Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

I think these personal boycotts are important and I also participate in them (Nestle, Facebook, etc).

But it's unfortunate know that we will likely never be able to match the scale of a boycott from China.

edit: However if China keeps doing stunts like this then companies might be able to make the decision not to do business there.

But in the USA, we insist that the unemployed suffer to fluff the moral vanity of the wealthy. It is the flip side of "meritocracy" -- wealth is evidence of moral superiority while poverty is evidence of moral inferiority, and more dramatic the comparison the stronger the proof that success is deserved.

"There but for my own prodigious talent and relentless drive to succeed go I."

I find stories like this very frustrating. It seems pretty clear that:

1) Roy Jones did nothing wrong, but lost his job through no fault of his own.

2) Marriott did something morally wrong because it was easy, and will suffer zero consequences.

3) China doesn't really care about the underlying issue, but is engaging in a cynical power play to exert dominance.

In a better world, Marriott would have refused to buckle, or having done so, would face meaningful consequences. In this world, the only party in this sotry to actually suffer is the only one who is morally blameless. And that's just how it is.

A company will always err on the side of firing an employee when threatened with a lawsuit or government action. The principle behind this behavior is very simple: make sure the finger is pointed at the party least capable of fighting for its own rights. It's anecdote time using this throwaway account.

I used to work as a software engineer at a major hedge fund, where most of the computer systems were run by an outside vendor. One of these systems was a Flash-based data tool, an archaic piece of work that was poorly implemented, entirely undocumented, and thoroughly hated by everyone at the firm. I was part of a three-person team who, along with the CTO, were hired to replace this website. We were told to use whatever means were necessary to figure out a way to build better systems for the hedge fund.

On a fine summer afternoon not so long ago, my teammate was trying to figure out how the existing Flash-based website worked. This person downloaded a popular Flash decompilation tool in order to peek at the UI source code. Neither him nor me were aware that the same vendor who ran this Flash-based website had also installed surveillance software that pulled web browsing history from every computer at the firm.

It turned out that the firm's contract with this vendor included explicit verbiage that prohibited any kind of reverse engineering of the Flash-based website, and specifically called out Flash decompilation as a forbidden activity. Obviously, none of the employees were ever notified of this clause in the contract, and were unaware of the forbidden nature of this activity.

A few days later, the entire department - the "offending" colleague and two other engineers including myself, as well as the CTO - were all summarily fired for violating a contract clause that none knew about.

This man's story is sad and regrettable, yet it does not surprise me in the least. The firm screwed up, and chose to take a course of action that limited its own responsibility at the expense of four livelihoods.

Sic transit gloria mundi, while American greed continues on its own vicious course.

It may not look like it, but this is equivalent to accidentally pressing a missle button and it hit the country on the other side.