Bosses Are Policing Speech at a New Level After Kirk’s Killing
People are losing their jobs over social media posts about the shooting. Do we really want to turn employers into content moderators?
Delta Air Lines is one of a long list of companies that have fired employees over social media posts about Kirk’s killing.
Photographer: Mark Abramson/Bloomberg
In the post-pandemic era, CEOs have been trying to put an end to the bring-your-whole-self-to-work experiment. No water cooler chitchat about the war in Gaza, please. Cool it on the Slacks about vaccines and immigration. The result? A return to old-school norms of office etiquette: Save your personal views for your personal life.
In the aftermath of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, bosses are taking it a step further. They’re making it clear they want more of a say in how workers express their personal views out of the office, too. At companies including Delta Air Lines Inc., United Airlines Holdings Inc., American Airlines Group Inc., Perkins Coie, Nasdaq Inc. and the Carolina Panthers, rank-and-file employees have been suspended or fired for their social media posts about Kirk’s murder.