I think and I hope she wins; but a question for the non-American persons here: Do you still feel free to post any kind of criticism online nowadays? (e.g. Twitter, forums, etc.)
At least from 2014, I feel less compelling to write anything marginally controversial online 'cause calculating the payoff between feel good to post something online versus the risk of being fired/doxxed/others is so asymmetrical that sometimes is better to go on the streets and/or talk with a representative in private than post it online.
> Do you still feel free to post any kind of criticism online nowadays? (e.g. Twitter, forums, etc.)
I do, but I have accepted that I will never ever visit the US for this reason, not for tourism, not for work - as long as CBP can refuse me entry for not disclosing my social media profiles (all of which are highly critical of the US government, particularly during the Trump era), I will not go and spend tens of thousands of dollars for flights, hotels and stuff when some random CBP agent can deny me on a whim.
Up next on my "country shitlist" is China and Russia, I'd likely be imprisoned upon entry for the same reason. But it's easy to avoid these two countries - it's harder to evade the US as most flights towards Central and Southern America connect via the US, and you need a visa even for transit unlike in European airports.
I don't know if you heard that about the US CBP policy on a news story or something, but there are two forms you fill out for entry as a non-resident / non-immigrant, an I-192 [1] and upon entry, you get an I-94 record created [2]. Neither of these has anything on it about social media accounts, at all.
Perhaps this is simply not a current understanding?
I'm talking about ESTA, where CBP still wants you to name your social media profiles [1]. And if you use ESTA you automatically agree to waive your right to a review and appeal [2].
And the way I read it, for a more expensive tourist visa B-2 without ESTA I need a Form DS-160 [3] where it is mandatory as well ([4 page 19]), and to put the icing on the cake I can still be rejected by CBP.
Oh, and in either case CBP can demand to ransack your phone and keep all data it contains [5]. There was some court decision recently [6] but I'm not sure just how binding this decision is in practice - and even if it were a "voluntary" search on paper, the CBP agent can still reject you for whatever reason with no right to appeal. At least one source claims that this is even the case for US citizens [7]!
Or, worse, they let you in, someone does a random check against NSA or whatever databases, finds out you lied and now you get deported and a permanent ban on reentry.
> If I want to tell Uncle Sam or a prospective employer I have no social media then that’s the whole point. :/
Not in a day where everyone's data is being sold around for pennies [1] for the private sector, and the NSA is monitoring the entire Internet anyway and I'd wager a significant amount of money that they have direct feeds to major ISPs allowing them to cross-reference IP addresses and other forms of identifiers to real persons.
TIL Wix is Israeli. I mean I hope she wins, she probably won't, and she should have known this was going to happen. Everyone is on Israel's side right now for diplomatic and financial reasons, companies especially.
Two things: Israeli or not, Wix still has to adhere to local labour laws. And support for Israel is less than early on, I've seen an article by WaPo the other day calling the plan some Israeli ministers have for Gaza ethnic cleansing (an apt description).
I won't hold my breath, after all Saudi is still a partner of the West.
> And support for Israel is less than early on, I've seen an article by WaPo the other day calling the plan some Israeli ministers have for Gaza ethnic cleansing (an apt description).
Indeed, but there is no chance these nutjobs will get the chance to follow through. In fact, it is more likely that they will be out of their seats by the end of this quarter.
We would still have kings and queens deciding whether we deserve to eat a piece of plain bread if it wasn't for people deciding to speak up and act regardless of the masters consequences, we should be valuing people who act on their freedom to criticise instead of just saying "Oh that was going to happen"
You misinterpreted my comment. I'm not blaming her. I agree with you. That doesn't negate the fact that it was almost bound to happen. I sincerely hope she wins.
Everyone except for almost the entirety of the UN, and a good chunk of the domestic American citizenry.
That it could even seem like "everyone is on Israel's side" should probably explain just why it is so important to post about, even if there are risks.
Silence is mistaken for complacency.
And make no mistake, if you stopped paying your share of the funds that go to arm and back up Israel as it carries out a genocide, the IRS wouldn't be silent about that either.
That all said, companies do get a lot of leeway, and I'm not sure where I'd fall on particular changes to rules there -- it would depend a lot on specifics. Sometimes convictions require sacrifice.
> An Irish employee of Israeli tech company Wix...
Reaction: Not that I'm any sort of expert - but "Israel routinely treats the Palestinians horribly" has been a widely-asserted and widely-believed meme for the past 3/4 century. If the employee in question wasn't okay-ish with that...why was she working at Wix?
Depends on context. If (say) Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands again, then the UK declared war against Argentina and launched a major military campaign against them - would you expect your employer to be cool with your vocal support for the Argentine side?
You seem to have pivoted away from the original point you were making, which was why the employee was working at an Israeli company if she disagrees with actions of the Israeli state. But to address your new point:
Being "cool" with it is a different thing from firing me for it. I'd expect my employer to form its own opinion which might differ from mine, and I'd reasonably expect my employer to dictate what I can express while I'm representing them (e.g. while speaking to customers, or posting to the company website).
I'd also expect them not to get involved in my private life and to respect my rights under the Equality Act 2010; specifically Section 4 (belief is a protected characteristic), Section 13 (discrimination = treating someone less favorably than others based on a protected characteristic), and Section 39(2) (discriminating against someone by dismissing them is unlawful discrimination).
Not an expert...but hasn't "Palestinian kid throws rock at Israeli soldier, soldier responds by shooting the kid dead" been a fairly-regular thing since the 1950's?
I dont know what to say besides what's happening right now has a different feeling than shooting a kid for throwing stones. As wrong as that is (I believe), the Israelis can point to the concrete action of the stone throwing as a proximate cause for execution.
The current conflict is killing tens of thousands of noncombatants who had nothing to do with the October incursion. They may have supported it politically, or celebrated the violence against their oppressors, but that doesn't make them combatants deserving of death.
I think the difference now is the clarity of the mass disproportionate response. It's impossible to stretch the definition of "self-defense" to include the actions Israel is currently taking. I think that's why people are motivated to respond differently and with a different degree.
The company, Wix, is the same thing as the Israeli state?
If anything, I have to give it to the state of Israel. It really has mastered the art of (purposefully) muddying the waters between the Jewish religion, the Israeli State, and any company that is created or housed by either of the former. All of which should be able to be criticized (or celebrated) independently.
I (or anyone) should be able to criticism the actions of a state without the assumption that that critique applies to all people who live in that state, or worse assuming it applies to a distinct religion. You especially should be able to do so when working outside of that state, and not be fired.
I don't think you understand the optics of this. She claims Israel is a terrorist state and essentially signing off that statement as someone working for Wix.
Again, Wix is not the state of Israel. She did not get paid to align her political views with Wix, she got paid to deliver specific work for Wix. She has a very basic right to express her opinion.
Criticizing a government is not criticizing a company. Imagine getting fired from an American company for criticizing the American government. That would be absurd.
True in case of a US (but see :1) or EU company, but try not being fired from a Chinese company if you criticize the CP, or from a Russian one if you do the same with Putin. Not all countries respect freedom of expression to the same extent, including seemingly democratic ones, and Israel does not condone any deviation from the established dogma that they're the good guys also when they slaughter thousands of Palestinians, including civilians, and any critic must be dismissed as an apology of terrorism if not straight antisemitism.
But the claim being discussed here from the GP is whether something is "probably fair grounds for immediate dismissal". Being fired from a Chinese company operating in China will be dealt with under Chinese law, where criticizing the government may well be valid grounds for dismissal (I don't know if it is or not). Here, we are talking about a company operating in Ireland and therefore subject to Irish law, not Israeli law. In this case, your assertion that "Israel does not condone any deviation from the established dogma" isn't relevant.
I am not Chinese but have several friends in China.
It depends on the context and the criticism - if the criticism is generally correct or popular and is something the CCP could feasibly fix, it's fine even if harsh, and firing you is probably a lot more trouble than it's worth. Targeting an individual Party official who is high ranking enough could get you a corrupt reprisal from them, but that is obviously rare, and over time as corruption has gone down the Party official has to be higher and higher up to be able to pull it off.
If the criticism is something like "The Chinese government is committing genocide", that would definitely be illegal as subversion of the state, and "We need democracy in China, the CCP is a dictatorship" would get you done for subversion of the socialist system (their terminology, not mine). In general, if you're saying things like that you might lose your job (particularly if Chinese netizens see it and mob up to demand you be fired, put in prison, thrown into the sun, etc). A more common consequence is that the authorities will look into your life and find some law you're breaking, often tax evasion - it is rare they actually charge dissidents with the whole subversion of the state and the socialist system schtick, they prefer to reserve that for more serious cases if they can. Even if they do charge dissidents for it, what the prosecution generally wants is not maximum sentence, death penalty etc - what they want most is for you to write an apology letter/video and renounce your statements calling for overthrow of the CCP or whatever. In practice that can lead to funny outcomes with dedicated dissidents, where the prosecution is trying to argue they're just a kid and this isn't that bad and time served + monitoring will be fine with an apology, and the dissident is insisting that they're a very capable revolutionary dedicated to the defeat of their local government or the CCP as a whole or whatever - sort of a special case inversion of the West, where we generally have prosecutors pushing for heavier sentences and defendants understandably trying to minimise them.
What is actually dangerous and will get the book thrown at you is any attempt to get (or even enough appearance of having) foreign support. China takes the threat of Western IC associated "subversive activity" extremely seriously, they do not mess around with anything like that. It's why a lot of Chinese political groups that actually stick around and get accommodations (e.g. some queer rights groups) take great pains to separate themselves from Western organisations and causes, even if it's the same cause in a different country. In China it is a massive political handicap (and a target on your back) to have foreign support for your criticisms of the government. To make an analogy that might help understand the frame of mind, imagine a politician running for election somewhere in the US who was regularly talking about how much better China does this or that and how we should be more like them, is in communication with in-country Chinese groups or people, and was anti-US to some significant degree. Voters/the public would not like them very much, and the US government would probably pay very close attention to them and what they were doing.
Older than you, I suspect. How old were you during the Vietnam War?
> Getting fired from an American company, after loudly voicing anti-American and pro-Al-Qaeda sentiments comparable to this Wix employee's statements, would be the "d'oh, and warm water is wet" outcome.
Do you have any examples whatsoever of this happening?
>Freedom of speak doesn't mean freedom of consequences.
Actually, freedom from consequences (of speech, which doesn't include every utterance, but certainly does include constructive criticism) is exactly what freedom of speech means.
I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. Many westerners don't understand how the system worked. In the 70s and 80s, if you were critical of the government, you would often simply lose your job. Which usually meant only menial or other low level jobs would be available for you.
I think the communist party would love that slogan. Nominally, CSSR had a freedom of speech (it accepted Declaration of Human Rights). But, yeah, consequences.. like losing a job.
So you disagreed when other people were saying freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, except now when it's consequences you like you are relishing it. So how are you different from the people you're sarcastically making fun of?
No relish, I would like people in general to be more thoughtful of the consequences of the positions they put forward.
Perhaps next time this happens, perhaps we should not sit around talking about free speech absolutists like they are people to be despised.
I still see other people in this conversation saying she should have expected to be fired. I don't agree with that, unless her statements had her Company name in the tagline.
Personally I disagree with some of her message, agree with some of her sentiments.
At least from 2014, I feel less compelling to write anything marginally controversial online 'cause calculating the payoff between feel good to post something online versus the risk of being fired/doxxed/others is so asymmetrical that sometimes is better to go on the streets and/or talk with a representative in private than post it online.