For those of you not on the other platforms where scientists hang out, biologist Michael Eisen was just removed from the chief editor position of the prestigious journal @eLife, allegedly for retweeting an Onion piece sympathetic to Palestinians.
I signed the petition calling this out. Not because I agree with Eisen's insensitive & stupid tweet, or leftist persecution paranoia. For me, this is really not about free speech or the Palestinian cause in particular. It's about an editor of a scientific journal making their employer look bad in public.
Still, to fire someone for one silly tweet, that's a staggering level of intolerance and thin-skinnedness.
@yoginho @alexwild @eLife Maybe if he wrote it in the journal itself, you'd have a point. But having personal opinions on a personal social media account generally does not cause one's employer to look bad.
If anything, they're discovering now that the Streisand effect makes them look much, much worse.
