Political speech on social media can have consequences

[pmbug]

Words have consequences:

Online posts asking to “#PrayForPalestine.” Entreaties for peace. Pleas to “Free Gaza.”

Over the last 10 days, a website called anti-israel-employees.com published more than 17,000 posts, which one of the people behind the site said had been taken mainly from LinkedIn. The site, which claimed to be a “global live feed of potentially supportive sentiments for terrorism among company employees,” listed thousands of people and grouped them by their workplaces, in an apparent attempt to shame them for their sentiments on the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

The website, which was taken offline for a day before being migrated to a new web address, named employees of major international corporations, including Amazon, Mastercard and Ernst & Young, and shared their profile photos, LinkedIn pages and posts.

Itai Liptz, a hedge fund manager who said he was one of the people behind the original site, said that its goal was to “expose people who supported Hamas publicly.”

“We wanted to have it documented and a record,” he said. “If I work in this company, but I see my friends on LinkedIn celebrating and praising Hamas, then I’m not feeling safe.”

But the site also highlighted posts from people who did not explicitly show support for Hamas, according to posts seen by The New York Times. Some people used hash tags like “#GazaUnderAttack” or sought to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. The site asked users to submit posts that they believed should be exposed, and included a numeric “hate score” for companies.

The site, which was created 10 days ago, comes amid a wider debate over online expression during a fraught international conflict. Similar lists have also been created to track college students who have spoken out in support of Palestinians, while Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said it took down nearly 800,000 pieces of Hebrew and Arabic language content for violating its rules in the three days after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.

Some people who were highlighted on the site have already deleted their LinkedIn posts or their LinkedIn profiles. Mr. Liptz, who said he did not expect the site to become as popular as it did after spreading via WhatsApp groups, called the far-ranging capture of all pro-Palestinian sentiment a mistake.

“If somebody says ‘Free Palestine’ that is totally OK, and we shouldn’t put it on our website,” he said on Saturday. “We just want to make sure the filters are there because they have the right to say that.”

The site, however, was back online on Sunday at a new web address and still displayed the posts and names of people that Mr. Liptz had said would be removed. Now located at an Israel-specific domain, the site is being overseen by Guy Ophir, a lawyer in Israel, who said the team moved it to a new address after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from LinkedIn.

A spokesman for LinkedIn said the company determined that the site had used automated programs to extract content from the platform, a practice known as scraping, which is a violation of its rules. Mr. Liptz denied that his site extracted the LinkedIn information through scraping, while Mr. Ophir said he believed that LinkedIn was trying to infringe on his right to free speech.

“We are not going to remove the website,” he said. “We are willing to fight them here.”

The site has been a subject of discussion at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and LinkedIn, where employees have expressed concern about the chilling effect it could have on online speech.

“People are scraping pro-Palestine LinkedIn posts and adding them to a database of ‘terror supporters,’” one employee wrote last Wednesday in a note on an internal Meta message board that was seen by The Times.

Other Meta employees were in disbelief that expressing support for Palestine was equated with supporting terrorism.

“The lack of understanding,” a Meta employee wrote, “is beyond insensitive and cruel.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/anti-israel-workers-website-linkedin.html

 

[pmbug]

Follow up to my previous post:

...
The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom to assemble, among other rights — but it applies to government censorship and federal, state and local government employees. It does not apply to private-sector workers who make their opinions known on issues like Israel, Palestine or on political issues closer to home.

“A lot of us did not listen in civics class, but if we did we would recall that First Amendment rights are related to governmental entities,” Lindsay Greene, partner at DSK Law and member of the LegalShield network of attorneys, told MarketWatch. “It prohibits a governmental entity from limiting or intruding on First Amendment rights, and that can include your employer if your employer is a governmental entity.”

The Civil Rights Act contains six protected classes: race; color; religion; sex, including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity; national origin; age (for employees who are 40 or older); disability; and genetic information, including family medical history, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But it does not cover political speech or political affiliation.

With a presidential election looming in November 2024, employees who wish to tweet or express their views on Trump or Biden — assuming the presidential race features a rematch between former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden — may wish to think twice. And, yes, people have been fired for expressing their support for presidential candidates.

The National Labor Relations Act “protects the rights of employees to act together to address conditions at work, with or without a union,” but it does not address politics. It does, however, extend to workplace conversations related to workers’ conditions that may take place over Facebook or Twitter.
...

'Can I be fired for my political opinions?' Yes — so choose your words about Israel, Palestine, Trump and Biden very carefully.

U.S. law firms have rescinded job offers due to opinions expressed on Israel, and employees have been fired for expressing their political views.

www.marketwatch.com

Folks talking politics or other hot topics on social media under their real names (Facebook, LinkedIn and possibly Twitter) are limiting their options in the corporate world.

 

[searcher]

Pro-Brazilian Censors Strike Back: Digital Sovereignty Versus Free Speech Online​

An open letter titled “Against Big Tech’s Attack on Digital Sovereignties” was published last week by a group of significant academics and activists who support the ongoing crackdown on X and dissident speech by Brazilian authorities. The signatories include Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, MIT’s Daron Acemoglu, and other scholars from prestigious institutions such as UC Berkley, the London School of Economics, Stanford, and more.

The letter represents a stark rejection of the liberal norms and technological advancements that have allowed modern societies to thrive. Instead, it proposes a dystopian future not only for Brazil but for the world, in which free expression is at the will of the government and technology serves the state rather than the individual. And it is frightening to see growing support for this censorial vision by so many elites within our society.

This letter should be a wake-up call to those who think that rising censorship in Brazil and elsewhere can’t happen here in the United States. It’s worth taking a closer look at this letter to see why it demands a cultural return to free expression and liberal values.

More:

https://www.cato.org/blog/pro-brazilian-censors-strike-back-digital-sovereignty-versus-free-speech-online

 

[nickndfl]

Words are violence when conservatives say things that leberals do mot like. Malinformation is a new word coined for factual information that the people in power do not want released to the public.

 

[CopperSilverGold]

Words are violence when conservatives say things that leberals do mot like. Malinformation is a new word coined for factual information that the people in power do not want released to the public.

Liberals preach tolerance and acceptance of people's differences, yet it doesn't apply when it comes to views that do not align with theirs. They are the biggest hypocrites.

 

[Joe King]

Words are violence when conservatives say things that leberals do mot like. Malinformation is a new word coined for factual information that the people in power do not want released to the public.

Liberals preach tolerance and acceptance of people's differences, yet it doesn't apply when it comes to views that do not align with theirs. They are the biggest hypocrites.

That's because they have a utopia in mind that they are working to mold society into.