Was I Fired for What I Said or What I Did?

It’s a sign of maturity when you learn to control what you say. We all develop a filter; some finer than others. We learn to read situations and people in order to determine whether or not the idea in our mind should be said out loud. There are many reasons why an individual would refrain from speaking. While the term self-censorship has gained a lot of traction over the past couple of years, it is not new concept. I would attribute the increased use of the term almost exclusively to the fact that social media makes speech more public than ever.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published this past Thursday, the author Ted Rall references a study conducted by the CATO institute that found “42% of liberals, 64% of moderates and 77% of conservatives report they keep their opinions to themselves for fear of retaliation at work.” Before I continue, it’s important to consider what this data point omits. For example, there is no reference to past years. While these percentages are large, there is no indication as to whether these figures are different to past statistics revolving around work related self-censorship. While we can’t determine if self-censorship has grown over time based on this study, we can link its high adoption rate to the following. During the 2020 campaign when this study was conducted, “50% of self-identified liberals believed that voting for Donald Trump was grounds for dismissal, while 36% of conservatives thought a vote for Joe Biden was a firing offense.” I’m also critical of this data point because it surveyed Americans generally, not exclusively Americans in a position to make firing decisions. While this statistic points to general sentiment, it may not be representative of actual firing decisions.

That being said, my main take away from this article was that we incorrectly conflate political action with one’s public political beliefs. The only way an employer would know who you voted for is if you made that information public. People get fired for holding public political discourse, not general political action. Ideally, I wish that people could participate in political discourse without fear of repercussions at the workplace, but I accept the reality that this has never been the case. Only what would have required access to a large publication can now be done via posting your opinion on Twitter. Pretty much any content you post on the internet is public discourse.

Failing to differentiate political action and political belief is a critical mistake and one that I believe has negative consequences. On the one hand, if I assume my political action would jeopardize my employment status, I may refrain from involving myself in local elections or supporting campaigns I believe in. On the other hand, posting that you agree with a politician’s opinions on a topic can be interpreted as voting for that candidate, even though publicly agreeing with and voting for someone can be independent of each other. Supporting Donald Trump’s handling of the COVID pandemic does not mean you voted for him. Sure, it could be a pretty good indication of where that person is leaning, but the point of discourse is to facilitate debates that have the potential to sway people’s opinions. If people fear expressing their opinions, then genuine political discourse on the internet is in jeopardy. I think this is what has caused increased levels of polarization and a decreasing number of moderates on the internet. This is unfortunate because it influences how we interpret our society. It appears we are a polarized country because the internet is polarized. Something I hope to examine in later blogs is if social media is a place to debate and share knowledge or to simply promote to the world what it is you believe in.