> Many of those circles involve activism that extends beyond the US

Most of these circles involve online circle-jerking, often intermixed with US and less commonly European politics. They tend to be slightly more informed than the lower-than-average layperson but not by much. An actual activist on the subject of slavery (such as AHappyCamper) should be much more informed on the subject than the average "social justice" activist.

> I don't think GP said what you claim they said.

"When you have such a significant power over someone's higher education and therefore their life earnings, I don't think it's unfair to scrutinise these people's views further than had they little structural power." is what they said as a reply to people petitioning for someone to be fired from their job for something that they said on twitter. Admittedly I might have misinterpreted what they meant but I do not think I did. If they want they can correct me.

> Stallman wasn't about speech

It certainly was about speech. Most people that were outraged made sure to mention about how bad of a person he was for what he posted in the email or what he said in his personal blog.

> and at worst someone who repeatedly abused his position to harass women

There were some (mostly ableist) hearsay claims that were getting repeated by some people (such as the door label thing [which someone else put up by the way https://medium.com/@whoisylvia/richard-stallman-has-been-vil...] or one where they though that he was ESR [https://daringfireball.net/2019/10/correction_regarding_an_e...) but they were disputed by subsequent publications.

> Are you going to argue that sexual harassment should be protected by the principle of speech?

No, unless if you are going to redefine sexual harassment to include statement like "would you like to have dinner together?" or "this is a nice shirt".

> I don't think those things should be protected acts

And I will have to disagree. All victimless crimes -including this one- should not be crimes at all.

> which I don't

Why is that?

> It's like trying to defend Snowden on free speech grounds

Which would be an absolutely valid defence. Whistleblowing is an instance of exercising one's freedom of speech.

> Assange doesn't have the defenses Snowden did (whistleblowing).

While he did not do the leaking to the public himself he did do the publishing, which is yet another instance of exercising one's freedom of speech.

> As for Damore, as someone who spoke with Damore on his "document", I can say that from my personal interactions, HN gives him way too much credit. I formed my opinions on his document from my interactions with it and with him, prior to any media attention

I have not spoken with him and I do not really care what his character or personal opinions are like nor do I think that this kind of personal attack against him is relevant to the topic.

> and the martyrdom he is given is undeserved

They explicitly asked for feedback. In addition if I remember correctly google said that they want a diversity of opinion (or did they say that they would not fire people for dissenting opinions? I can't remember sadly, I will try to find it) - I would say that he deserves at least a martyrdom status just for this.

> not for "reading the letter from a birmingham jail"

More like for "not reading a censored version of the letter rather than the original" - which is a more specific version of "reading the letter from a birmingham jail" - so it is correct.

> for refusing to self censor after multiple students requested that he do so

Yes, and they were calling for him to be fired for that. If this is not an attack on the freedom of speech then I do not know what is.

> and he can't be fired anyway

This is irrelevant (and he can certainly be fired)