.

"You may want to include that people have a tendency to think that free speech doesn't mean your employer can't act one you."

that would have been a suggestion to improve.

Or, you could have provided an answer of your own that said "People often mistake free speech with being able to say anything with no repercussions, here is why that is wrong and how it can affect you on the job"

Keeta

I understand the clarification. I saw the mention of "freedom of expression" in OP and carried the thought to your answer without your answer specifically mentioning it. I was hoping that my second comment cleared up what you are have just said.

Richard U

@Keeta yes, you did clarify, unfortunately, the people who came after you decided to make it a free for all.

@Keeta thanks for discussing it here. I may go back and edit now that I understand your point better. I'm usually in chat at the watercooler if you ever want to discuss this or anything else.

Keeta

Unfortunate indeed.

Richard U

@Keeta I don't doubt your intentions, and I apologize if I seem a bit curt. What has me irritated was the bickering that started further down the thread.

I'm editing now, and putting in a reference to your mentioning this (credit where credit is due, and all)

Masked Man

17:58

@Keeta I moved your comments to chat. I apologize for the inconvenience. Richard is right, those comments got moved because the comment thread became a free for all. By itself, your comment probably wouldn't have been moved.

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A: Why was this comment – which suggested an improvement to my answer – deleted?

So, I reap what I sowed, eh? :) See Why was my comment deleted? where I too had questioned the moderators for deleting my comment. What Monica and enderland explained to me back then is more or less what I would have said in response (and DarkCygnus' answer already does that to a great extent), b...

Specifically, the last bullet is relevant here.

Christian Lee

19:22

Obvious solution is to use a pseudonym. I don't know why that didn't occur to the OP himself, honestly. Everyone I know uses a pseudonym online for things as uncontroversial as a cat pictures blog. This guy is writing politics under his real name.

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Discussion on answer by Richard U: Ho…