The Purge Continues

Bump for the late sleepers amongst us.

When will people realize that social media posts are career suicide and that no one really cares what you have to say.

You’re not changing anything. Your opinion doesn’t matter. Why do you even bother?

Get with the smart crowd --> ditch social media lock, stock, and barrel!

I think all the people who made these posts deserve to be fired because it proves they’re too too stupid to have a job of any importance.

Smart people know not to make political social media posts. Employers don’t care what you have to say and want non-controversial employees who don’t bring unwanted attention on their business.

How is this hard to understand? If you don’t, you’re not equipped for employment.

Cue the lawsuits.

Thought this thread was about the next Purge movie. 😂

R4, you realize that your argument is exactly what people in power want, right? Just do your job, keep the trains running on time and the widget producing moving, and don’t complain or we’ll fire you. Is that the country we want?

[quote] lock, stock, and barrel!

How dare you?! A young FATHER has been shot, you monster!

DailyBeast has a lead headline on this, calling them “Nazi Karens.”

[quote] [R4], you realize that your argument is exactly what people in power want, right? Just do your job, keep the trains running on time and the widget producing moving, and don’t complain or we’ll fire you. Is that the country we want?

That soapbox you’re standing in is all you’re going to have left after you’re unemployable for your worthless political posts that make no difference.

People lived for millennia without social media and still had opinions. People who equate it with food, water and air are mentally ill.

If you're on X f/k/a Twitter, go to lists. In the upper right click on the three dots ... That will show you the lists you are on. I was surprised to find myself on some lists. If you want to be taken off a list, black the tweeter. If you feel you've been subjected to targeted harassment, please, report that to X.

That’s why I have real sm profiles and fake ones.

[quote]That’s why I have real sm profiles and fake ones.

Me too. I only post like travel stuff on ones with my real name. I have three pseudonyms I use, but one I'm sick of and I want to kill him off.

People usually get fired because they have said something that shows they lack respect or wish ill to people based on race, sex, national, origin, etc. because it demonstrates that they won't treat those categories of people with fairness. Unless these people are advocating further assassinations, it's hard to see what you could say about Kirk that would warrant losing your job. All they have shown is that they don't feel any sorrow or respect for one person who has been killed.

It's definitely been showing the right up as more pro cancel culture than even the left.

They get SO incensed when anyone shows anything other than complete deference to Kirk that they demand firings and complete cancellation.

I say let it continue, they're coming across as even more unhinged than usual which just pushes more and more people away from them.

[quote]Unless these people are advocating further assassinations, it's hard to see what you could say about Kirk that would warrant losing your job.

It matters what profession they are in. If someone in healthcare says in effect, "I celebrate the killing of people who disagrees with me politically," then you really can't trust them to treat patients. Certainly it's too big a risk for the employer. If the employer has been put on notice that an employee possibly poses a risk of harm to others, it would go bad for them in a subsequent lawsuit by anyone who had adverse results in that person's care.

This is why I don't have social media. Just lurker accounts where I follow no one, am not connected to my contacts and post nothing. I also have no presence on Google outside of my LinkedIn account, first name only. To see my full profile, I have to accept your invite.

SM is just another system of surveillance that the elite pigs use for subjugation of the masses, and they're already trying to weaponize it to keep us in line.

Be as off the grid as possible. And a remember that a job is just a job. Never let them see who you really are.

r17, the problem is that the tech companies are able to link you between accounts, despite your best efforts, even though you may use different emails and names.

r18, what about different devices?

[quote]what about different devices?

Yes. I only log into my work account on my work laptop but have had it connected with my real name and pseudonym accounts that I log into on my personal devices.

R16. I specifically said that, if they advocate killing, that is another matter

Companies fire employees for remarks about Charlie Kirk | NewsNation Prime

Woman fired after refusing to print Charlie Kirk vigil poster

But I thought Charlie Kirk was a noble martyr for free speech? Now the right wing says free speech is bad?

Upstate teacher no longer employed after lawmakers demand answers about Charlie Kirk post

R25. This country is crazy. That quote was quite anodyne. Whether a teacher should be posting anything political at is debatable, but the idea that he is unwell or that his teaching certificate should be revoked is insane.

Exactly what I was thinking, R26.

I truly don't know what's happening in this country right now, but it's definitely not good.

This country is way too fond of corporate serfdom. The idea that any opinion must be run by employers to ensure "goodthink" is truly grotesque and a violation of everything this country stands for. All while people are blathering on and on about how Charlie Kirk was some martyr to free speech.

What a ridiculous, rancid old whore this country has become.

While being a 'centrist' sounds like fence sitting, it's a position more people are taking because both left and right have so many similarities.

If we're being completely honest, large elements of the left *and* the right instantly want to cancel people they disagree with.

I'm forever seeing screenshots of tweets/Facebook posts with messages such as: "internet - do your thing". Which is shorthand for: "find this person's full name and employer, bombard said employer with angry emails and get them fired. Don't stop till their life is ruined".

Historically it's been seen as a left wing thing, but the right do it just as much, as shown very recently with the Charlie Kirk thing.

"I want full freedom of speech, but I don't want my opponents to have it!"

I agree with the hatred of "cancellation" r29, but let's not forget one big aspect of that: corporate serfdom. 9 times out of 10, nobody expects that "cancelled" person to be arrested or suffer any legal penalty. What they demand is that their corporate overlord punish them with firing cause the government generally cannot.

I would be for a workers' Bill of Rights that includes the right NOT to be fired for fucked up nonsense like, we didn't like your post (even when I don't like their post). There should be some real and obvious connection to the job, and if not, fuck off with that nonsense. Unless you can show that posting something mean actually hurts some ridiculous, full of shit, nonsensical bullshit factory (which is most big corporations these days) I would say, nope, you don't get to fire somebody because of your fake corporate "values." Yeah, it's embarrassing that you hired and promoted some racist or sexist or homophobe or, these days, somebody that doesn't love and worship Charlie Kirk, but fuck off with your pretend values and your pretend hurt.

Some Kirk obsessive tweeted that the assassination of (author) Don Winslow will be valid. That creep's X account is still open. Winslow reported him. I know I reported him. But X hasn't closed the account. Way to go, Elon.

[quote]While being a 'centrist' sounds like fence sitting, it's a position more people are taking because both left and right have so many similarities. If we're being completely honest, large elements of the left *and* the right instantly want to cancel people they disagree with.

I'm not aware of that many people who have been "cancelled" simply for expressing an opinion. Lots of people, like KIrk, express some fairly objectionable views without being cancelled (unless they are shot by a lone degenerate).

Most of the cancellations have been for people engaging in racist abuse and the like. That behavior is a legitimate consideration in evaluating how the employee will deal with co-workers and customers. You can't say remotely the same thing about someone saying Kirk's contribution to society was a net negative. That has nothing to do with how the teacher will teach. Likewise, advocating that abortion should be illegal from conception is objectionable to many people, but not something somebody should be fired for. That position is irrelevant to how the person will perform his or her job.

Who said this, and was he canceled or fired?

[quote]“I will stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi who ruined San Francisco... How's her husband doing by the way? Anybody know?”

[quote]“And she's against building a wall [on] our border even though she has a wall around her house, which obviously didn't do a very good job,” he added to laughter in the room.

Such hysteria! All this trying to get people fired for saying something the right didn't like! It's like a modern version of McCarthyism.

There will be quite a lot of lawsuits after these firings. The school districts in particular are going to have a lot of trouble justifying firing tenured faculty members for expressing their opinions about a dead political figure.

[quote]The school districts in particular are going to have a lot of trouble justifying firing tenured faculty members for expressing their opinions about a dead political figure.

I'm not a lawyer, so I just asked Google to check it:

[quote]Publicly celebrating the assassination of a political figure is widely viewed as promoting political violence, even if it does not explicitly call for more bloodshed. While protected under free speech in some contexts, such celebration is considered deeply harmful and a potential incitement to further violence.

[quote]Yes, a teacher can be fired for promoting political violence. While public school teachers have some First Amendment rights, these protections are not absolute and are balanced against the school district's interest in maintaining a safe and effective learning environment. Promoting violence, whether in the classroom or on a personal social media account, can be grounds for termination.

R31 They never do anything. Same goes for Libs of Tik Tok. Sometimes I submit videos to Libs of Tik Tok from right-wingers who are threatening violence against "the libs". I always get ignored of course.

The idea being that if the videos came from the left, she'd immediately publicise them and demand employers fire them, etc. But she doesn't care when those she agrees with politically do the same.

MAGAs are monitoring flagpoles!

At least 15 people have been fired or suspended from their jobs after discussing the killing online, according to a Reuters tally based on interviews, public statements and local press reports.

Others have been subjected to torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding they be fired, part of a surge in right-wing rage that has followed the killing.

Some Republicans want to go further still and have proposed deporting Kirk's critics from the United States, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.

Republicans' anger at those disrespecting Kirk's legacy contrasts with the mockery some of the same figures – including Kirk – directed at past victims of political violence.

Speaking to a television audience a few days after the attack on Paul Pelosi, a grinning Kirk called for the intruder to be sprung from jail.

"If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out," he said.

They’re doing what the pro-Israel lunatics were doing - pulling up trucks with photos and names of people they didn’t like outside their homes and starting web sites to report their pro-Palestine stance.

Bezos strikes again. Attiah was the woman who moderated Trump’s appearance before a black journalists' association where he said Kamala Harris isn't black. I'll link the "offensive" tweet in the next post.

R41, I read what she wrote and I think people may have misconstrued what she stated, thinking that she was promoting political violence like others were doing. What she wrote may have been okay.

R42, that’s not the post that got her in trouble.

OK, then, r44. Thanks for enlightening us.

Sounds reasonable.

[quote] I'm not a lawyer, so I just asked Google to check it:

So you're saying we should trust the opinion of a robot on legal matters.

Nice.

A number of businesses and other organizations have shown employees the door this week because of their public remarks about Kirk, who was assassinated on Wednesday while giving a speech at Utah Valley University. Among those to lose their jobs or face sanctions: a political pundit, a university employee, a sports reporter and a U.S. secret service agent.

Private employers have the law on their side when it comes to removing a worker who makes public statements that the business views as potentially harmful, according to legal experts.

"A private company can generally fire an employee for public comments, even political ones, if those comments are deemed to harm the company's reputation, violate workplace policy or disrupt the business," workplace attorney Marjorie Mesidor told CBS MoneyWatch.

Vanessa Matsis-McCready, vice president of human resources for Engage PEO, a provider of HR solutions, said that high-profile figures in particular must tread lightly when commenting publicly on politically charged issues.

"In today's climate there is very little tolerance for that," she said. "Employers are very mindful of what's being associated with them, and they are trying to be as apolitical as possible."

Employees in a range of industries, as well as in academia, are finding themselves in hot water over remarks they made about Kirk's death or his political beliefs.

PHNX Sports, an online sports news site focused on Arizona, announced the firing of reporter Gerald Bourguet after he said on social media on Wednesday, in a since-deleted post, that "Refusing to mourn a life devoted to that cause is not the same thing as celebrating gun violence."

"Truly don't care if you think it's insensitive or poor timing to decline to respect an evil man who died," he added.

MSNBC said it cut ties with analyst Matthew Dowd after he said in an on-air conversation that Kirk had pushed incendiary speech and that "hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions." In a public statement, Comcast accused Dowd of making "an unacceptable and insensitive comment about this horrific event."

"That coverage was at odds with fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the points of view of those who have differing opinions. We should be able to disagree, robustly and passionately, but, ultimately, with respect. We need to do better," Comcast executives said.

Dowd, the former chief strategist for Republican President George W. Bush, apologized in a Substack post on Friday, saying he hadn't meant to imply Kirk was to blame for the violence that killed him, the AP reported. But Dowd, a long-time political analyst at ABC News before joining MSNBC in 2022, also accused the network of caving to pressure to fire him.

"The right wing media mob ginned up, went after me on a plethora of platforms, and MSNBC reacted to that mob," he wrote on Substack. "Even though most at MSNBC knew my words were being misconstrued, the timing of my words forgotten ... and that I apologized for any miscommunication on my part, I was terminated by the end of the day."

Middle Tennessee State University said in statement that it had fired a university employee over "inappropriate and callous comments on social media concerning the horrific and tragic murder of Charlie Kirk."

Nasdaq, in a statement posted on X, said it dismissed an employee over social media posts related to Kirk's shooting that the stock exchange said "were a clear violation of our policy."

In a Facebook post, the U.S. Secret Service said it placed an agent who it said expressed negative opinions about Kirk on leave. "The U.S. Secret Service will not tolerate behavior that violates our code of conduct. This employee was immediately put on administrative leave, and an investigation has begun," a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement.

United Airlines told CBS News that it took action against employees who the company said had publicly commented on Kirk's death. "Our mission at United Airlines is to connect people and unite the world. So we've been clear with our customers and employees that there's zero tolerance for politically motivated violence or any attempt to justify it," the carrier said in a statement to CBS News.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy applauded United for "for doing what's right by placing pilots celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk out of service. They must be fired," in a statement on X.

"There's no room for political violence in America and anyone applauding it will face the consequences. ESPECIALLY those we count on to ensure the safety of the flying public," Duffy wrote.

First Amendment protections are generally limited for workers in the private sector, according to attorneys.

"Employers often have a strong legal basis to terminate an employee if their public comments, especially on a high-profile and sensitive topic like a murder, cause reputational damage or customer backlash," Mesidor said.

Some states — California, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina and West Virginia — do have laws to protect employees from being fired for their conduct off the job, including their political speech and activity, but most do not. Maynard Nexsen attorney Andrew Kragie told CBS MoneyWatch that workers at private employers typically have little protection from punishment for their public comments.

"If someone says, 'Thank goodness this person was assassinated,' then generally their employer can fire them," he said. That's because most workers are employed at-will, meaning either party can terminate the contract at any time, for any reason, he explained.

"So, most employees in the private sector can be disciplined based on what you say on social media, even if your account doesn't identify you as an employee," Kragie added.

Can we do it if we’re retired?

This well educated black woman who has the brain power to be taken seriously - unlike Charlie Kirk believed - laid down some knowledge for us all to learn.

Preach it girl!

Kirk was for freedom of hate speech. He did it often. He also called for the death of Biden:

Seems like the Kirk school shooting is the only school shooting maga cares about.

He was a racist, transphobe, and all around piece of shit. I don't celebrate his death but I ain't shedding a fuckin tear for him. Funny how conservatives find the most hateful people and go "wow what an inspiration!!"

"I don't care that he's dead.

"He's not a hero. He's a scumbag."

"He shouldn't be celebrated."

--Charlie Kirk on the death of George Floyd

"Guns saves lives."

--Charlie Kirk

"Cancel culture is good now."

[quote]It matters what profession they are in. If someone in healthcare says in effect, "I celebrate the killing of people who disagrees with me politically," then you really can't trust them to treat patients. Certainly it's too big a risk for the employer. If the employer has been put on notice that an employee possibly poses a risk of harm to others, it would go bad for them in a subsequent lawsuit by anyone who had adverse results in that person's care.

Exactly.

I think Charlie Kirk was vile and I have posted absolutely nothing to that effect on any of my social media that has my name attached.

What’s the point?

My sense is that the people posting are not saying things like "glad that someone shot the evil bastard". More likely, they are just printing his actual morally reprehensible statements and then saying that he shouldn't be painted as some sort of saint. But that sort of nuance is lost in the present climate.

[quote] "In today's climate there is very little tolerance for that," [HR Type] said. "Employers are very mindful of what's being associated with them, and they are trying to be as apolitical as possible."

[quote] MSNBC said it cut ties with analyst Matthew Dowd after he said in an on-air conversation that Kirk had pushed incendiary speech and that "hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions." In a public statement, Comcast accused Dowd of making "an unacceptable and insensitive comment about this horrific event."

[quote] "That coverage was at odds with fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the points of view of those who have differing opinions. We should be able to disagree, robustly and passionately, but, ultimately, with respect. We need to do better," Comcast executives said.

See, here is how quickly the bullshit spreads. We begin with the terrible and stupid decision that anything but the blandest, least "controversial" political comment is some big trauma to every corporation in the country. And we quickly get to, actually even a political opinion on a political show on a political channel is dangerous and terrifying unless it has been carefully monitored to ensure that literally nobody will be upset by it. Cause anything upsetting isn't "fostering civil dialogue." Bullshit and nonsense from start to finish.

[quote] a political opinion on a political show on a political channel

But Dowd was not let go for expressing a political opinion.

yeah, he pretty much was. Saying that Charlie Kirk was in some ways part of the problem in this country and part of the air of political divisiveness was a political opinion, and he was really fired for wrongthink on that matter.

Not condoning all of the cancellations going on the past several days, but some employers - like MSNBC - seem to have been unhappy about any insinuation that CK brought his killing upon himself. While the scene was so fresh in everyone's mind, of him being brutally murdered in public, in front of a bunch of college kids.

Perhaps making statement like those on the SAME day, was a bit much. Many of us agree with Dowd's statements, for example, but I'm not certain I'd get on live tv and state them just hours after the murder. Just because CK and his ilk had little decorum, doesn't mean the others need to jump on that ship.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot tweeted today that he'll fire more than 100 teachers over anti-Kirk comments.

This will not age well.

Criticizing Kirk is doubleplusungood! We shall go back and rewrite history so all he did was praise people and act as a role model for our youth. Future generations will never know the evil he did.

BTW, why is it that these right-wing nut jobs can say whatever hateful mfing thing they want while we speak the truth and lose our jobs? Does "freedom of speech" only extend to hateful, horrible speech from the Nazis?

Why don't we start by saying that Trump voters are brain-dead idiots who are too stupid to tell which side their bread is buttered on? They're so stupid they shouldn't be allowed to breed? They're so lazy they should be forced to go out in the fields and not only pick their own food, but pick everyone else's as well? Then maybe they could spend their lives bringing some good into the world instead of drinking cheap booze, smoking foul cigarettes, and sitting around with their thumbs up their asses.

One of my neighbors, 49, is very nice to me, but he's functionally illiterate. He injured his knee on the job, and he's been sitting around for two years collecting workers comp. Of course he can walk, and pretty much do whatever he wants to do, but... Now that he's out of workers comp $, he's getting a lawyer and applying for SS disability so he'll never have to work again, like his wife, and the couple (in their early 60s) across the street from them, and the family next door to them. All on disability, people who haven't worked for years, although many do work occasionally under the table.

And I am absolutely certain they all voted for Trump.

It's enough to drive a girl [italic]MAD![/italic]

[quote] Texas Tech student expelled after video showing Charlie Kirk rant

That's fucking BULLSHIT.

You can't expel a student for merely expressing her opinion about a bigot.

I guess they can.