The traditional understanding of civil liberties has been that citizens have individual rights that cannot be violated by the government. This approach has no doubt protected the inhabitants of the United States and other Western countries from some of the worst abuses of power. Citizens cannot be jailed for their religious or political views or punished for a crime on a mere accusation with no trial. However, as society has evolved, we have reached an age in which individual liberty is most threatened not by the government but by large corporations. There are those who will likely disagree with this premise, arguing that economic activity by private entities cannot infringe on civil liberties because individuals still have the right to choose to do business with other entities whose views are more aligned with their own. However, in the age of mass media and social media, this often does not play out in practice. Those who wish to see change face a variant of the prisoner’s dilemma. If a large group chooses to boycott companies who …

Last year it was Google.  This year it is Facebook where industry norms of celebrating all forms of diversity—except that of thought—are being challenged. Brian Amerige, a senior software engineer at the company, has authored a document entitled “We Have a Problem with Political Diversity” in which he presents his concerns: We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views.  We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack—often in mobs—anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.  We throw labels that end in *obe and *ist at each other, attacking each other’s character rather than their ideas. We do this so consistently that employees are afraid to say anything when they disagree with what’s around them politically.  HR has told me that this is not a rare concern, and I’ve personally gotten over a hundred messages to that effect.  Your colleagues are afraid because they know that they—and not their ideas—will be attacked.  They know all the talk of “openness to different perspectives” does not …

Another still small voice has joined the chorus of those calling for us to reconsider our approach to the gender gap in technology. Writing in Quillette, University of Washington computer science lecturer Stuart Reges discussed in depth why there is reason to believe that the tendency of more men than women to pursue careers in the field may arise primarily from innate factors rather than bias or discrimination.1  Predictably, many have called for him to lose his job as punishment for speaking this heresy.2  However, one response that stood out from the others was written under the intriguing and provocative title “Women in tech: we’re training men to resent us” by Microsoft software engineer Kasey Champion.3  In it, she describes how learning that the article had been written by Mr. Reges, who had been her teacher and mentor when she was a student at the University of Washington, challenged her to rethink her view of men who think differently on these issues.  She goes on to discuss his arguments in detail, explaining what she believes …