> Whether you agree with e.g. internet mobs doing this sort of thing or not, it's usually perfectly legal and happens all the time.
It might "happen all the time" nowadays, but that doesn't tell us whether or not it's sustainable or just. Moreover, I'm very skeptical that it was ever normal historically, at least not for any portion of our history that was worth repeating. I'm at least a little bit skeptical that it is "perfectly legal"; more likely that it hasn't been well and widely tested in court because it is in fact novel.
> And many (most?) would agree that's perfectly fine when someone in authority/in a public facing position does something that's clearly bad behavior.
I don't think this justifies it. Most people don't understand what happens to a civilization when the mob becomes the de facto justice system or why we have an actual codified legal system. Most of these people probably don't understand that the mob could turn against them at a moment's notice (although I think many are coming to this realization and consequently abandoning the "mobs are great!" position).
> What's less clear is when someone rank and file says or does something dumb and it ends up on YouTube or simply somehow offends someone with a big following. The reality is that if you become a liability to most companies, they'll just follow the path of least resistance and show you the door.
People don't even need to do anything "dumb". Mobs come for people all the time for stating unapproved facts or holding unapproved beliefs or for simply being born with the wrong race or gender. This is a national problem (I would even say it's our most significant modern social justice issue--of course here I'm using "social justice" literally, not to be confused with Social Justice the ideology) and we ought to do something about it.
I don't really disagree with any of that. It's just hard to say that collective action can be used for evil as well as good so it should be restricted. I'm not sure how you even do that in a non-authoritarian way. But it can certainly be a problem. See e.g. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove... (assuming facts are as presented)
The reality is that it's entirely rational for companies to basically fire first and ask questions later.
> It's just hard to say that collective action can be used for evil as well as good so it should be restricted.
We're not talking about "collective action" in general, we're talking about mobbing specifically. Mobbing (like other forms of vigilantism) is never good. Enforcement is a different matter--I think there are couple of ways to approach it that would have a huge difference and wouldn't be authoritarian at all:
1. Make it harder for employers to terminate employees on the basis of mob action. In other threads, others have talked about various "cooldown policies"--employers aren't allowed to fire an employee on the spot for ideological offenses, but must wait 90 days to see if it's still a problem. Another candidate solution would be making it employers liable in some way for terminating an employee in response to a mob or perhaps for ideological offenses altogether (at least not those that create a hostile workplace environment for some sensible definition of the term).
2. I would also look into ways to regulate social media. It's clear at this point that social media is detrimental to our society in many ways ranging from addiction to toxicity to inciting mob violence. Social media companies are allowed to curate sensational and "fake news" content at their convenience, but they claim to be "dumb pipes" when held to account. Make them choose whether they are curators or dumb pipes and if they choose to be curators, hold them accountable when they curate content that threatens or incites violence, etc.
I'm sure there are details to work out with both of those proposals--I'm not going to completely solve the problem in an HN post, but I'm very confident that both of these proposals could be fleshed out into effective policies which together could marginalize the problem. There is a third option which is to simply enforce the laws we already have--when individuals threaten or incite violence on social media, we should prosecute them regularly (these cases are rarely prosecuted today). I don't think this option is as effective (it wouldn't prevent people from demanding a person be terminated) and it's certainly more costly.
It might "happen all the time" nowadays, but that doesn't tell us whether or not it's sustainable or just. Moreover, I'm very skeptical that it was ever normal historically, at least not for any portion of our history that was worth repeating. I'm at least a little bit skeptical that it is "perfectly legal"; more likely that it hasn't been well and widely tested in court because it is in fact novel.
> And many (most?) would agree that's perfectly fine when someone in authority/in a public facing position does something that's clearly bad behavior.
I don't think this justifies it. Most people don't understand what happens to a civilization when the mob becomes the de facto justice system or why we have an actual codified legal system. Most of these people probably don't understand that the mob could turn against them at a moment's notice (although I think many are coming to this realization and consequently abandoning the "mobs are great!" position).
> What's less clear is when someone rank and file says or does something dumb and it ends up on YouTube or simply somehow offends someone with a big following. The reality is that if you become a liability to most companies, they'll just follow the path of least resistance and show you the door.
People don't even need to do anything "dumb". Mobs come for people all the time for stating unapproved facts or holding unapproved beliefs or for simply being born with the wrong race or gender. This is a national problem (I would even say it's our most significant modern social justice issue--of course here I'm using "social justice" literally, not to be confused with Social Justice the ideology) and we ought to do something about it.