That was a poorly-source, probably-made-up story that now one could verify yet quickly became accepted truth. (Unless it's meant to refer to cases involving heavy security clearances, in which cases it's ho-hum)
Yes. With a lack of privacy expectations in 2013, any visited website is permanent added to the record. Even with no paranoia, it does add an unnecessary risk to ones career.
I don't agree with the decision not to protest, and I don't think HN should really care about catering to that demographic, but I understand their motive.
That's the implicit link. The explicit link is that LGBT advocates and activists have frequently defended porn and freedom of sexual expression through it, too.
I work at a small company where no one would care. They also don't care if I spend time on Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. But not everyone is in a company like that. Big legacy companies hire from the HN crowd too. Whether or not their policies are fair is not always a simplistic argument. However, what is as sure as rain is that trivial violations of those policies can be used as leverage to punish people, when the office politics get dirty and desperate.
It's best to let the worker -- the HN reader in this case -- make the decision whether he/she wants to pick that fight, rather than have them accidentally stumble into it.
Since people let them get away with it. The "agreement that involves paying that employee's salary" does not meant they should get away with treating him less than a civilized society accept.
Signing a contract to work on some place doesn't give the employer any inherent rights over the employee, besides those that the society is willing to accept.
Hitting an employee was once tolerated. Not so anymore. One time not hiring or paying blacks less was allowed. Not so anymore (not explicitly at least). Child labour was allowed. Not anymore. Racial or sexist slurs were allowed. Not anymore. Lax safety at work was tolerated. Not anymore.
So it's not like there is some undeniable inherent right of an employeer to "have the employee pee in a cup" or to "check his Facebook profile". It's just that people haven't protested enough to make it into law that it's not his fucking business what the employee does at his own time.
>It's best to let the worker -- the HN reader in this case -- make the decision whether he/she wants to pick that fight, rather than have them accidentally stumble into it.
Sure, but at least some anger should be directed against businesses having those policies, not just on HN titles, as if the policies are OK.
>"I work on workplace, in a modern western society, not some theocratic backwater, that monitors my web activity and would frown if I visited an article with the word porn in it. This on 2013. I find this OK, and won't quit my job or raise hell protesting this degrading treatment, but would rather complain for HN titles".
In an age where people fight for LGBT rights, this is what the American workplace has come to?