alt Hacker NewsTheir so-called "protest" was just distributing an article already published in the journal of the medical association to which this conference is attached, which probably discussed matters of interest for the attendance, like the future of research financing in this domain.
I can hardly think of a more peaceful form of protest, which only intended to make aware the participants about the content of the article. Those who were not interested presumably refused to take the article copy or did not read it.
Even on HN you can still see claims that USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences. This example shows clearly that this claim is false.
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> Even on HN you can still see claims that USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences.
The first amendment applies to public spaces. Not private conferences which are invite-only. You're on an anti-U.S. tear in this discussion but lack understanding of the basics.
For the same reason I can't show up at your office and start handing out religious materials and/or pornography (take your pick) to everyone showing up for work and claim it's a free speech issue and my right to do so.
As someone else pointed out below, this exact argument was used to ban apps lacking "correct" moderation from the app stores a few years ago.
I'm no doctor, but I suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes. Rather than exploring whether the USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences.