Eidos Employee Fired Over "Hate Speech" on Facebook

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Ah the whole Quesbec seperatism debate tinged now with the attempted assassination of Premier Marois and the idioty who supported it.

1) Canada does NOT have unlimted free speech as has been pointed out numerous times. Westboro Baptist Church? Deported. Ann Coulter? Politely told she was not welcome. Personally it's a much better system then free speech with no consequences.

2) He deserved to get fired. He might have been joking, blowing off steam or whatnot, but he crossed a line. Eidos was well within their right to can the twit.

3) Quebec will never seperate. The seperatist know this, but they beat their drums cause the Canadian government gives them all kinds of bonus and special treatments. (and I think it gives them something to do and ralley point)

Now, why won't Quebec seperate? Well here's a few big reasons:
1) Every native band has said they will stay with Canada. The natives control over 75% of the territory of Quebec, including almost all the mineral, hydro-electric and forestry. (They don't own it, but it;'s on their lands.) The region next to Ontario has said the same thing. Quebec speratists say Quebec is indivisable. It's not. Quebec is perfectly divisable, especially where the natives are concerned.

2) Their share of the national debt. Canada is not going ot let them leave and let them leave debt free. Also, all the governmental stuff... like the military? Stays in Canada unless they work out a deal to allow some of it to remain in Quebec.

3) A lot of treaties would be broken, for instance the Churchill Falls hydro-electric deal is between the provinces of Newfoundland and Quebec. They become a seperate country, they'd have to re-do the deal and the NF government would not allow them the same terms.

Most Canadians really wish the seperatists would just shut up and give it up. We generally love Quebec and want it to be part of Canada. We accept the biligualism, we try and support the culture, and we generally remain quiet when they get a larger share of the pie then they should. Hell, we let them form the official opposition for heaven's sake. Most other countries would have been actively supressing and jailing the Bloc and Parti Quebecois, but Canada? We let them be the opposition... Heh, only in Canada eh?

 

[CentralScrtnzr]

I don't understand "hate speech." Speech that constitutes a threat of bodily harm to another's person is a felony, a form of "criminal menacing" I suppose. This wasn't itself anything of the sort, however. Of course, every company, Eidos included, has the right to censor its employees. Eidos reasonably isn't concerned that the employee held such an opinion, but rather that other people were bothered by it and so it reflected poorly upon the company.

But people throw around the term "hate speech" for "speech that hurt my feelings." Is this what we've come to today? Free speech is lying battered on the side of the road, mortally wounded by "feelings." How does that line go? "Your rights end where my feelings begin."

Still, I am utterly against censorship. Oscar Wilde remarked "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." By our insistence that we maintain a certain decorum of content in public space, we ensure that we never speak of anything actually important to our hearts. So politicians can argue about "the gays" while expanding the powers of the executive and taking away your social security.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

You know shit's gotten too serious when politics are so corrupt that the big corrupts have to be assassinated to restore the status quo that worked, i.e. the one that wasn't half as corrupt as this one.

Fuck the Separatists, it's a Canadian version of the American Civil War waiting to happen.

 

[hooksashands]

Yea yea, his own fault and all that jazz, but the same goes for Pauline Whatsherface. If you're going to become a high-stakes politician, then expect to be threatened and shot at.

 

[Benni88]

In all honesty, what he wrote on facebook was mean as fuck. Regardless of how he felt about her politics, someone uninvolved was killed by that madman. Besides that, he's wishing that someone who's had a threat to her life go through it again. The guy must be a moral cretin.

Whether it was fair or not for a company to sack a person based on their views outside of work is another matter. Frankly, I'm glad he lost his job. Bit of karmic justice (yes. a dark souls reference).

 

[CoL0sS]

A real classy guy that one. Dumber than a bag of rocks but still.
I kinda get why people like to state their radical opinions on social networks, but spouting hate speech and calling for someones murder, and not expecting any reprisals.....yeah really dumb.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Very astute points.

I agree. It's just too bad that we'll never know if the guy has the maturity to admit the stupidity of what he said, or if he's just going to adopt a knee-jerk reactionary posture. People being people, I'd put as much faith in him being a generally stupid and pathetic individual with anger issues as I would in him being a generally sensible person who momentarily forgot just how plain naked we all are on social networks.