[ry_co]

It is a political opinion itself to think those actions are controversial. At scale, anything is political. The only solution is to keep politics out of business, and manifest our political opinions through government. Business, like economics or biology, is dismal. The most efficient and productive continue on.

Government's role is to make the ideologically agnostic machine of business align with our values. In the kind of competitive economy we have, it can only be this way. If we try to apply politics from within a business, we risk introducing instabilities and ineffeciencies, making the business less competitive–an existential threat to the values we incorporated into the business.

[dragonwriter]

> It is a political opinion itself to think those actions are controversial.

No, the existence of controversy over an issue is a question of empirical fact, not political opinion.

The ascription of significance to the existence of controversy may be a political opinion (and is certainly a value-based opinion), but not the question of whether controversy exists.

[ballenf]

If it's an empirical fact, how much objection from how many (and which) people is enough to cross the line into controversial? You can always find at least one upset person about any significant decision of any company, thus it's inherently political when you decide which group of people or how big a group you have to have to merit the "controversial" badge.

Those complaining of being deplatformed would probably agree strongly with your definition, however, so I will admit the definition of this word is itself controversial. Or maybe I shouldn't, because the prior sentence feels very political to me.

[dragonwriter]

> If it's an empirical fact, how much objection from how many (and which) people is enough to cross the line into controversial?

Any. Controversial is a continuous-valued, not binary, attribute.

How controversial is enough to justify a particular reaction? That's a political judgement, and in practice has as much to do with where you stand on the controversy as how much controversy there is.