The company wishes to pretend to care about employees’ free expression, while still wanting to … sanction unpopular speech on the sly…’
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Twitter claims that “all voices” are “welcome” and “needed,” yet the company rejected a proposal that would have included non-discrimination protections for employees who express unpopular beliefs.
Scott Shepard, who coordinates the Free Enterprise Project, introduced the proposal to protect all viewpoints at Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting this week, the National Center for Public Policy Research reported.
Twitter’s careers page on its website promises open dialogue for its employees, even though the platform does not offer the same protections for users.
“Open platform, open workplace. Healthy conversation is open and honest,” the website reads. “At Twitter everyone speaks their minds, even when it’s an unpopular opinion. That’s because we respect and trust each other enough to make space for disagreement and debate.”
Shepard said that Twitter’s non-discrimination policy includes protections for “gender, race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age [and] disability,” but not for unpopular beliefs and opinions.
Twitter officials said additional protections against viewpoint discrimination are unnecessary because the company “make[s] clear to applicants that we will not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected status.”
Yet, conservative and Christian political opinions, which Twitter often targets, do not fall under any of the legally protected categories.
Twitter even targets opinions that simply buck the corporate media’s Official Narrative.
Plus, Shepard said that Twitter has included some protections “that are not required by law,” such as those for sexual orientation and gender identity.
“In other words, it is willing to supplement the legally required minimum for categories when it wants to do so,” Shepard said.
“From these passages on Twitter’s own website, we can only conclude that the company wishes to pretend to care about employees’ free expression, while still wanting to be able to police and sanction unpopular speech on the sly,” he continued.