Canceling is usually performed against someone that offers their product by the people that the product is offered to. If I can spend my money on anything I want, and performer X says that I am a loser, I am not going to give performer X my money. I can choose things that X said 20 years ago, and I can choose stupid and invalid things to not give them my money. I think that’s understood: It is X’s responsibility to make sure that I want to give them my money, neither mine nor the government’s.
You give a good example in a different comment of a company (Disney) firing someone (James Gunn) because they were concerned about fallout from cancellation. That part is iffy, as we have seen with the Kimmel fiasco. Corporations have a hard time figuring out what is okay and what isn’t. The Coors Light debacle shows that even the best intentions can spectacularly backfire.
What we have here is the FBI, the Federal Law Enforcement agency, targeting an employee for perfectly legal conduct that was considered perfectly normal under the circumstances. People can and do judge, corporations can judge, but it’s risky. The Federal government is barred by the First Amendment from infringing on free speech. That includes the speech of its own employees.
The person fired seems to have been in their probationary period, and that might hold up in court. It’s still a shocking example of government persecution of retroactive thought crime.
I am surprised they are so blatant about this, because of course the same logic applies in reverse, too - in the future, should Democrats return to government, anyone could get fired for being a member of Truth Social, or having posted something pro-Trump on Facebook. Which just shows you that this Administration doesn’t consider it possible that they’ll ever have to leave office.
Canceling is usually performed against someone that offers their product by the people that the product is offered to. If I can spend my money on anything I want, and performer X says that I am a loser, I am not going to give performer X my money. I can choose things that X said 20 years ago, and I can choose stupid and invalid things to not give them my money. I think that’s understood: It is X’s responsibility to make sure that I want to give them my money, neither mine nor the government’s.
You give a good example in a different comment of a company (Disney) firing someone (James Gunn) because they were concerned about fallout from cancellation. That part is iffy, as we have seen with the Kimmel fiasco. Corporations have a hard time figuring out what is okay and what isn’t. The Coors Light debacle shows that even the best intentions can spectacularly backfire.
What we have here is the FBI, the Federal Law Enforcement agency, targeting an employee for perfectly legal conduct that was considered perfectly normal under the circumstances. People can and do judge, corporations can judge, but it’s risky. The Federal government is barred by the First Amendment from infringing on free speech. That includes the speech of its own employees.
The person fired seems to have been in their probationary period, and that might hold up in court. It’s still a shocking example of government persecution of retroactive thought crime.
I am surprised they are so blatant about this, because of course the same logic applies in reverse, too - in the future, should Democrats return to government, anyone could get fired for being a member of Truth Social, or having posted something pro-Trump on Facebook. Which just shows you that this Administration doesn’t consider it possible that they’ll ever have to leave office.
You’re spot on and thank you for your analysis here.