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Comment by nelsonenzo | Hacker News Reader

He's dead right about free speech, but not about cancel culture.

Cancel culture is not a "medieval mob" - because there is no physical enforcement. It's simply a further expression of free speech. No one has to obey it.

If you are ok with with giving your $100 to someone like C.K. after it's been revealed that he pulls his penis out in front of random females, you totally can. I would prefer to make a less funny comedian wealthy whom doesn't whip their penis out at random.

I have the freedom to not participate in making certain individuals or companies wealthy, and I have the right to call for their "cancellation". That's MY free speech at work. If you want to un-cancel them, well, that's YOUR free speech at work.

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> Cancel culture is not a "medieval mob" - because there is no physical enforcement

The specific tactics of cancel culture are a DDoS. Oftentimes, when an individual is targeted by the mob, their employer doesn't particularly care about the views, beliefs, or words of the target outside the workplace. Sometimes, sure, but usually, if it doesn't impact the business, it would usually not result in career-ending consequences.

What currently happens, however, is thousands of angry mob members effectively DDoSing the employer's phone system, customer service and HR representatives, inboxes, etc. Regardless of how little the employer cares about their employee's outside-work views or activities, they end up with no choice but to pay the ransom to make the problem go away. And the ransom is the economic devastation of the target.

It is a DDoS, and conducting one ought to carry approximately the same legal consequences as renting a botnet and extorting a ransom.

Louis CK is a weak example mate. You whip your dick out, that's assault brotha.

Wealthy companies aren't great either. They're doing the cancelling.

Who needs physical enforcement when you can get people fired or threaten their livelihood?

Take a look at Mark Crispin Miller. This chap is feeling the mob heat right now.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-mark-crispin...

Physical enforcement is the only thing the first amendment and similar laws outside the Us protects you from. There can be no freedom from other people not wanting to associate with you because they don’t like your views, without forcing people to associate with someone they find abhorrent by force.

An anti-mask college professor at a liberal university. That's not a mob cancel culture, that's just a bad professor losing his job after a long record of student complaints.

I see hacker news is canceling my opinion ion with downvotes while depriving me of the same power. Ironic.

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