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Comment by caddemon | Hacker News Reader

Yeah the thing that concerns me most about "cancel culture" (of what I see) is people openly pushing back on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. It seems to be common to argue that there is nothing wrong with the court of public opinion putting the burden of proof on the accused. Usually this is combined with some comment about how horrible the accusation is versus how supposedly mild it is to be criticized across the internet.

It's human nature to spread rumors and make snap judgements, so I'm not sure how much this can be stopped. But it scares me to see people straight up trying to morally justify it.

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I mean, to me that sadly is nothing new. I've known my share of people who just assume by default that people they don't know are jerks, and are hostile toward them. I don't know what you would call it. Untrusting? I can't see where you would cross that line and all of a sudden start calling it "cancel culture" or "consequence culture" or whatever. Is it because it's happening online now?

The part that is new, or at least recently en vogue again, is how this behavior is seen as a positive. It is explicitly encouraged by current social dynamics. It is even encouraged to some extent in academic or "intellectual" circles.

Do you have any studies that actually quantify that? IMO large groups singling out and bullying individuals is not really a new thing, that has been happening for a long time.

Bullying individuals is not new. Arguing that bedrock principles of legal justice like innocent until proven guilty are quaint and antiquated in the face of the 'horrors' of the accusations (odd that they should apply to serial killers, but new modern thought-crimes are so much worse that they should not) is relatively new, especially as a mainstream position in intellectual, academic, and political circles.

That has not been my experience, do you have any studies that quantify that? From my perspective, the entire concept of legal rights and due process is what is actually the new thing, considering the total span of history anyway. These were not things that anybody had 1000 years ago, and even now some political entities still don't really have it or consider it valid (unfortunately).

As far as institutional memory is concerned, new is anything that hasn't been seen in a couple generations' lifetimes, certainly not 1000s of years. This is also why I included "recently en vogue" in my prior comment, I'm not claiming that this thought process has literally never been seen before. Just that some cultural phenomena display a back and forth pattern, with a timescale such that it will feel entirely new to the current population when it's out in full force. Further, the negative impacts of the extreme adoption are precisely what will push the pendulum back eventually.

Also I will clarify I am speaking from a US-centric perspective. Are you not in the US?

I have seen multiple academic circles seriously come to the consensus that innocent until proven guilty is not good as a general principle. This sort of thing IME occurs on mailing lists or in department meetings, and it has also ramped up considerably in just the last few years. I've never looked for literature on the topic, perhaps the institutions I am affiliated with just suck. But given the many others reporting similar sentiments I suspect there will be some literature on it as a broader phenomenon, at least in the US, down the road.

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