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US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

cnbc.com

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Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#41

Post by Amezarak »

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

In two words: bite me. there aren't too many things that i'm a raving aboslutist about, but the freedom of political speech is one of them. If my employer attempts to step on my neck for saying things about china that china doesn't like, on my time, and my personal accounts, their next contact from me will be from an ACLU lawyer.

What case would you have? We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. If a corporation wants to exercise their right to stop associating with you, that trumps our right to be employed by them or to use them as a platform - or so we're told.

And it's not the US government leaning on them, but a foreign government. Don't see a legal case here, and it's even in-line with popular moral sentiment nowadays.

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#42

Post by gnode »

While companies should be held to account for caving to economic pressure, and boycotting them is justified, I think it's important to recognise that this pressure exists, and for all companies, not only those yet to have an infamous PR incident.

It is the responsibility of government to counteract such pressure and protect business from becoming proxy to foreign interference in domestic political discourse, not to mention protecting such discourse in itself.

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#43

Post by bilbo0s »

ghaff wrote: post #24
mfer wrote: post #19

Before we were voicing everything on the Internet there was both a separation between professional lives and private lives and far more localized communities that had lower interaction with each other. With the way many are using the Internet is blurs or removes the lines between private and public along with removing regional group barriers. So, I used to be able to run my mouth locally on some topic and have no wor…

In practice, most people can still enjoy a degree of separation unless they're in a relatively public role and/or haven't tried to separate their personal and professional personas on, e.g., Twitter. That said, the walls between personal and professional can break down in a big hurry if some ill-considered (or just unconventional) remark/action/etc. goes viral. Companies will cut their connections with most individua…

We need to be a bit more accurate though so that we can concentrate minds on solving the real problem. From what I can see, companies are not "embarrassed", they are "afraid".

They don't care about online mobs, they care about the drop in revenue that will come from lost business. Reputations that take years to recover impact revenues for each of those years. That's the issue.

If we could think of a way to insulate companies from lost revenue, the problem could be solved. To date, there have only been clumsy, amateurish attempts to do this. Actions like, telling everyone, "Hey, go spend your money with this company!" Which for a lot of reasons rarely, if ever, works. We have to come up with something that would provide decision makers at these firms more certainty.

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#44

Post by o_p »

Amezarak wrote: post #41
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

In two words: bite me. there aren't too many things that i'm a raving aboslutist about, but the freedom of political speech is one of them. If my employer attempts to step on my neck for saying things about china that china doesn't like, on my time, and my personal accounts, their next contact from me will be from an ACLU lawyer.

What case would you have? We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. If a corporation wants to exercise their right to stop associating with you, that trumps our right to be employed by them or to use them as a platform - or so we're told. And it's not the US government leaning on them, but a foreign government. Don't see a legal case here, and it's even…

>We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech.

Thats some nice doublespeak. By that definition the chinese people have total freedom of speech, just no freedom from the consequences of being disappeared by the CCP!

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#45

Post by theandrewbailey »

eaandkw wrote: post #10

The only thing that is going to stop this is when these companies start losing money. They would sell their first born if they thought it would increase their stock prices. I would boycott these companies but to be honest I don't have any accounts with them in the first place and I am actively closing accounts and reducing my presents on the internet.

> reducing my presents on the internet.

Presence?

Though I also agree that you shouldn't have presents on the internet, either.

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#46

Post by ghaff »

bilbo0s wrote: post #43
ghaff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, most people can still enjoy a degree of separation unless they're in a relatively public role and/or haven't tried to separate their personal and professional personas on, e.g., Twitter. That said, the walls between personal and professional can break down in a big hurry if some ill-considered (or just unconventional) remark/action/etc. goes viral. Companies will cut their connections with most individua…

We need to be a bit more accurate though so that we can concentrate minds on solving the real problem. From what I can see, companies are not "embarrassed", they are "afraid". They don't care about online mobs, they care about the drop in revenue that will come from lost business. Reputations that take years to recover impact revenues for each of those years. That's the issue. If we could think of a way to insulate c…

I'm not sure how you even go about "insulating companies from lost revenue" though. The online mob may not be responding rationally (or in a way you agree with) but groups of people certainly have the right to publicly denounce and call for boycotts of a company.

Which, as you say can be damaging to their brand and ultimately their revenue, ability to hire people, etc. The fact is that the path of least resistance to mitigate and close out the damaging outcry as quickly as possible is often to apologize, fire someone, make some harmless concession, etc.

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#47

Post by imgabe »

smsm42 wrote: post #34
imgabe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you proposing that a majority of election coverage is not clickbait speculation? Have you actually watched any election coverage? There is plenty of real coverage that takes place, but it doesn't fill a 24-hour news cycle. It consists of things like direct quotes of what candidates actually said and things they actually did. The rest of it is filled with guesses about hypothetical policies they might adopt and wh…

There's a difference between "a lot of coverage of X is clickbait" and "any coverage of X is clickbait because X has not happened yet". The former is likely true, the latter is obviously false.

There is a difference between "things that did happen concerning a thing that is going to happen" and "hypothetical things that may or may not happen".

This coverage is about US employers en masse firing employees unless they censor themselves on social media. This is not a thing that has happened. This is not coverage about the two specific incidents that actually occurred. It is speculation.

The person quoted in the article is from the American Enterprise Institute, which is a think tank. This is not someone in charge of setting policy at any US company. This is someone sitting on the sidelines and making guesses.

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#48

Post by bonoboTP »

o_p wrote: post #44
Amezarak wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What case would you have? We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. If a corporation wants to exercise their right to stop associating with you, that trumps our right to be employed by them or to use them as a platform - or so we're told. And it's not the US government leaning on them, but a foreign government. Don't see a legal case here, and it's even…

>We've heard over and over that we have freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of our speech. Thats some nice doublespeak. By that definition the chinese people have total freedom of speech, just no freedom from the consequences of being disappeared by the CCP!

For some reason, a lot of people consider it a problem only when the consequence is brought on you by the government.

Somehow corporations are seen as naturally good, from whom protection is not needed. Only the government is seen as a potential source of tyranny or oppression.

How long will this be justifiable, with the rapid gain in power by corporations?

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#49

Post by dfhfkslhhj »

thereare5lights wrote: post #22
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

In two words: bite me. there aren't too many things that i'm a raving aboslutist about, but the freedom of political speech is one of them. If my employer attempts to step on my neck for saying things about china that china doesn't like, on my time, and my personal accounts, their next contact from me will be from an ACLU lawyer.

AFAIK, political speech is not protected against employer discrimination.

It would be good if it were though.

If employers were unable to do anything about an employee's political speech, then China would face the choice between isolating itself economically, or tolerating criticism.

Re: US workers may have to change social media use as firms adapt to China's rules

#50

Post by [deleted] »

ghaff wrote: post #24
mfer wrote: post #19

Before we were voicing everything on the Internet there was both a separation between professional lives and private lives and far more localized communities that had lower interaction with each other. With the way many are using the Internet is blurs or removes the lines between private and public along with removing regional group barriers. So, I used to be able to run my mouth locally on some topic and have no wor…

In practice, most people can still enjoy a degree of separation unless they're in a relatively public role and/or haven't tried to separate their personal and professional personas on, e.g., Twitter. That said, the walls between personal and professional can break down in a big hurry if some ill-considered (or just unconventional) remark/action/etc. goes viral. Companies will cut their connections with most individua…

[deleted]
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