Outlawing "hate speech" & seemingly unrelated consequences.

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Oh okay, but that's what believing in a freedom is I thought, is being okay with some for expressing speech. If you disassociate yourself from that person, than that shows signs that you do not believe in the freedom, if you are not okay when someone does it.

I'm not sure if I parsed it correctly. Do you mean freedom of speech for you is always being okay with whatever one says?

I can support you having the legal right to say something and still think what you've said is so disgusting that I don't want to have further contact. Your freedom of speech doesn't oblige me to maintain a relationship if I think what you stand for makes you a horrible person.

Similarly I'm entitled to criticize whatever you say without that criticism being dishonestly framed as limiting your speech.

Yeah that's true. That makes sense. I guess it just happens so often to the point where you wonder if people actually care about the first amendment still. But that makes sense.

It is equally freedom of speech for a person, or an organization to show their own freedom of speech by choosing to disassociate with a person based on their public opinion of something. Such as if a restaurant has a server that has publicly come out against queer people and non white people, the owner of the restaurant and most everyone else might fear that they might lose a lot of customers, perhaps even other good employees who might feel uncomfortable being at a place with a server who is so publicly against them. So it would be free speech for people to refuse to go the restaurant while that server works there, and free speech for the restaurant to fire the person following proper dismissal laws based on the server's opinions.

Specifically that in this example the server's public opinions could constitute hate speech against people for who they are.

While no one wants to have others saying nasty things to them for whatever reason... But here is the problem, which is not an issue for certain countries, but is an issue for democratic countries. By limiting free speech one has turned the country into a democratically elected communistic dictatorship because democracy in principle needs the freedom of speech to function. When the freedom of speech is limited, we now have communistic laws which are put in place by an elected group dictatorship. Why? Because once those laws are passed, no one then has a right to challenge those laws as they will be breaking those laws to challenge them.

Hate speech laws are hardly a restriction of freedom of speech, rather than a freedom from harassment. Chances are there are already such laws passed and you are none the wiser, such as you can't repeatedly threaten someone's life, and even non hate speech language that may be used that could be harassment or break another law.

Would freedom of speech protect you from going up to a bunch of 10 year old's and proposing them for sex?

Americans widely do not understand what freedom of speech as defined accurately by funeralxempire is. I blame the fact that civics is not taught all that much in schools and has not been for a long time. American companies can not fire you for how you were born, they can fire you for almost any other reason including your opinions. What we are discussing here is freedom of expression. Freedom of Speech and freedom of expression have always often been about freedom for what you believe and not the other person. There have always been lines that if you cross you would be banned or fired. 60 years those lines that could not be crossed were often sexual and communist related. Now it is bigotry.

Now with social media and other technologies, it is easier to get caught and harder to expunge whatever unapproved thing you said. Also 50 years ago there was a sharp distinction between one's work life and the rest of one's life. That has been blurred if not disappeared.

I do think freedom of expression is more curtailed but that is hard to measure.

Oh okay. What if they made it so that you could not fire someone for freedom of expression if it's done outside of work, and as long as what they were expressing was not work related? Would that be better?

The problem is that the new laws here have over ruled the rights to be innocent until proven guilty. Already we have a system where a certain body of localized "Careworkers" can (And sometimes do) overrule police and court decisions without access to, or taking account of, factual evidence.. but rather based on the oppinions of a small comittee which in practice seems to function like a mini dictatorship.

While I understand the need for the workers being there, and they may well do a great job, but I have, and still hear of many assumptions they are making in quite a few cases where they are placing life changing restrictions on people without taking facual evidence into account, or allowing the ones they are acting against the ability to defend themselves against their decisions.
They have in essence, become a law unto themselves and seem accountable only to those within their own organization.
At least with the old system, we had the chance to defend ourselves in a court of law which is set up to be as unbiassed as possible, where the courts decide on actual physical and eyewitness evidence. These comittees are guided by personal feelings and statistical evidence. Factual evidence may not come into their decisions.

Bull, I don't think any of that is true, and I would need an actual example to convince me that you are not just using ambiguous language to create hypotheticals.

No, not really. If an employee expresses a horrific enough opinion the public may well choose to not do business with their employer until the situation is resolved. Dismissal of the problematic employee is generally the resolution sought.

Why should a company be stuck taking losses because of the actions of one a**hole? The public are entitled to not do business with a company they feel has deplorable values, terminating the problematic employee is a way they can express their condemnation.

This seems like a very bad path to head down...You are basically saying that it is OK for a random person/group to look through ANYONE's former postings\actions for something THEY do not like, search for that person's employer, and try to pressure the employer to sack the person, even if the complainaints have no personal knowledge of the person, nor with that person's place of work?

Or to put it another way, you are now subjecting the person to being a "slave" for their employer, always responsible (including retrospectively) for only saying things (even in a private forum, where there is nothing to connect this person with their employer) that NO OTHER PERSON could find offensive (remember that at present it is only one side who generally does this...under your "rules", I assume you'd have no trouble with the other side joining in as well)?

And so dies individual freedom of thought and expression

Funny, I never actually said any of that, all of that nonsense is your invention.

What one has expressed recently or is currently expressing matters, what someone said in high school doesn't and I would expect an employer to have the discretion to understand the different between the two.

Why should an employer be forced to continue to associate with an employee that is personally causing damage to the brand due to something especially atrocious they've chosen to post online or express publicly?

Yet, in many recent examples, it is people being fired for actions (or words) where the person was not representing the company and was a result of people online tracing through the internet to find a person they disagree with, look up their workplace, and apply pressur on the employer to fire them.

All it takes is one remark\photo\"like", presented in the "right way", by someone willing to search online to find the employer of the person and anyone could be fired under your "rules"...

"Hi, I found a <picture\post\?> by one of your staff <insert name here> where they appear to be supporting <enter wrong opinion here>. I was wondering how this alligns with what your company represents, as I am helping with a <news article\blog post\...> regarding people who espouse <enter wrong opinion here>. Thank you for any clarification you can provide,..."

How long do you think a person would keep their job should an employer receive an email/letter such as this?

So yes, what you were supporting DOES lead to this, sadly.

@ Brictoria
"Hi, I found a picture by one of your staff Mr Teacher where they appear to be supporting grooming and raping children. I was wondering how this alligns with what your company represents, as I am helping with a news article regarding people who espouse sexually grooming children. Thank you for any clarification you can provide,..."

I believe that if someone was found online openly supporting the grooming of children it would be relevant to look into if they work with children and would actually be nicer to head to them first to allow them to respond before all the parents might think the school shares an opinion if that is okay. If the source that the person was espousing a positive message for grooming children turned out wrong, then they could stand by the teacher that it is fake.

But I really need an example from you in how this circumstance has been used wrongfully rather than making up hypotheticals. Cases where people are getting fired or cancelled for no good reason after their employer maybe received a complaint.

A good example is I think at the moment people are pretty angry at J.K. Rowling for saying a whole bunch of transphobic things that hurts a lot of people, and a lot of people are worried about it tainting the Harry Potter franchise for them, and you have had people like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have show their support for trans rights and the franchise belongs more to than what Rowling could do to it with her comments. Rowling hasn't been cancelled or fired or anything, but she showed support for a woman who simply did not have her contract renewed because she was harassing someone in the workplace.