It seems it's better to stay away entirely from certain sensitive topics. No matter your intentions, no matter what you actually think, it just takes a bit of misunderstanding or bad faith and the whole thing explode.
And when the chilling effect is strong enough, it atomizes and isolates individuals, makes them feel powerless, and creates a false sense of consensus around a particular issue.
Domination and coercion over genuine persuasion -- that's the point.
[edit: btw I'm just making a general comment. I'm not saying anything in particular about RMS's or Noah Bradley's cancellation/re-emergence, and not just because of your advice. I haven't been following these events and don't know who said what or what actually happened. I don't want to be one of those uninformed voices in any direction.]
And it really bothers me because sometimes I see something really unfair, and it is hard to not say anything, but it is not real life and you only need a handful of anonymous people with enough time on their hands to make your life hell. Just because you're not anonymous.
I almost regret being my real me online. We always had trolls, but this is something else.
I almost deleted this comment before sending it. That's the level of self-censorship because what for? What's the point of sharing my opinion here? Is it worth it? Probably not!
That, and other aspects of reality may not interest the kind of people who would 'cancel' someone.
I agree that it's overboard on a lot of things, especially in the past couple years, but I think it's important to remember the "cancel culture" started as a way to hold certain people to account who were exhibiting socially unacceptable behavior, but were not being socially punished.
All societies have social norms, and all societies have informal (i.e. not through the legal system) means of enforcing those norms. There was a pretty significant gap in U.S. society's ability to enforce social norms against certain types of people, and social media filled that gap.
Now some people have taken that tool farther than can reasonably be justified, but the best way to fight back against that excess is not to say "cancel culture is oppression!" because it DID fill a need in our society, it DID punish people who deserved to be punished, and I don't think we can get the cat back in the bag. So, don't fight the tool, fight the people using it where it isn't justified.
(Who gets to decide when it's "justified" you ask? Well, we do. As a society. Together, online. We're going to have to figure it out. But if we go into a discussion about cancel culture assuming the other side is only interested in opression, repression, and censorship, it's not going to go well.)
I think people are way too impatient honestly. There will be things we will realize should be illegal, there will also be things we think we realized should be illegal but then turn out to be horribly wrong about. If people want next day enforcement there will be a lot of damage caused by these latter cases. I'd much rather a few assholes get off while we work out the proper way to enforce something (if at all).
The problem with allowing the people as a completely unmoderated mob to decide things is twofold - group dynamics make people utterly irrational, and there is little way to hold someone accountable if they falsely set off a mob. There would need to be some sort of anonymous voting function if we wanted to combat the former. For the latter, how about we introduce a formal mechanism for suing a Tweeter for slander?
The idea that unless something is criminally prosecuted there should be no repercussions is toxic.
Mobs on Twitter absolutely do decide things. Yes, a company or school or whatever has to be kowtowing to said mob for there to be "real life" consequences, but in a number of cases the mob has absolutely acted as the jury. This is something that OP was literally praising.
My main point was that cancel culture arose because of a real gap in our society's ability to handle certain types of people doing certain types of awful things... you mentioned that a lot of it could be handled by the legal system, but the reality was, it wasn't.
Weinstein wasn't charged until after he was cancelled. Same with Spacey. Lauer has never been charged. Epstein had been hit with some stuff, but basically let off with a slap on the wrist.R. Kelly had been acquitted before, and was basically unpunished.
All of these people's actions were (1) well-known in their communities ("open secrets"), (2) ongoing, and (3) not punished by any of the traditional institutions of society. Given that reality, and a global communications network where anyone can share their story, how could cancel culture not arise?
If I was praising anything, I was praising the fact that real abusers who operated with impunity for years were finally getting told to just stay home. Because other than Weinstein, that's basically all that happened.
Now, cancel culture being wielded against people like in TFA, that's way overboard, it's counterproductive, and people should stop it. But I think that's something we're going to have to solve as a society, through social discourse, not with government regulation.
If people could just grant everything else and get right down to this point, the discourse on this issue would be so much more useful and interesting. And much harder. Thank you for a thoughtful comment.
That you think social punishment is a thing that should happen, means you and I have irreconcilable world views / moral values.
There are quite a few topics where any appeal to logic is not condoned or appreciated. To the extent that mere mention is enough for the mob to turn. For example, any time a woman or child may have been mistreated. There are others of course, but too charged to list.
Steer clear of these subjects, especially if on the autism spectrum and can't read that the discussion has changed to emotion-only mode.
I don't think it's self-censorship so much as a thing humans do to maintain the fragile network of relationships that holds society together. There are all kinds of things we want to do but refrain from doing in order to be polite: is not picking your nose in public self-censorship?
When removed from consequences to our actions, we’re free to say pretty much anything we want.
If everyone actually cared about the impact our words had on others, we wouldn’t have to resort to the using the same response that caused the problem in the first place.
Because nowadays there are too many fake accounts, even paid trolls, and talking to them (or even listening to them) is just waste of time, not a meaningful conversation.
My twitter account is anonymous and I sometimes get replies like why would I want to talk to nobody. And they are right, they probably shouldn't.
Same is true for many communities where users gain popularity and trust if they participate in a meaningful way.
Yeah... but the world would be a better place if we didn't have to.
The social liberals are the 3rd political group who used it, i'd say at least as efficiently as the far right (first group that used internet to shift the Overton window) and more efficiently than the libertarian/fiscal liberals (second group).
But as social liberals are far more numerous than the far right, the impact is magnified. I find it hypocrite that members of the first two group trying to open the overton window are calling them out on this.
It’s not totally accurate: boycotts have been around much longer, and can serve broader purposes. I think it’s fair to say that evangelicals were the first to boycott companies based not on their systemic practices but on individual people’s lifestyles.
I remember in the 90s when Amy Grant, a contemporary Christian music icon, was shunned because she got a divorce. Fast forward to 200X when the Dixie Chicks were then canceled for criticizing GWB. We could also jump back to Bill Clinton’s impeachment…
https://religionnews.com/2020/06/17/evangelicals-perfected-c...