Smart companies have already been filtering them out. See Coinbase, who literally paid them to leave.

Does this tend to improve the company's financial performance, or is this simply worth doing if you have certain political goals for your company that outweigh financial results? i.e., is this "smart companies" as in those with good financial ideas or "smart companies" as in those who want to build a non-woke world for the next generation?

It seems like most SJW-converged companies have been doing just fine as companies, otherwise the invisible hand of the market would have put a stop to this long ago.

The ironic part is that even the most liberal anti-republican types are made miserable by woke employees. I worked at a tech company that went through the exact process you described. Liberal Democrat types used to keep politics out of the workplace for the most part. Then they started hiring woke brainwashed college students who aligned with them ideologically but not procedural. Now instead of the daily chat at the water cooler, we have employees screaming at meetings about the latest outrage, taking days off because something happened in the news, and crying when being woke doesn't help their performance reviews. Everybody is miserable and managers are fleeing.

The problem with notion this is that 'woke' or 'activist' values are actually pretty reflective of mainstream values in 21st century society. I would worry more about the legal exposure of people who express opposition to diversity/equity/inclusiveness, as these are very likely to be the people who would end up behaving inappropriately and getting the company mired in harassment and discrimination suits.

The very fact these value are called “activist” and “woke” means they aren’t mainstream values.

And it’s not the values, it’s the disruption. If you had anti-abortion Republicans doing the same would everyone be saying how the company should “tread lightly”.

The labels 'activist' and 'woke' are generally applied derisively by people people who don't share these values. To the mainstream these traits are generally not even labeled, they're just what we consider common decency in this decade. When my parents were my age it was 'activist' and 'woke' to be in favor of mixed race marriages. Times change.

> And it’s not the values, it’s the disruption.

People want to feel like they're in a career that aligns with their values, and the more in demand your talent is, the more you're able to make demands of your employers to have them be values-aligned. If employers don't need top shelf talent, they're free to ignore that and be less competitive in the market for talent. However, successful companies usually tend to compete. We're talking about Spotify because they competed for and hired high-grade talent, and that high-grade talent wants their company to be values-aligned.

Thankfully silencing opinions you disagree with isn’t mainstream...yet.

It's absolutely mainstream on all sides to try to silence people you disagree with, and it always has been. Republicans tried to silence Nike and the NFL over Colin Kaepernick, Democrats tried to silence companies for doing business with the apartheid regime in South Africa, Republicans are trying to silence Coke and Delta for their support of voting rights, civil rights era people tried to silence racist bus companies, evangelicals are constantly trying to silence all manner of businesses all the time. It's a long-standing American tradition at this point.

Sure you can find specific examples, but thankfully the US still has some semblance of celebrating free speech.

And your examples of silence seem fuzzy. Who was trying to “silence” (suppress speech) of South Africa? Suppress their racist political system? Sure, but I don’t recall anyone saying they can’t talk.

That whole premise is flawed. First, they often describe themselves as activists. Second, they are clearly not for diversity and inclusion. It's about conformity and exclusion. They are anti-free speech, pro censorship and bully those who don't conform. You can't square that intolerance with any desire to be diverse and inclusive.

I agree with another poster that Spotify employees should stand up on principle in opposition to the internal employees that are now running the asylum.

I listen to JRE on Spotify and am not happy about the decision. Actually the first episode I listened to was an Alex Jones + Tim Dillon episode (Tim being a comic I like) that is now gone. And while I don't agree with Alex Jones, I listened to it because I expected it to be controversial or nutty.

There are people who say once you give in to the woke mob they won't stop there, I wouldn't be surprised if now they know they can get other targets canceled if those targets don't consume their orthodoxy.

The Alex Jones and Tim Dillon episode is one of the best ones ever, very sad they pulled it, at least it's still on youtube (for now).

It should be named what it is, and has always been: anti-free speech.

The line is when you take actions designed to prevent someone else from ever speaking, or people hearing their speech, instead of (as is your right) loudly calling them a *ist.

My personal preference is for Spotify to leave Rogan's content on their platform with disclaimers, so I can best decide if/how I listen to it. However, this is not a free speech issue.

"free speech" only makes sense in the context of government regulation (vs individuals/corporations), because governments have a monopoly on violence. As soon as two non-government entities are "regulating each other", it is a matter of mutual free speech. e.g. what about the free speech of Spotify?

Rogan sold his intellectual property, i.e. his speech, including the speech of his guests, to Spotify. Now depending on the contract (I do not know what the exclusivity clauses look like) Rogan might be able to host that content on other platforms, or he might not. Either way, on Spotify's platform, legally the speech is Spotify's not Rogan's nor the guests.

FWIW, if recorded conversations/speech cannot be considered intellectual property, that can be bought and sold, all current media will be impacted as it cannot be run as a business.

Absolutely correct.

A country can have more than one problem. It is deeply foolish to suggest that only one of them can be the "real problem".

I don’t see how both can’t be problems at the same time?

Were you speaking about yourself?

Is it "woke" to accuse a massive group of people for the actions of a very small minority? Because if you are our example, then it would appear so.

> a very small minority

In this case 'woke' is just another term for having a firm grip on reality.

* "More Than Half Of Republicans Believe Voter Fraud Claims"[1]

* "As of March 24, legislators have introduced 361 bills with restrictive provisions in 47 states."[2]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/04/05/more-th...

[2] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/stat...

How is requiring an ID (which everyone needs to do anything in this country and with the government) denying people the ability to vote?

Did we read the same parent comment?