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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

An issue was that the right was being canceled for views not even 5 years ago and the same people complaining about Kimmel are having their exact quotes replayed justifying those types of cancellations.

From a game theoretic standpoint, tit for tat is exactly what’s supposed to happen to stabilize the situation. This has actually been proven by mathematicians that apply decision making theories to social structures.

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You're conflating cancel culture, done voluntarily by private companies, with censorship, with the federal government through the FCC is dictating the outcomes of mergers and acquisitions based on compliance with speech restrictions.

This isn't entirely true, as cancel culture was also prominent at public universities.

The Biden administration had (and used) the ability to demote conservative news outlets on Facebook and Twitter. This cancel culture— both from the right and left— sucks and should be fought.

> The Biden administration had (and used) the ability to demote conservative news outlets on Facebook and Twitter.

This is categorically false. Are you referring to this story, where the Biden administration asked Facebook to take down Covid misinformation and "expressed a lot of frustration" when Zuckerberg told them no?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-wh...

If not, then where did you learn that the Biden administration "had (and used) the ability to demote conservative news outlets on Facebook and Twitter"?

plenty of evidence if you look

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/weaponizatio...

Private companies were being pressured by government officials. That was already proven a few years ago.

Also, Kimmel is a case of a private company canceling him the FCC didn’t force anything.

They don’t need to force anything, just make vague threats.

See if you can spot the difference. And i am not defending past cancellations, but there is a not so subtle difference in kind here that makes these kind of both sides arguments fall flat.

This never occurred and you're completely full of it. No democratic government official ever pressured anyone to be cancelled.

The right was cancelled by the US government?

Yes, much of the anger is coming from the petard-hoisting nature of this, and people who spent 2017-2024 trying to silence (or worse) everyone who disagreed with them and cheering on governments that tried to suppress "disinformation" and other speech they didn't like, having to come up with elaborate justifications why It's Different This Time.

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