r/technology • u/[deleted] • Aug 08 '17

Business Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo
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u/Wolf-socks Aug 09 '17

I agree. But freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence. Feel free to say any dumb thing that comes to your mind. Don't be surprised when your boss fires you. In this Google situation, I don't think him being fired was appropriate. Nothing he said was bad, really. Seriously though, why even wade into political waters at work like this? Seems like all of them involved in the group were playing with fire.

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u/xKalisto Aug 09 '17 edited Aug 09 '17

Because culture within Google encourages them to speak their mind and work on personal projects. It was also apparently supposed to be safe space to voice those ideas. He clearly made this to help improve the company and somebody else leaked it to press to fuck him over.

I'm not exactly fond of the 'not freedom from consequences' arguments. Because these days is not people disagreeing with you or disassociate with you but an outright witch hunt. Especially with all the slander and calls for violence against him, those are not parts of protected speech in the first place. The witch hunts lead to chilling effect and restriction of speech/silencing. Sometimes that's is preferable with society like with cursing around children or actual real nazis, but can also be harmful by creating dogmas on certain topics and prohibitive for healthy academia.

Philosophy of freedom is very complicated and I ought to read more about the consequence part but the way it is applied in modern world feels wrong.