No one has granted a right to live without fear. Fear is an emotional response.
I don't think a general non-persecution right exists.
A right to free speech exists from government persecution. A right to be treated equally based on gender exists at the government level.
The key point is spofity has a right to offer Joe money to use their platforms. Employees who disagree based on politics and threaten to quit working is new. If the company decides to replace them I don't believe they are in a legal position to strike.
Yes, and no; one can be criticized for membership of a social group, but when people take action against the social group, I believe that can start to step into the territory of hate crimes, but I don't know if I'd consider that implying a right.
> The key point is spofity has a right to offer Joe money to use their platforms. Employees who disagree based on politics and threaten to quit working is new. If the company decides to replace them I don't believe they are in a legal position to strike.
This, I agree with. My original post was about the morals of the move, both on Spotify's part, and the Employees' part, but I have very little doubt about the legal aspect of it.
Spotify can offer Joe Rogan money. The employees can protest this. Spotify can perform editorial control. The question is, should they?
Maybe the question should be why shouldn't they?
If the employees are protesting in good faith and not employing violence to coerce their employer, why shouldn't they?
If Spotify feels editorial control is in their business interests, and it doesn't violate their contract with Joe Rogan, why shouldn't they exercise it?
It's odd that so many people are complaining so vehemently about a situation in which the rights that Hacker News usually considers sacrosanct - voluntary contracts, capitalism and free speech, are not actually being undermined.
Let's say that happens. But another group of employees may feel the opposite and start protesting for Joe. Now what do you?
There's no obligation that Spotify management consider or concede to all future employee demands if they choose to consider or concede to any group's demands in the present. They'll do whatever makes the best business sense to them at the time, which today might mean breaking this agreement, and tomorrow might mean defending another one.
labour strikes have existed for decades. Primarily for better working conditions of course, but also environmental issues or equal civil rights and so on.
What's new isn't that employees use their bargaining power for political or social causes, it's that they have more success with it in tech or other knowledge sectors. That's a function of there being relatively few workers. The managerial and professional class has become aware of the fact that they're hard to replace, and employers actually can't fire them all, in other words the top 15% have figured out that they don't actually share any goals with the top 0.1% percent, but that they're in quite a unique position to demand what they think is right.
Not so sure they're that hard to replace. There's always the following:
* The unemployed, especially those displaced/affected by offshoring
* Slightly less qualified but trainable
* Those with criminal background issues, but are otherwise well qualified.
All categories would be served well through a staffing firm specializing in handling these kind of issues.
The problem with the latter part of your comment is that it assumes that everyone lives on separate islands, and that what one person does has no impact on the other people around them. It does. It's alright to say that we shouldn't dictate peoples lives or businesses, but there's a point that that breaks down - if we can't dictate people's lives, why do we jail people?
The contract between Spotify and Joe Rogan represents a consensual trade: money for exclusive distribution of The Joe Rogan Experience. YouTube choosing to host The Joe Rogan Experience prior to this was also a trade of sorts, both made money from the arrangement, but it was a bit less airtight because YouTube has and does try to present itself as a platform just about anyone can publish on and doesn’t often make these deals. The distribution wasn’t the especially valuable part though, it was the man himself and the show Joe put together. Spotify didn’t approach Joe with a dump truck full of money to serve as Joe’s neutral platform of choice wherein Joe will follow all the same platform policies as the other shows. They approached Joe with a dump truck full of money because that was how much they valued him and the show he put together and he didn’t do anything that especially offended them (where “them” would be the people that own and control Spotify).
I don’t want to tell you what to do with your life, but I prefer to tend to my own garden before worrying about the state of another’s for I find that the sorts of people that tell others how they should live are charlatans keeping their own unkempt gardens out of sight. Nobody can nor has the moral right to control the actions of another.
Joe Rogan has been given a platform, and he needs to use it responsibly. I'm still on the fence over whether or not Spotify should enforce that he uses the platform responsibly. When do you draw the line? At what point does his right to use Spotify as a platform outweigh the consequences of using the platform irresponsibly, potentially - or indirectly - causing harm? Inviting guests that promote transphobic onto his platform seems innocent enough, but transphobia is a major issue contesting the country, even ignoring veritably false claims being made about transpeople, and people have died over this conflict. If the platform is used irresponsibly, and veritably false information is propagated by the guest on his platform, is Joe Rogan responsible for that? What if that misinformation is what causes someone to commit a crime against transpeople? At what point should Joe Rogan, the one who promoted misinformation on a platform he controls, and that many people listen to, be held responsible for the consequences of what (and how) he disseminates to the people? Does his right to say false things outweigh the right of others to live without fear or persecution?
I have yet to come up with an answer, because I don't know what the best solution is yet.