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johnmaguirelast Friday at 8:30 PM1 replyview on HN

The First Amendment right exists in large part to enable and encourage non-governmental news reporting - to avoid a world in which government officials can dictate "reality" or "truth."

The Guardian is actually a British publication, which is a bit orthogonal from the original discussion of US free speech. It might be more accurate to say that this was part of an international political conversation. This is because Bradon Eich, the leader of an organization which provides products internationally, made public donations to political groups that seek to strip rights from others. He has a first amendment right to do so.

As OP states, the rest of the world has a right (in the US, legally; elsewhere, perhaps morally) to respond to Brandon Eich, and Mozilla. If they believe that his views may influence the organization negatively - either due to bad press or through his other behaviors within the organization - they are also granted free speech to call out this behavior.

What we are seeing now is actual government agencies and officials working hard to remove people from their jobs - both in the public and private sectors - in response to views that don't align with their own.

It's not clear to me what your argument is exactly.


Replies

dizlexiclast Friday at 9:30 PM

My argument is that he contributed to a ballot initiative that passed (meaning the majority supported it), but he was still targeted and lost his job because media platforms targeted him.

To quote Andrew Sullivan > "McCarthyism applied by civil actors".

When people with large platforms target you, you're just as screwed regardless of their status as elected officials. To be outraged by one and excuse the other is laughable.