this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
96 points (97.1% liked)

News

24642 readers
4435 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

all 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Could always sub with a spork.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

From the outside it's funny to see how fast America is becoming like China. But I feel for you guys, and in the long run nothing is funny about it, only in the short.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

China for all its faults has a functional government, growing economy and rule of law is strictly enforced. Would we be so lucky to become like China. The US is spiraling towards becoming like post soviet Russia.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 hours ago

@sudo @jeena Rule of law is VERY selectively enforced in China, yes, as is becoming more prevalent in the US...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Would we be so lucky to become like China.

😬

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 6 hours ago

So it's not so much a fork in the road as it is a chopstick.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Emojis are characters... They can still be pasted in to text fields...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 hours ago

When you take away the spoons, the only choice left is between ~~pitch~~forks and knives. Metaphorically. In Minecraft.

[–] chonglibloodsport 6 points 7 hours ago

There is no spoon.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Oh splendid, the spoon gestapo’s here—scrubbing dissent one forking emoji at a time. Musk-Trump synergy in full clown mode: delete the 🥄, bury the evidence, pretend the resistance never happened.

Imagine feeling threatened by a utensil. These chuckleheads nuked spoons faster than a toddler bans broccoli. ”Fork in the Road”? More like ”Fork You”—but labor’s serving petty defiance with a side of Slack rebellion.

Keep licking that boot, boys. When your dystopian flowchart includes emoji purges, maybe the problem isn’t the spoons—it’s the rotted system they’re scooping out. My status? Still a shovel.

[–] feedum_sneedson 3 points 6 hours ago
[–] MolecularCactus1324 10 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

Seems like a violation of their first amendment rights. The government is not a private company.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

If no one is willing or able to defend constitutional rights, they don't really exist any more. I hope there are legal cases being prepared at least, to challenge all this new censorship.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours 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.

[–] ChadMcTruth 19 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

~~dicks~~ spoons out for ~~harambe~~ free speech 🥄🥄🥄

[–] Zachariah 9 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

It's just cold out right now...

Shut up.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 hours ago
[–] SpaceNoodle 9 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Time for the knife emojus, I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

The ides of March is coming up. Just saying.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

Salad Fingers has entered the chat.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

That'll work for sure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago
[–] iamericandre 1 points 8 hours ago