Updated: “Racism is unacceptable” – Trek-Segafredo reacts to rider’s pro-Trump tweet

I specifically mentioned supporting the Republican party in the presidential election.

If you're banned from supporting Trump you're also banned from supporting the Republican party in the presidential election.

I've no problem with companies requiring certain behaviours from their staff but that absolutely cannot include a ban on expressing support for legal political parties when not at work.

Rich_cb wrote:

I specifically mentioned supporting the Republican party in the presidential election.

If you're banned from supporting Trump you're also banned from supporting the Republican party in the presidential election.

I've no problem with companies requiring certain behaviours from their staff but that absolutely cannot include a ban on expressing support for legal political parties when not at work.

To be considered not at work, it's probably best to change your clothes at least.

I'm not entirely sure that I'd classify Trump as being part of anything legal.

I really don't think this is as political as you're trying to make out. If he'd made a particularly sexist comment with no reference to any political figures, then I bet it would have had a similar outcome.

Or if he had tweeted "Bye" without the emoji. 

I also wonder if the fact the tweet is still up is the reason now for the longer suspension updated by Trek after the initial announcement. 

Trump clearly is part of a legal political party.

If you don't think this is political then ask yourself this: If the same emoji had been used by the same person in a dispute about sports or movies would the reaction have been the same?

If not then the issue is clearly political.

You do realise that there was a backlash against Adele for wearing Bantu knots in here hair. Was that about hair or about race?

Whilst the discussion was political to start with "if you support Trump, please don't follow me", the fact it was after another LARGE racist dogwhistle from Trump AND the message from Quinn does follow with a brown hand, it definitely becomes more about race. 

José Been is white, Quinn is white. All of Quinns previous emojis going back several weeks have all been default yellow with the hand gesture ones being white/pink. As I mentioned, I had already looked about using other skin colours in emojis even before you had mentioned it and whilst there is a general discussion that certains ones can trigger at the wrong time, the gneral majority consensus is you use your own unless you have a context you want to represent. The iphone doesn't have multiple 'waves' in different colours that you can accidently select. You have to conciously choose it and use it for it to become default. Why did he conciously choose it now when every other hand gesture colour he has used in the past has been representative of his skin tone. Did he have it selected once before for some private context? Did he search Google to ensure he was choosing one that wouldn't cause offence?Or did he see her first name and being American decide she was Mexican / Hispanic and wave her goodbye in whatever skin colour he thought she was. 

It is rather telling that Been has apologised for all the trouble she has caused and since deleted/ privatised her twitter. Yet Quinn, who must have been spoken to by his team has left his unedited tweet up with no explanation and has been suspended by his team indefinitely. I wonder what he said to them for their followup to be that message and action. For one he has obviously told them he is not deleting/editing the tweet even though it has racist overtones. 

The Adele row was about cultural appropriation.

It is now often considered unacceptable to wear your hair in a style that is usually associated with a different ethnic group.

In essence the Adele argument was about both hair and race.

I believe cultural appropriation is also the argument against using emojis that do not match your own skin tone as closely as possible.

We do not know why Quinn chose that particular emoji.

Are there perfectly innocent reasons for choosing it? Yes.

Are there potentially unpleasant reasons for using it? Yes.

The amount of speculation surrounding the skin tone of an emoji is a bit surreal.

I honestly think that the real reason he has attracted so much vitriol is his support of Trump.

The emoji related rancour is just a red herring.

Yes, I also think he would have got a bad reaction for being a Trumper. Why not? If someone acts and speaks like a facist and a racist, do you not treat them as such. So when people also support that person especially after the comments the previous evening (not his first like that when given an opportnity)

However the reaction doubled because of the brown hand appearing literally as the question of Donald and Racism hits. At best Quinn is being naive in not linking that emoji to being wrong at this point and allowing the accusations of racist support to be doubled. (Suprised you think it is surreal....). At worst he meant it. (And on some of the Twitter replies, it is not the first time he has got into a potential racial spat having ago at Cory Williams claim that his skin colour held him back. )

And as mentioned, I suspect Trek spoke to him, advised him to delete the tweet and make a statement and he has refused. Now he might be wanting to not make a statement about not supporting Trump, or what we do not currently know. I believe that is why the Trek statement has been made and made so late in the day and why instead of a slap on the wrist is it pretty much a team ban similar to what Mosconi got (And if anyone should definitely lose their place on a team it is him).

However 30 hours after most people have said, the black/ brown hand gives it the wrong connotations and he hasn't bothered correcting it in some way either by releasing his own statement or editing the tweet to remove or change the emoji(assuming the latter is doable). That in itself is a worrying statement in my eyes. Especially as all evidence points to him deliberately choosing it. 

The plus point is he has lots more followers since this has broken in the Alt-Right papers in America. (Strangely no mention of the brown hand emoji in those stories) and as a quick check of several of the bios and posts, their views seem to equal is own in more ways then one. 
 

Rich_cb wrote:

Trump clearly is part of a legal political party.

If you don't think this is political then ask yourself this: If the same emoji had been used by the same person in a dispute about sports or movies would the reaction have been the same?

If not then the issue is clearly political.

Yes, I think it would have been. If someone made a similar response with a brown hand (when they don't usually do that) in response to e.g. Hollywood white-washing of characters, then I'd expect the marketing/P.R department to haul them in and make the point that they don't want the brand associated with racism.

To be honest, I don't really see Trump as being 'part of' the Republicans - he's just aligned with them for convenience and obviously there's overlap with his 'policies' and theirs. He's not really the kind of person to have any loyalty to anyone other than himself.

I agree that Trump and the Republicans are slightly strange bed fellows but he is proving useful to them and they are proving useful to him so they are, for the time being, one and the same.

We don't know why Quinn chose that particular emoji, it may have been provocation, it may have been a mistake but I honestly think the level of vitriol he has received is based on his support for Trump rather than his use of emojis.

I'll wait and see what more comes of this, hopefully I'm wrong.

You've ignored this point when hawkinspeter made it because it blows your argument apart, so let me make it again and with gusto.

Expressing support for Trump is not the same as expressing support for the Republican party. You can support Trump while holding the view that the Republicans are unpalatable and are just a convenient political vehicle for Trump to use, or you can support the Republican party because of their policies while personally viewing Donald Trump as an inconvenience. The US system is two-party garbage, so no reasonable observer will conflate support for a party with support for its candidate, and if they do, the refutation is trivial.

Furthermore, his account is verified *spits* on Twitter, and is thus notable. It's notable within the context of his work. Anything he uses that account for is within the interest of his sponsors and any affiliated companies.

Note again that no one is banned from supporting Trump; your attempt at spin is admirable, but sadly not good enough. Such a ban would have to come from some kind of authority to your point to be valid, and that would range from thoughtcrime to illegal democratic interference, the kind that the Republican party particularly enjoys when suppressing voters, by the way. The problem was with expressing support in a way that was suggestive of racism, in particular doing so using his public, verified platform - and the "liberty" that some on the right value so much includes the freedom for companies to disassociate from or disavow individuals when they see fit.

Thanks Luca for putting this so well.

Quinn Simmons could get himself another Twitter account for his personal opinions, or the team could create official accounts for work-related posts. Or Mr Simmons could have written, respectfully, that owing to José Been's stance, he has chosen to unfollow.

Like many other people, I am contractually prohibited from mentioning my employer on social media in case it appears that my view is actually theirs. Seems fair to me.

I have no problem with people supporting Trump, though I loathe him myself and consider his deeds and views remeniscent of 1930s Italy. You can vote for fascism or anything else if you want; I would like to persuade you not to but may fail. But I do have a problem with the use of racist communication in the expression of that support.

And yes, I never did vote for J Corbyn's Labour due in part to his failure to deal with the anti Semitic cancer in his party. Sins of omission can be as damaging as sins of commission, after all.

You've ignored my comprehensive rebuttal.

It's impossible in the *Presidential* election to vote for Trump and not for the Republican party. And vice versa.

By forbidding Trump supporters from publicly staying they will vote for him you are, by default, also forbidding Republicans from declaring that they will support the Republican candidate.

The two are one and the same.

There may be Trump supporters who never vote Republican in other circumstances and there may be Republicans who will not vote for Trump but every vote cast for the Republicans in the *presidential* election will be a vote for Trump and vice versa.

You seem to be basing your accusation of racism on your own subjective interpretation of the meaning of an emoji hand?

That seems slightly absurd.

People are allowed to think for themselves. If they reach reprehensible conclusions, there will be consequences for that. Personally, I think a bit of controversy is no less than this guy deserves.

I missed the fracas, only what's up here. In what way was Been incredibly nasty?

Oh FFS not another someone talking about free speech and clearly not knowing what it means.

Asking people to unfollow you is not an attack on free speech just as someone beng banned on a platform isn't an attack on free speech.

Some examples of attacks on free speech include unlawful imprisonment, extraordinary rendition, car bombing, murder and dismemberment, all of which we've seen over the past few years to both journalists and citizens.

People who think being asked to unfollow someone is akin to your voiced being silenced by death or imprisonment really need to re-evaluate their life.

If the government banned you from using the telephone, the internet and the postal service would your freedom of speech have been curtailed?

It would, yes. Being banned from a privately-owned platform such as Facebook or Twitter wouldn't though. Being asked to voluntarily unfollow one user on one platform would be even less. 
 

Simmons has done nothing wrong here though: he's entitled to support whoever he wants and to express that within the law without his employer getting on his back. In any case, it should hardly be newsworthy that a 19-year-old sportsman mightn't have the strongest grip on political issues. 

So if the privately owned telephone network or the privately owned postal service or the privately owned internet provider decided they didn't like your opinion you'd be fine with them cutting you off?

You seem to be deliberately ignoring quite how important those platforms are. Facebook is literally the world's largest communication platform. Being banned from there limits a person's ability to communicate with others significantly.

It is directly akin to being cut off from the postal service or the telephone service.

I agree that asking people to unfollow you doesn't limit someone's freedom of speech. It is a bit of pointless grandstanding though.

I don't think he is being cut off. A particular journo blanket asked for supporters of trump to unfollow. He responded on the same platform that he would.

I was responding to @Billymansell's comment about people being banned generally.

Well if people looked at ToS everytime they signed up for something, you will probably find lots of things that show you what you will and won't get banned for. 

You point me to someone who has been banned from Facebook or Twitter and did not violate those ToS in some way and then we can talk. Most stories I see of it is usually racist, sexist, mysoginistic, harmful conspiracy theories (especially with Covid), or literal calls to harm people. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/got-locked-twitter-having-wrong-o...

There you go.

Well I haven't got a telgraph subscription to read that and as of 25 mins ago she is still twittering.

Basic summary: Suspended from Twitter for sending a tweet in favour of the herd immunity approach.

How does that fit with your previous proclamation?

And she is not suspended anymore, less then a day later. For clarification I said BANNED from the platform examples. 

With millions and millions of tweets and facebook posts and Youtube videos happening daily, monitoring and remedial suspensions are all initially automated. Certain phrases etc probably set it off. On review she was reinstated. I've seen covid conspiracy debunking videos have the same thing happen. 

Personally I still find the views she espouses on it distasteful and totally without any real thought then I want to stay rich if possible and if people die, oh well. It is couched in caring for people and their careers but at the cost of people deemed not worthy to be around because they are old and / or sick. 
 

Weapons grade whataboutery going on here

"It is directly akin to being cut off from the postal service or the telephone service."

Don't be daft. Its just not, it's just a platform for polishing a social CV and republishing other peoples unconsidered views.
Coming off Facebook was one of the best decisions I ever made. Try it - you'll be much happier.

Does Facebook allow you to send written messages to people all over the world?

Does Facebook allow you to call people all over the world?

It is the cheapest and most effective communication platform that most people have access to.

Removing access to it is therefore very similar to removing access to the postal service or telephone service.

I'm not on Facebook btw.