That gives them power, for example over non-union employees of the company.
Back in school (in Germany[0]) we had a case of a teacher, who among other things taught PE, and who was falsely accused of "inappropriately touching some girls". The girls in question told everybody (except the teachers of course) that they will be fabricating such a story as "revenge" for the PE teacher actually trying to make them take part in PE instead of just sitting around. As soon as the police got involved, they backed down and recanted, apologizing and basically claiming they considered it not "a big deal" and just a "prank", but by that time the damage was done.
The teacher in question had been suspended during the investigation and of course that was the talk of the school and everybody including their parents knew about it. After being cleared, parents would constantly ask to take their kids out of his PE class "just to be sure", so he ended up not teaching PE at all anymore shortly after. Afterwards we usually saw him eat alone, as the other teachers seemed to avoid him, and roam around alone in the halls during breaks instead of going to the teachers lounge like everybody else. He retired as early as he could.
Not directly related to "cancel culture", but to the mindset that goes with it, my mom told me later in life that back in elementary school, one couple took out their kid of my sisters' class before school even started, because their kid had been assigned a teacher who... was male. That was enough. There was no allegation, no rumors of inappropriate behavior, no nothing. The parents in question had never met him before either. He just was male.
[0] Germany has (had) very strong labor protections for teachers. All teachers, including the one I am writing about, used to be "officers of the state" (Beamte), and therefore in order to be fired they'd either have to commit treason, an act against the democratic order, or a crime resulting in a felony conviction of no less than 1 year in prison. These days, a lot of teachers do not automatically become "officers of the state" but are merely employed.
In my experience, no one's opinion changes because he gets punished by some faceless bureaucratic authority. He simply doubles down, because he believes that not only is his opinion correct, but that it has provoked a crackdown from the authorities.
Not every "wrong" needs to be punished or "held accountable." And "cancel culture" itself is sort of a faux accountability, anyway: an angry mob lobbies some bureaucratic authority to deprive an "offender" from his supporters, often on trumped up accusations and with meticulous organization. They could have instead brought up whatever the offense was forever, they could have debated the person, they could have boycotted, all of which at least give the supporters and the offender the chance to think about what happened.
A large part of cancel culture involved excluding the multitude of middle ground positions down to either legal sanction or a few degrees of unpersoning. There are so many more solutions, including maybe just tolerance of statements we find offensive.
And I'd like to see proof of GP's claim, but it's pretty plausible that there are people who would try to offer and seek such a service. Imagine the damage you could cause if you managed to cancel a competitor's CxO...
That doesn't mean that such deals actually happen, of course.
I could make a twitter account if that would up my chances?
Another phrase lefties love is, "I don't know how to convince you you're supposed to care about other people." Whenever I see some regular Joe fired from his forklift job because he isn't totally up-to-date with elite social norms around discussing race or gender -- or how about people literally calling CPS on "bean dad?" -- I just think, yeah, I don't know how to tell you that you shouldn't take pleasure in that outcome. Apparently people genuinely do get off on getting guys like that fired and, again, I don't know what to say that would make them just a little less bloodthirsty, because it's in fact very easy for me to empathize with that guy.
Lefties gives me the impression I know your opinion and political views well before the end of your thought. It weakens an argument that I actually agree with… even though I’m a lefty.
How often have you seen this?