Comment by 3grdlurker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 3grdlurker | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

We talk about cancel culture like it’s a new horrible thing that’s developed only recently but I don’t see it that way. The internet definitely amplifies the effects, but unkindness begets unkindness, and the consequences or the social cost of one’s unkindness will always catch up to an individual at some point.

That said, I draw a line at defamation. When someone is accusing someone online of having committed a crime, I think that the proper reaction would be to stay quiet and let it play out in a court, if it ever gets there. I also don’t think that companies should be allowed to fire employees based on accusations that have not yet been proven to be true, though, of course, it is justifiable once they are proven.

Like so many things, this is something that has existed forever but now it has a new fashionable name and people treat it like it was just invented.

Before the Web 2.0 internet made people’s real names so public, it was in fact quite difficult for things many people did to affect their employment. Your employer simply wouldn’t have been aware of how you were acting somewhere else outside their direct purview. Now, however, if an opponent knows that you are employed at X, they can bring pressure on X to fire you in an extremely public way, such that your employer will buckle to the social pressure lest it affect their bottom line. That simply would not have happened so often prior to about 2007 at least.

Maybe I'm just old, but I think using your real identity online always was, and always is, idiotic.

It's a continuation of earlier enforcement of social norms, but what's new is that it's so much more accessible and effective now.

If you read the article, even before anything gets to court, their life/career is destroyed because of this mob.

Proving/disproving isn’t even on the table. This is an irrational mob gaining moral superiority over others.

"Irrational mob" also known as "social media".

We've just scaled up and weaponised people's bad behavior and worst instincts. People have always been this way but now they have a tool to find other like minded people and act in unison.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com