It isn't that complicated. Some guy I've never heard of published some politically-tinged criticisms of company culture on an internal message board and then was fired shortly after it was leaked to the press. You are upset that other people called him names and misrepresented his memo. I don't really care much what he or other people said, but I don't want corporations to fire people for stating political opinions as that will lead to people being less open about their views (I'll acknowledge that this memo was directed at the company specifically, and so not a clear case of political speech).

So, from my perspective, who should I criticize? The person who wrote the memo? Why should I care? The people responding on social media? Again, why should I care? Or, the company actually chilling speech by firing someone for it (if that is actually what happened)?

Your mistake in analysis here is the same one you always make: you treat the left as the only people with causal agency and everything else as merely responding to them. In actuality, no, Google doesn't have to fire their employees for making controversial statements. And, the structural reasons inclining them to do so are just as powerful in inclining political activists to raise a stink when people make controversial statements.

You just aren't being a very smart activist. Two points:

1) If you really want to make SJWs less effective in stifling free expression, you shouldn't focus so much on complaining to them about how that is what they are doing, you should focus more on complaining to the big institutions and companies when they give in to them. SJWs threaten to boycott Google if they don't toe their line? Fine, organize your own boycott of Google if they fire people for reasons you disapprove of. Google itself probably doesn't really care one way or the other, they are just responding to the squeakiest wheel, and you are not even competing.

2) Stop letting them off the hook. Environmentalists complain all the time about how Corporation X is doing something that is bad for the environment. Explaining to these environmentalists that the corporation's goal is to make money misses the point. Why should they care about the goals internal to the corporation? Their concern is to protect the environment, not increase profits for Corporation X. If the corporation's pursuit of profit conflicts with protecting the environment, then they should try to pressure the corporation in such a way that it has to pay a high enough cost for damaging the environment that it should instead adopt their own environmental-friendly goals. So stop making excuses for a company that is firing its employees for expressing their own opinions. Don't accept their framing. It hurts your own cause.

You do this all the time, for instance when you cite Freddie DeBoer on the state of the left, or Haidt on the state of university campuses.

As I said to JiggyMac and as I've said to you in the past, show me the actually prominent and powerful leaders of the Democratic Party or of leftwing or liberal politics who advocate against free speech. Alternatively, show me actual legislation or court decisions. Or social science research (just FYI, I'm not going to be very persuaded by discussions of Jungian psychology). Otherwise, I won't really care. If anecdotes are the best you can do, then I'll just remain skeptical. I'm not setting the bar too high. If you can't reach the bar I'm setting, that is because your evidence is too weak.

That reminds of this blog entry from Reason that I saw yesterday.

The Google Memo Exposes a Libertarian Blindspot When It Comes To Power

A white male losing his job is actually causing libertarians to rethink some principles? Fly basically wrote a satirical version of this blog post five years ago.

Fire all the **** and blacks you want. But if you start firing people with manly opinions then we need to speak out.

To be fair, Agnes is not a grandmother

In which JiggilyPoop misses the irony sailing over his head after defending "Dr." Damore as an authority on all things to all men.

How is Google "chilling speech" when anyone who has worked at all in the real world understands that you shouldn't be making your employer look bad and that is what this guy did.

I also didn't see you answer how many posts from your employees questioning your business practices and ethics are you going to stand before taking action?

By firing their employee who made critical remarks about company policy. I'm not on Google's side here. I can see why they wouldn't like him making them look bad. But so what? Large companies are driven by very narrow interests, and my own concerns are broader. Maybe they had good reason to fire him, I don't really know or care particularly. Maybe he was a huge douche to everyone and so was going to be fired anyway. All I'm talking about is when an employee is fired for public or private statements. If that didn't happen here, fine, pick a different example.

13ball notes how something like this can cause libertarians to rethink their principles. I agree! But instead of complaining that they only care when people like them are affected, I think we should use this openness to argue for better general principles (eg companies should not fire people for their political views) that can also apply to cases where they'll be less naturally sympathetic.

Not sure how to answer this in the abstract. If I thought one of my employees was intentionally sabotaging my company, I'd fire them. If one of my employees wrote a memo critical of how I do business and my ethics and circulated it among the other employees, I'd talk to them about their concerns, but wouldn't regard that as grounds for firing them as long as they were willing to continue doing their job and abiding by company policy. If one of my employees started publicly posting online about how I should change my company, I would ask them to bring their concerns to me personally. If they kept doing it anyway, I'd probably just ignore it as long as they continued doing their job.

Obviously not. 100% of my grandmothers gave me cake.

It should be clear that people who care about this issue and aren't Republicans have to start fighting this issue long before it reaches that point.

Oh yeah, welcome to the dark side.

Original Position making some excellent points. One thing though, there's a near assumption/suggestion throughout these discussions (possibly not from OP) that thriving companies act more progressively for reasons. There's a huge dollop of it working the other way round whereby companies that are more progressive are the ones that thrive in the first place.

The older more reactionary companies are slaughtered by the new upcoming companies with more progressive values because the talent and new ideas comes from, on average, younger more progressive people in the first place. Doesn't make them all lefties but they on the whole significantly biased towards the more liberal side.

Also, people talk abut the customers who do indeed have a very big influence but there's also the key personnel that need to be attracted. The very top young talent have their pick of the best companies to work for and they are extremely liberal in attitude compared to the average - they will pick the companies they feel more comfortable with. Again it may not be companies purposefully meeting this demand as those that fail to do so not being the ones that thrive.

Doesn't mean they should have sacked this guy but it's understandble why those views are unwelcome.

As usaual, you're confused

Google became one of the biggest companies (and tech company) in the world. In doing so, they completely violated lefty ideology and had to make radical changes to appeal to them and the pending legal action. The memo was in response to a bunch of internal dialogue and presentations designed to change things. The memo suggests that google was likely hiring the most qualified candidates which has lead to gender imbalance. The leftys are furious at the notion the imbalance isn't bigotry. You dont get to have it both ways, the progressive nature of the company cant be your indicator of greatness while it simultaneously violated the narrative of the movement every step of the way and is currently facing legal action from those with "progressive" attitudes.

You haven't been able to confront how stupid your favorable views of affirmative action are because every time youre forced to deal difficult problems or facts, you run away to protect your existing beliefs

You're missing the point Juan. I'm not suggesting google ever subscribed to a leftist ideology and it's obviously become less of a startup as it's matured. None the less it hasn't yet divested large elements of a staff/culture who joined when it was younger more progressive company. It's struggling with these contradictory elements as many companies do as they mature.

But if it hadn't been progressive when it was a startup (which has led to these issues) then it may not have thrived. It probably also wouldn't be such a vast company if it hadn't become more corporate (or 'sold it's soul' as some might put it).

There's no running away going on. You have to shed a quest for over-simplification.

Can't wait for FoldN to come in here and whine that the Nazi terrorists were "heckler vetoed" out of the right to free speech today.

He'll probably complain about the left callously damaging the cars of white supremacists.

Nazis and KKK on one side BLM and Antifa on the other. What could go wrong?

BLM is a #hashtag and antifa is a strategy?

This isn't even about creating change. It's two opposing groups out their havng fun hatng each other. Things will just get worse. Next time the Nazis will bring more people and we will rinse and repeat.

How did the protests in Virginia go for you all? Are things better now?

You guys shouldn't have staged the Nazi/Confederate rally in the first place.

Mogdig going to bat for a Nazi murderer?

I, for one, am shocked

You sure make some wild guesses. You are wrong about people. Many people show up to face supremacists and separatists with love for their neighbors, nation, and world; And with actual concern for bigotry pickling unsuspecting folks minds. Undeterred by altzi violence are the people.

Because this is clearly what happened today

That's what happens just about whenever supremacists and separatists show up. People respond.

Using a member of the public's death at the hand of Nazis to crow at your political opponents plumbs a new depth itt.

And things just keep getting better and better.

Yeah, notice how things started getting better and better in January of this year?