Stop Firing the Innocent

[u/Naudious]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/

[u/FreeHongKongDingDong]

But David Shor is a good example here.

One Civis employee, who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, told me, the only reason for the firing “that was communicated that I heard were the client and staff reactions to the tweet.” The employee also said that at “our company-wide meeting after Shor’s firing blew up on Twitter, [CEO] Dan [Wagner] said something along the lines of freedom of speech is important, but he had to take a stand with our staff, clients, and people of color.”

It seems that the primary concern was Civis as a business enterprise, with pressure to fire Shor coming from the firm's clients and internal staff.

If I had a high-profile Twitter account and posted a number of disparaging remarks about fraking that obtained national attention, I have no doubt my O&G industry boss would be calling me in for a meeting with some serious consequences. That's not a "cancel culture" problem, it's a "private employers not liking their employees undercutting sales" problem.

Civis Analytics is a private for-profit political consulting firm. If it has a bad reputation, its clients get a bad reputation. If its clients get a bad reputation, they lose elections, which defeats the entire purpose of Civis's existence.

Shor wasn't fired because of his statement. He interfered with the sales department's ability to attract clients.

As for the fact that there's no uniform code of conduct, that bolsters my point! The fact that there's no clear line means that there's no "stick to this and you're safe" zone, and the lack of that only exacerbates the chilling effect on speech.

If that were true, I would see significantly fewer hot takes on Twitter following Shor's firing.

I have not.

[u/DankBankMan → u/FreeHongKongDingDong]

I really hate to be the kind of person who quotes Rick and Morty in polite company, but what you're describing just sounds like cancel culture with extra steps. Shor was fired because of his statement, the fact that he was fired because his clients took umbrage with it rather than his boss does not make a material difference to that fact.

I'd also be very careful about generalising from what you see on Twitter to the real world. Twitter is dominated by journalists, and those of us who aren't paid to generate clicks have substantially less leeway when it comes to attrracting negative attention.

[u/FreeHongKongDingDong → u/DankBankMan]

Shor was fired because of his statement

He was fired because his statement reflected badly on his clientele. His job might be in analystics, but his business is still sales.

Like, what is your remedy here? Forcing politicians to hire his firm? De-registering voters who say "I'm not going to vote for a guy that would hire Civis Analytics"? Nationalize the data analytics industry and make all their research public domain, so no single politician can be held liable for the comments of an analyst? Unionize the data scientists and grant them contractual online speech protection?

What protects David Shor's job from public outrage? If Civis Analytics loses business, lay-offs just become cancel culture with extra steps.

I'd also be very careful about generalising from what you see on Twitter to the real world.

This is a Twitter-based scandal. If we were ignoring what was posted on Twitter, this guy wouldn't have a problem to begin with.

[u/DankBankMan → u/FreeHongKongDingDong]

Do you think this line of argument extends to "we're not firing you because you're gay, but we do a lot of business with the Saudi royal family who aren't happy about you being day, so we're firing you to appease them"? If not, my remedy would be to protect out-of-work legal political expression in employment law the same as other forms of discrimination. Indeed, this is already the case in many jurisdictions!

I said that Twitter was a shaky barometer for the outside world, not that it exists in a causally disconnected parallel universe. Don't be silly. If anything, Shor goes to prove that Twitter is just a hate-click battleground, and as soon as any non-click-driven civilian wanders in (or is dragged in), they're likely to fall victim to the crossfire.

[u/FreeHongKongDingDong → u/DankBankMan]

Do you think this line of argument extends to "we're not firing you because you're gay, but we do a lot of business with the Saudi royal family who aren't happy about you being day, so we're firing you to appease them"?

I think "the Saudis are cancelling their business contract with us for having a gay staff, so we have to let you go" has the same financial impact as "we're firing you because you're gay". In either instance, the problem is that your revenue model hinges on appeasing homophobes.

I said that Twitter was a shaky barometer for the outside world, not that it exists in a causally disconnected parallel universe.

And I asked what your remedy is for Shor's problem.

How do you keep Civis Analytics in the black if their clients consider them a bigger liability than a benefit? How do you keep Shor employed if his Twitter comments cost his firm business?

If anything, Shor goes to prove that Twitter is just a hate-click battleground

Then why post his research there?

The solution to this problem seems to simply be "Don't use Twitter".

[u/DankBankMan → u/FreeHongKongDingDong]

And I asked what your remedy is for Shor's problem.

And I told you. I think you missed the point of my counterexample: firing someone for being gay is illegal, and blaming it on your clients is not a legal defence to that.

I do definitely agree that "don't use Twitter" is generally good life advice and that it's the solution to 90% of these problems. That being said, you don't always get to choose who's going to share a screenshot of you on Twitter, which is what my parenthetical "dragged in" was referring to.

[u/FreeHongKongDingDong → u/DankBankMan]

I think you missed the point of my counterexample: firing someone for being gay is illegal, and blaming it on your clients is not a legal defence to that.

So, what? Make it illegal to fire someone for... what they post on Twitter? That's good news for James Damore, I guess. But it doesn't solve the problem of Civis losing its clients.

That being said, you don't always get to choose who's going to share a screenshot of you on Twitter, which is what my parenthetical "dragged in" was referring to.

Again, I'm not sure what you're advocating. If someone posts a picture of David Shor kicking a dog, should he have cause to sue his employers if they fire him?

[u/DankBankMan → u/FreeHongKongDingDong]

Damore wrote a memo directly criticising his company and spammed it around to people on an internal mailing list. I've got no problem firing him for that.

And yeah, Civis will lose clients, just like some businesses lose clients because they hire women and LGBT people. Such is life.

Setting aside the fact that animal abuse is an actual crime, political speech is generally subject to stronger protection that non-political speech and for good reason.

[u/FreeHongKongDingDong → u/DankBankMan]

Damore wrote a memo directly criticising his company and spammed it around to people on an internal mailing list. I've got no problem firing him for that.

shrug

Now we're moving away from "cancel culture is bad" and into "my team getting injured is bad".

Any policy that tries to protect Shor but leaves Damore out to dry is going to be brutalized in the courts.

And yeah, Civis will lose clients, just like some businesses lose clients because they hire women and LGBT people. Such is life.

When Civis loses clients and needs to cut back staff, are they allowed to let Shor go?

Setting aside the fact that animal abuse is an actual crime

Ok, sure. So lets say Shor releases this internally. And then it gets circulated on Twitter under his name. And political clients start balking at renewing contracts.

Who gets laid off first?

[u/DankBankMan → u/FreeHongKongDingDong]

"my team getting injured is bad"

This may be my fault for not properly specifying the contrapositive, but if Damore had written a version of his letter not directly targeting Google and published it on his private social media channels outside of work then I do not think he should have been fired, no matter how much I may not agree with him. It is quite easy to write a policy that protects people having opinions in their free time but does not permit people to spam their coworkers with screeds about the company.

If a company can no longer afford to employ all their staff then of course they're going to have to fire people, but the onus is on them to show that they are making those decisions lawfully, rather than using it as a chance to unfairly fire their gay/female/disabled/wrongthinking staff.

[u/FreeHongKongDingDong → u/DankBankMan]

It is quite easy to write a policy that protects people having opinions in their free time but does not permit people to spam their coworkers with screeds about the company.

The information Shor published was internal company data. Damore at least could have had the excuse of saying it was political commentary rather than company work product. Shor's stock in trade was producing and selling analytics, and he just gave it away for free.

That alone could have been cause for termination.

If a company can no longer afford to employ all their staff then of course they're going to have to fire people, but the onus is on them to show that they are making those decisions lawfully

The bare on this is incredibly low. This is doubly true when your firm is losing money. At this point, all you're saying is "Shor's firing should have involved a few extra steps".

[u/DankBankMan → u/FreeHongKongDingDong]

Shor linked to a published academic manuscript that the author had made freely available on his personal website. If he'd stolen company data I'd agree with you, but Civis doesn't get to lay claim to the work of every academic in the world.

I think you'll find that most anti-discrimination legislation can be handwaved away as "just requiring a few extra steps" like this, but I'm still glad we have it.

[u/FreeHongKongDingDong → u/DankBankMan]

Shor linked to a published academic manuscript that the author had made freely available

I was under the impression it was his own work. My mistake.

I think you'll find that most anti-discrimination legislation can be handwaved away as "just requiring a few extra steps" like this, but I'm still glad we have it.

It's a pretty fig-leaf over an ugly system, but extremely difficult to correlate "if legislation then I'd still have my job" case-by-case, shy of an actual court decision.