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Government agency removes spoon emoji from work platform amid protests (techcrunch.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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According to a New York Times report, on Thursday, the U.S. government’s General Services Administration (GSA) removed the spoon emoji as an option that users of its videoconferencing platform can select to express themselves.

The move comes a day after workers embraced the digital cutlery to protest the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” resignation offer.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 1 year ago

When the government is acting as an employer, they mostly aren't constrained by the First Amendment in the way that they are when acting as the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions

Restrictions based on special capacity of government

As employer

The government is not permitted to fire an employee based on the employee's speech if three criteria are met: the speech addresses a matter of public concern; the speech is not made pursuant to the employee's job duties, but rather the speech is made in the employee's capacity as a citizen; and the damage inflicted on the government by the speech does not outweigh the value of the speech to the employee and the public. Specifically, speech is "treated as a matter of public concern" by reference to the "content, form, and context of a given statement". The exception with regards to balancing the harm of a statement and the value of the statement (the Pickering test) is done by considering the degree to which the speech either interferes with close working relationships, disrupts the office, or even has the potential to do either.

Most on-the-job speech is probably going to fail the "pursuant to the employee's job duties" test.