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Elon Musk’s ‘fund your legal bill’ tweet is a brand new level of bullshit (www.theverge.com)

submitted 11 months ago by Moonrise2473@feddit.it to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Sorry, another news from this asshole, but this is too much assholery to don't be shared

Despite him being a shitty boss that fired employees that criticized him on twitter, he promised an "unlimited" legal defense fund to fight against employers that fired employees because of something they wrote on Twitter.

Under his tweet a lot of "verified" (=right wing) accounts plauded this and asked to fight employers who fired employees for having written something homophobic

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[-] Karlos_Cantana@kbin.social 31 points 11 months ago

We make our employees sign a form when they're hired stating that they will not mention our company or any of its employees on social media in a negative way. It's standard practice. Any company big enough to have its own lawyer(s), they will advise them to do that because it can help prevent serious legal Issues.

[-] prole@beehaw.org 37 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

We make our employees sign a form when they're hired stating that they will not mention our company or any of its employees on social media in a negative way. It's standard practice

The NLRB ruled that non-disparagement clauses are not enforceable

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/27/labor-board-says-non-disparagement-clauses-are-unlawful

It's a clear violation of the first amendment... Also, referring to the company you work for as "we" while talking about firing another employee is cringe as fuck.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 25 points 11 months ago

It has literally nothing to do with the first amendment.

The first amendment gives you zero protections from anyone but the government. All other entities are entitled to respond to your speech however the fuck they want.

[-] viq@social.hackerspace.pl 6 points 11 months ago

@conciselyverbose
No, they need to do so within existing law and ideally also social norms. It's not ok for Bob to go after you with a rifle just because you said you don't like his hairstyle. That he can fire you for the same is atrocious.
@Moonrise2473 @Karlos_Cantana @prole

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago

Going after you with a rifle is illegal in its own right. The first amendment is not a factor in any way.

Firing you for it is unambiguously and unconditionally legal, unless you're in a state that has other limitations on your ability to terminate employees.

There is no scenario you can contrive where a non-government employer firing an employee for speech can be connected to the first amendment in any way. The first amendment can only possibly be relevant to the government.