D&D General On Early D&D and Problematic Faves: How to Grapple with the Sins of the Past

[Meech17]

How often does it happen? I mean, Joe Nobody, who works as garbage collector or grocery store worker for example, losing job cause something he posted on social media? Also, how legal is it to fire somebody cause of social media post?

This weekend there was an assassination attempt on the former President of the US. Social media has, as one would expect, been nuts ever since.

Cancellations are in full swing too. Many people making light of the attempt, making jokes at the former President's expense... Etc.

(Not a normal Joe Blow) Comedy Rock Duo Tenacious D have canceled their tour due to pressure exerted on them from venues following one of the members making a joke about it during a show.

As for normal folk, there was a New York woman, who made some comments regarding the attempt on her FaceBook page. Someone found the location where she worked(A major hardware store chain), went in, confronted her on video, and then shared it online to the company who employed her. They responded that "Her comments don't reflect the company's values" and they confirmed she is no longer employed with them.

As far as often... It's not something that happens every day. It's convenient that this just happened yesterday for this example. It's something you hear about every month, to every few months or so.

As far as legality goes.. I'm not a lawyer.. but many states here are what are called "At-Will Employment" states, meaning that employers can terminate someone's employment at will, for nearly any reason. The exceptions being usually discrimination against a protected class (Race, Religion, what have you.)

So "Not aligning with company values" is usually a perfectly acceptable excuse

Edit: I sound like a broken record, as alzrius beat me to the punch

 

[GrimCo]

When it comes to labor laws protecting the workers, you guys in US got short end of the stick. In most EU countries, laws offer greater protection to workers, and if they are part of union (some countries like Germany and Italy still have strong unions), it gets even harder to fire them. Double so for public/government employees. Employers need very good reasons to fire someone and even then, there is usually at least 30 days notice plus severance pay. Shitposting on internet isn't good enough reason to terminate work contract. Funny enough, X/Twitter, wildly popular in US, is not really that popular in most of EU, specially East/South East Europe.

With "at will employment", using social media post as grounds for firing someone seams just like good excuse.

 

[Meech17]

With "at will employment", using social media post as grounds for firing someone seams just like good excuse.

This is probably the biggest problem with At-Will Employment. If an employer wants to fire someone for a illegal reason, it's not too hard to find a legal one they can use instead.

Many American's view the fact that we are "Free" from all of those regulations holding down companies as a good thing... So unfortunately I don't think we'll ever get the kind of worker protections you Europeans have.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is probably the biggest problem with At-Will Employment. If an employer wants to fire someone for a illegal reason, it's not too hard to find a legal one they can use instead.

Many American's view the fact that we are "Free" from all of those regulations holding down companies as a good thing... So unfortunately I don't think we'll ever get the kind of worker protections you Europeans have.

The other issue is it isn't just about getting fired from a 9-5 job. Many people work on a contract basis and having a massive social media storm around your name, not even one that makes the news, can be enough so that when people google you, they don't hire you for work. It is also an issue if a person is trying to apply for jobs. It is one of the first things employers do is a search on google and social media. A person might even be completely innocent of saying or doing anything questionable, but if there are enough posts asserting so and so said X or so and so is an X (even if all they said or are is Y), that is enough. People rarely go to the source and see mostly just the optics of it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I wasn't talking about celebrities. I was talking about everyday people and I include other elements of social media in what we are discussing, like harrassment. I was basically saying regular peopel getting mobbed on social media is, in my opinion, not good for society. And people do kill themselves over this. People do lose their jobs over this stuff and find gainful employment difficult. I agree, celebrities can always make a buck out of controversy. Cancel culture in that field is more frustrating than anything else (it can mean a movie or book you were looking forward to doesnt get released). I still don't think it is good, but celebrities can move on easily. A regular worker can't.

Sure, but again, the people calling that "cancel culture" aren't suffering anything different than those that call it "cyber-bullying" except that one group is getting called out for what they said or what they did, and the other group is being attacked for.... existing.

I will fully agree that online harassment isn't a good thing, and shouldn't be encouraged, however, the guy who claims that "ugly women" don't have any place in society, and getting mobbed on social media, and bemoaning his being canceled is dealing with something very different than the woman game designer who receives rape threats for the crime of being a woman game designer and "ruining the video game industry". She doesn't use the language of "I am being canceled", that isn't how we refer to those incidents.

To move this from the online space into a physical analogy, it is equally unacceptable for a mob to hospitalize a man for beating his wife and breaking her arm as it is for a mob to hospitalize a man for wearing a dress. Violence like that isn't acceptable. But we shouldn't pretend that the two men were hospitalized for the same reason, or that the two victims deserve equal consideration.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Both things can be bad. People being discriminated against is bad. People being shamed en masse on social media, ostracized and losing work (which happens to lots of regular people now), sometimes for a reason, sometimes because of bad optics, and sometimes because they had a bad day or misread the room...this is also bad. It isn't like we have to have one or the other, we can reject both. It is bad that people thwart and even try to destroy peoples lives on social media by whipping up others against them

The thing is, I've never heard of someone losing their job for attacking people online, EXCEPT when that person is working for a company with policies against that sort of behavior. And I'm not saying that it is okay for a social media frenzy to lose someone their job.

I am saying that, almost universally, the people who claim that they are being canceled, are facing a mob because they posted or said something hateful and harmful to others. They were part of the mob attacking someone for their existence. And then get backlash in the form of what they were doing to others. Those are the people using that phrasing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

LibsofTikTok apparently maintains a whole account and following getting ordinary people they disagree with fired or harassed over social media posts. :/

And, to make sure for those who don't follow this sort of news, LibsofTikTok has consistently posted hateful messages about LGBTQ+ individuals, and has often raged about how they themselves are canceled by "the woke mob"

Meanwhile, I am not sure of anyone who they have harrassed and whipped a frenzy against ever claiming that they are being canceled.