As an employer, do you want to have an employee that in a very public manner ( and these days it is oh so easy to be public ) trashes your business? Is that line crossed? I would argue, as usual, that it depends. If the employee's life is threatened by horrific business practices, then talking to the media is almost their civic duty. That said, I do not think they should be surprised they are fired after the fact though..
So where is the line for you?
Where "the line" is depends on the specific circumstances, but it's pretty clear to me that Amazon overdid it in this case. If they found these employees' statements embarrassing enough to fire them, then it sounds like they know they are doing something wrong.
We are in absolute agreement. Frankly, I have argued before that they are already too big.
"There's also a big difference between criticizing the company's products and criticizing their business practices."
I am not sure I agree with that statement. Would you feel the same if the employee publicly criticized a company for using non recycled paper AND they have to change course now and use recycled paper; afterwards the story "went viral" and employee got fired for that specific action. Is employee justified in doing that without any repercussions? It is genuinely hard for me to argue for the employee here.
"Where "the line" is depends on the specific circumstances, but it's pretty clear to me that Amazon overdid it in this case."
To you it may be clear, but clearly not to everyone since we are having this discussion. Whether the pendulum should swing ( it should ) is a worthwhile conversation to have.
"If they found these employees' statements embarrassing enough to fire them, then it sounds like they know they are doing something wrong."
I don't know if I buy this argument. HR does not like troublemakers seems like more plausible explanation.
I'm not saying you are necessarily doing the following, but raising the question "at what headcount" is sometimes done to suggest that this is absurd or unfair position. Why should a company with 119 employees be subject to different rules than a company with 120 employees? But this problem exists everywhere we have laws to regulate behavior. What really is the difference between 65 and 66 miles an hour? Is a hot dog really different if it has 86% organ meat vs 85%?
To answer the question, assuming we want to force 'large' companies to play by different rules specifically in the case of tolerating employee criticism, we shouldn't even use headcount as a metric. Some other measure of size should be used.