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In the days following Charlie Kirk's murder, has seen a wave of employers being contacted regarding off-color remarks made by employees on social media about his passing. The debate is, does this constitute cancel culture, but by the right instead of the typical left? Some have argued that it is not the same thing, due to the disparaging comments being immediate, vs old comments dredged up in an attempt to cancel someone. There is a big difference between someone desecrating Charlie Kirk in an overt manner right after his passing, compared to a social media post made 10+ years ago against living targets that could be deemed as racist only under the most uncharitable light.
My take is, contacting an employer with the intent of getting someone fired for something not work-related or fired in the public interest as a 'concerned citizen', by definition, is cancel culture. Sure, one can argue that this is a different degree of cancelation, but it's the same principle. Someone posting a vile comment on his social media celebrating someone's death doesn’t necessarily affect his ability to do his job, like making sandwiches or whatever. Sure, if said individual confessed on social media to spitting in customers' sandwiches or making disparaging remarks about customers, go ahead and get his ass fired to protect the customers if no one else. But this is not like that. Consumers and other employees are not negatively affected by an employee holding a grudge against a dead podcaster.
To turn the tables, imagine if George Soros died and many of those same people wrote "good riddance" on their social media accounts, should this be grounds for cancelation? By the above logic, yes if you want to be morally consistent.
relevant tweet https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1967066826590028174
I have to admit that the debate on this topic confuses me.
People who are merely talking negatively about the legacy of a public figure are fine in my book, but isn't actual celebration of murder something that would usually get one shunned?
I'm not being sarcastic: Is there a norm of it not being a fireable offence to openly celebrate murder? There may be a point that actively calling an employer to get someone fired is not healthy behaviour, and also that a witch-hunt atmosphere may or will also drag in innocent people, but should I be worked up over the firing itself, if the facts of the case are correct?
I suppose there's a nuance of whether people are celebrating his mere passing, or the actual fact that he was murdered.
If he was assassinated, and people are celebrating it, I don't see why not...? He isn't an enemy soldier of a country I'm at war with. Personally I've enjoyed watching videos of him speak before, whatever I think he's responsible for.
Yes, there is. In most of Europe firing someone for anything outside work is explicitly illegal.
In most of Europe, celebrating terrorism is also explicitly illegal.
It doesn't mean the police can't arrest you for activities outside of work. It means corporations can't terminate you from your job for your out-of-work activities.
Yes they can. There are just valid and non valid causes for firing. Going to jail for glorifying terrorism is one such valid reason.
If that were the case I know more than a couple of people who should’ve been imprisoned a long time ago.
Plenty people are and its trivially easy find information about this online.
For instance, in 2016 there were 306 persons in France alone that were convicted of apologia for terrorism and 232 of those were sentenced to jail.
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