To take it to an extreme, the First Amendment wouldn't mean much if every single individual in society ostracized you for something you said. It would be small comfort that you weren't imprisoned even though you could no longer work, find shelter, eat, etc.

We are certainly free to call for boycotts and resignations, but we should use that freedom very, very carefully. That's how I saw it - I was often frustrated by the very many posts (not so much on HN) that essentially equated free speech totally with the First Amendment and then noted that it only protects you from censorship by the government. Of course! That's not what the argument is. Freedom of speech is enshrined in the First Amendment to protect us from government overreach, but that doesn't mean threats to free speech come solely from the government.

Nor do I think that protections from anything but the government should be enshrined in law - you couldn't do so without threatening freedom of speech and association, because all the speech, for and against Eich, was everyone's right. But in an ideal society I would hope for strong social norms that reserve such speech for truly outrageous and heinous behavior.

Of course, it is clearly the case that some people regard Eich's donation as truly outrageous and heinous (rather than just deeply wrong, discriminatory, etc), but that's a different debate.

But one can also appeal to a more general principle of free speech, which is ultimately what many people are doing. Scott Alexander has useful thoughts on this topic: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/29/the-spirit-of-the-first...

"A good response to an argument is one that addresses an idea; a bad argument is one that silences it."

The gay activists here are attempting to do the latter. It's no different from assorted people attacking Kathy Sierra [1] or Scooby1961 [2], except of course that we happen to like Sierra and Scooby's opinions.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment [2] Scooby is probably less familiar to the HN crowd, he's a bodybuilder/fitness guru who was doxxed by 4chan for no apparent reason. http://newmediarockstars.com/2013/07/4chan-bullies-fitness-g...

As your own [1] points out, "Robert Scoble ... temporarily suspended their blogs in a show of support for Sierra." By your appeal to a "general principle of free speech", you surely must chastise Scoble's actions.

It's also a false appeal, because free speech does not stand alone, not even in the first amendment. The amendment lists several other rights, including the right to assembly, which protects freedom of association. We have a right to boycott. We have a right to picket. We have a right to call on others to participate in the boycott and picket. Those are free speech rights.

We have a right to quit a company, or stop volunteering for a company, if we don't like what it does. OKCupid has the right to prevent Firefox users from connecting to their site. These are parts of the freedom of association.

See http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/ for the importance of freedom of association when talking about freedom of speech.

> Yet people often confuse these categories. It's one of the fundamental errors of free speech analysis that I like to write about the most. ... The foundation of "witch hunt" rhetoric is the notion that some free speech (say, Pax's) is acceptable, and other free speech (say, the speech of people criticizing and ridiculing Pax and his employer) is not. You can try to find a coherent or principled way to reconcile that, but you will fail."

I don't chastise Scoble using his blog to express his opinions. Nor have I called for anyone curtailing the freedom of association.

I'm merely calling out the gay activist movement as being a bunch of anti-intellectual jerks who want to suppress speech they dislike and attack their opponents. Kind of like the non-violent people attacking Kathy Sierra, Scooby, or the Hollywood system that created the blacklist.

And suppose unicorns had wings. You made a comparison and said they were equivalent. I showed they aren't equivalent. Now you want to compare a real-world event to a fictional alternative? Balderdash. And you're complaining about things being 'anti-intellectual'?

How is this action against Eich as CEO anything different than a call for boycott, a boycott, and picketing?

BTW, the Hollywood blacklist was effective because of state and national government involvement since the '20s. The blacklist only started after the House Un-American Activities Committee conviction of the "Hollywood Ten" on contempt of Congress charges for refusing to answer some questions by committee members.

If you're going to make that comparison, where's the heavy hand of government in this boycott against Eich as CEO?

For the record, I support that 12,000 Southern Baptists can call for and carry out a boycott of Disney-owned companies because they don't like that Disney has "Gay Days". I don't support the boycott, and I disagree with the premises which underlie it, but I support their right to free speech and assembly.

Just like I support the rights of free speech and assembly of those opposed to Eich as CEO to call for and carry out a boycott of Mozilla products.

P.S. I checked my memory regarding Sierra. It was specifically those threats of violence which "forced her to cancel a public appearance and suspend her blog". As she wrote, "I have cancelled all speaking engagements. I am afraid to leave my yard, I will never feel the same. I will never be the same." So your fictional world where she received no threats of violence would have been a very different world, and one we can't reasonably probe through hypotheticals.

Yes - I'm attempting to figure out what principle is being applied. As a result, I'm trying to find real or hypothetical cases as close to the dividing line of that principle as possible.

So again, I ask: are legal attacks (e.g., photoshopping someone's head onto a porn star's body, releasing someone's address, encouraging people to shun them) without threats of violence something we should accept?

Perhaps opponents of sexual promiscuity can create a registry of the name, photo, address and preferred sexual position of promiscuous women? And of course, list the employer's phone number of such women, and encourage people to call and advocate for firing her. If you find one particular act I described unacceptable but all the others acceptable (e.g., publishing favorite sexual position is ok but employers phone number is not), please explain why.

Again, let me reiterate that I'm not asking whether this violates the US constitution. I explicitly stated in my first post that it doesn't. I'm asking whether we should accept it when people engage in such actions.

Consider your hypothetical about "opponents of sexual promiscuity". It's reminds me of the real-world situation of the American Coalition of Life Activists, who posted pictures, addresses, etc. of doctors who would carry out abortions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Physicia... . "In an en banc rehearing, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the ACLA could be held liable in damages because the website made a threat unprotected by the First Amendment." (Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Coalition_of_Life_Acti... )

Your example of getting multiple people to call the employer and advocate dismissal likely falls under misdemeanor harassment. Here's an example of one such law: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/13/02921.htm .

In general I support the right of private person X to call for others to shun person Y. Don't you? That doesn't mean I can't nor shouldn't shun person X in turn.

The photoshopping example may count as libel or criminal defamation. Without actual details, it's hard to say anything for certain. This is why hypotheticals are lousy.

"I'm asking whether we should accept it when people engage in such actions."

No. The underlying premise is silly. Of course you could/should protest. Write HN comments. Blog about it. Boycott. Picket in front of Mozilla's offices. Do whatever you want (within the bounds of law) if you don't like what others are doing. Why would you have to accept it?

I fully support that people can boycott Mozilla for selecting Eich as CEO.

I fully support that people can boycott Mozilla now that Eich is not CEO, and complain that Eich was forced out by a witch hunt. I just wish they would explain how "witch hunt" is different than "boycott and picketing".

I find this whole thing troubling because it's an attempt at suppressing ideas. I always found the movement intellectually vacuous (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7537168). But now they seem to be demonstrating a fear of rational arguments and simply attack those who disagree. I find that a bit scary.

Any more than boycotting Coors because of the anti-immigration policies of the Coors family suppresses ideas.

Any more than boycotting Disney because of its support for Gay Days suppresses ideas.

Any more than disinvestment of South African goods suppressed the idea of apartheid.

It comes across like you think every boycott is an attempt at suppressing an idea. If that's what you believe, then know that I stand with the oppressors.

Otherwise, is there any boycott you like which was done for social or political reasons and which didn't somehow "suppress ideas"?

By "demonstrating a fear of rational arguments and simply attack those who disagree".

More in general, can't all social or political boycotts, ranging from the boycott against Boycott and absentee landownership, to the Indian boycott of British goods and British colonialism, to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and race discrimination, to the anti-apartheid boycott, to the US boycott of Cuban goods be interpreted as "suppressing" a disliked idea?

If so, then I can understand how someone who uses that definition of "suppress" can object to any social or political boycott. While I do support the right to boycott, as part of the right to free association, so I don't have the same definition.

Many of them are in fact attempts to suppress ideas they dislike. Not all.

For example, if I boycott Cuban goods, I'm boycotting the people currently in control of Cuba for their actions. If I boycott opponents of the embargo I'm attempting to suppress ideas.

I object far less to the former than the latter. But I admit, I don't fully understand this issue, which is why I'm asking questions to people who claim certainty.

You can say that it's actually boycotting them for specific actions, and not for the general expression of ideas. That seems like a weak distinction - "faith without works is dead". Ideas, without the ability to act on those ideas, have no power or influence. They are dead.

Your counter-example, where you "boycott opponents of the embargo", is hard for me to understand without an example. An opponent of the embargo might buy and import a Cuban cigar, in order to protest the embargo. That's an action. Under your action/idea distinction, it's therefore okay for me to boycott that person's action, no?

Going back to Eich, Eich did a specific action - donate money to a political cause. That action is the prime, and really only, stated reason for opposition to Eich as CEO.

Under your action/idea distinction, don't you find that perfectly acceptable? OKCupid isn't suppressing an idea, only boycotting someone for a specific action.

I asked if there was a social or political boycott which you agree with. I'm trying to get a sense of if your objection is to boycotts in principle. You mentioned the Cuban embargo, but I can't tell if you support it, and you haven't said why you support it - that is, which actions/ideas you are against.

And going the other way, to something a bit broader/more mainstream, say he donated to the Republican Party. Ok to ostracize him?

To me it seems like people have some kind of dividing line that's not cut and dried, possibly depending on their own beliefs.

I see you are fairly new here: something that sets HN apart from other corners of the internet is that generally, we try and be tolerant, and give other people the benefit of the doubt. Snarky one liners are not always looked on very positively.

Naturally, there are heated discussions and these ideals don't always hold true, but one of the guiding principles here is to pretend you are talking to someone in person and think about how that would guide your interaction with them.

His poor response didn't help: "if you disagree with me you're oppressing the poor Indonesians who don't have a mouthpiece!". What an asshole.

The fact is, donating to support prop 8 is bigotry in and of itself. Many have said no one experienced overt discrimination, but all that really means is that he wasn't bigoted to the victims' faces, he quietly donated to a cause with the intent of stripping people he calls his friends of their rights. He apologized for hurting his LGBT friends, but stops short of actually apologizing and then justifies his beliefs with those of a 3rd world country.

Free speech has nothing to do with this, this is someone whose actions many people, both inside and outside of the organization, found incompatible with what they saw as Mozilla's values, and who can blame them?

Tl;dr opposing gay marriage is widely seen as a despicable and regressive cause that many people do not want to associate with

I can blame them. Mozilla makes a web browser. Gay marriage has nothing to do with Mozilla's mission or with the political issues Mozilla has to deal with as part of its mission. I could understand the uproar if Eich had donated to a "ban free software" cause, but that is not what happened.

You're right, this is not about free speech. Eich was not punished for what he said, he was punished for what he thought. The donation is irrelevant here, other than the fact that it revealed Eich's beliefs. There would be just as much anger and vitriol if instead of a donation someone revealed that Eich had voted in favor of proposition 8.

They have decided that they do more than "make a web browser" and deal the political issues around that topic. They want to associate themselves not just with "don't be evil" but actually "doing good."

This is an advantage, because people will volunteer time to Mozilla in order to do good. This is a disadvantage when different people have different ideas of what "doing good" means. Which I think is the source of the commotion here.

As an executive at Mozilla, Eich forced the organization to take a stance on the issue by donating.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same-sex_marriage_c...

Surely you don't believe that the right of free speech means that people can never call for a boycott or participate in a picket when they disagree with the actions of an organization, or owners and employees thereof? The rights of speech and assembly are equally valued in the first amendment, with a long history in the US.

So far no one has been able to tell me how this is anything other than a successful boycott action by those opposed to Eich as a CEO.