Cybersecurity experts have urged corporations to create a program that allows people to rat out everyday citizens to their employers for what they consider offensive behavior online.
Cancel Culture and Big Tech are a match made in hell, as cybersecurity experts call to target the livelihood of internet users who get too edgy online. “The initiative, called Respect in Security, was launched on Tuesday by two cybersecurity experts. According to the founders, several companies have already signed up,” Reclaim The Net reported. “For a lot of people, it’s a no man’s land,” founder Lisa Forte and Red Goat Cyber Security employee told the BBC. “It can feel like the platforms do nothing, the police don’t do a lot, lawyers are expensive and the publicity legal action generates can be negative.” The BBC reported that co-founder and Trend Micro Vice President Rik Ferguson said “many companies had anti-bullying policies but they tended to focus on internal behaviour.” In what may be a reference to his Respect in Security program, he wrote a few weeks ago: “Inside my ‘Projects’ email folder resides a subfolder called ‘Kill Trolls’ and it is now only a couple of weeks away from becoming a real thing (sadly not with that name).”
Free speech advocates concerned about Ferguson and Forte’s work may have good reason to be. Forte explained her clear fix for people saying offensive statements via the internet: “The best solution we have, if the culprit is identifiable, is to approach their employer.”
The official Respect in Security website included a Corporate Pledge listing a series of principles such as:
- “We will work to eliminate harassment, to include all employees, partners, customers, and interactions. Any form of harassment, even when not unlawful or directed at a protected category, will not be tolerated.
- “We will not tolerate, condone, or ignore any form of harassment no matter where it occurs, or the personnel involved.
- “We will ensure that staff members are not asked to operate in unsafe organisational or social environments.”
Ferguson’s politics are openly left wing. He tweeted in early July that “I left the UK because of #Brexit. He has also compared former President Donald Trump and Republicans to fascists, and said that terms like “Blacklist” or “Black Market” imply our culture is racist.
Trusting somebody like that to judge what is or isn’t offensive behavior may be a bad call.
Curiously for someone so against harassment, he posted an image of what appears to be a private residence, saying: “FBI Dir. James Comey's house today sports a Trump sign.”
What makes Respect in Security different is that it is concerned with behavior of employees between companies. In a hyperbolic age of Cancel Culture, such measures could lead to employees complaining about their co-workers for voicing or having the wrong opinions.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representative and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
