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[Rolan7]

Well wait, deplatforming is when a platform drops someone.  That's separate from the "mob rule" of large groups of people criticizing a person or entity.

Mobs can coerce platforms to drop people. Businesses, universities, and media find it easier to just fire or ban people than deal with potential controversy.

Public figures are and should be answerable to the public.  Democracy is vulnerable to mob mentality/populism at times, but what is the alternative here?

I meant to ask before, but seriously:  What is the alternative?  Is there any alternative that isn't silencing dissent?

I've seen leftist creators "canceled" by "the left"...  By which I mean, they received a lot of backlash and lost supporters due to a position or sometimes a mistake.  But the ones I have in mind bounced back or stayed relevant.  Positions are tempered by criticism, and mistakes are forgiven.  Temporary overreactions are an acceptable price for open discourse.  "Cancel culture" IS open discourse, simply rebranded to be scary.

Free speech is not freedom from peer opinion.  I do not demand that anybody like me.  I accept that very many people hate me, and they have a right to that opinion.  Anyone openly LGBTQ lives with cancellation and discrimination.  Usually with no legal recourse, sometimes they could technically hire a lawyer against their employer.

Actors and actresses are responsible for their public image, because it reflects on their employers.  That's a job responsibility.  Disney is a gross megacorporation that pulls a lot of shady shit, but this woman used the fame of her position to signal-boost dangerous conspiracy theories and intentionally offend people.  So Disney didn't renew her contract, because it wasn't worth the significant threat this minor actress represented to their bottom line.

Should being an asshole on Twitter guarantee one's job security?  Outside the presidency, obviously
Rabid Twitter mobs may not accept apologies or change, but their memories are short and they don't represent the real world.  The actual left community, in my experience, consists of people who have made many mistakes and tolerate that in others.

[McTraveller]

Right - "cancel culture" to me isn't "open discourse with a negative name" - it is in fact negative because it just shuts people down.  Open discourse would be "Hey, that's an interesting viewpoint. Help me understand how you arrived at those conclusions.  What are your responses to the other viewpoints on the topic?  Hey everyone else, what are the good and bad parts of each view? Should we adopt that view, or drop it?"

That's completely different than what we get in the public today, which is accusatory language, trolling, snarky responses, and absolutism.

Even if you completely disagree with a viewpoint and think a person is an idiot and nobody should listen to them, we have to find a better way than to just deny a person the ability to speak.  Maybe give them the ability to post in moderated channels only, instead of just banning them outright?  Give them a way to somehow "reintegrate" or something.  I would rather take the high ground and say "Yes we know there are idiots on our platform.  Help them not be idiots!" - this is very different from "We will keep unsavory people off the platform."

[Lord Shonus]

There's legitimate concerns that the giant media corporations have too much power to control narrative - arguably we wouldn't be in this mess if certain political views weren't signal boosted on social media for profit. Meanwhile there's valid concerns that they misuse their power to not show you things they dislike is also having a deleterious effect. There's lots of ideas that corporations or advertisers don't like that are getting suppressed, the sort of wild attacks so common on social media are more likely to make somebody dig in to a weakly held position than they are to change anybody's mind, and sometimes shutting down a subject only strengthens it.
 


Facing direct consequence for extremely shitty statements is not one of those legitimate concerns. If people decide they don't want to buy your books anymore because you said something they find horrific, or if you lose your job because your statements are harming your employer's reputation, that's just the way the world works.

[Vector]

Even if you completely disagree with a viewpoint and think a person is an idiot and nobody should listen to them, we have to find a better way than to just deny a person the ability to speak.  Maybe give them the ability to post in moderated channels only, instead of just banning them outright?  Give them a way to somehow "reintegrate" or something.  I would rather take the high ground and say "Yes we know there are idiots on our platform.  Help them not be idiots!" - this is very different from "We will keep unsavory people off the platform."

I kind of feel bad about this, but I think cancel culture is an outgrowth of carceral culture, and attacking one but not the other seems troubling.

[McTraveller]

I've an unsubstantiated theory that the power of controlling the narrative actually influences that "direct consequence for extremely shitty statements" though - so you can't separate them out.

Preview update:  what is "carceral" culture?

[Vector]

The idea that the correct response to things going bad is locking somebody up and making them work at no pay.

[TamerVirus]

Preview update:  what is "carceral" culture?

Australia? 

[Frumple]

I can definitely see the whole cancel thing (I hesitate to call it culture, exactly, because its overall impact and extent has largely been pretty damn anemic from everything I've seen) being an extension of issues with the US (in)justice system, sure. It largely exists specifically due to failures of the latter to deal with certain sorts of bad behavior, after all...

[Starver]

Preview update:  what is "carceral" culture?

Australia? 

<Insert standard quip about the difference between Australia and yoghurt, here...>

 

[Zangi]

'Cancel Culture' a time honored tradition of society given a new modern name, is only bad when it happens to things you agree with.

People and companies have a right to not be associated with things they disagree with or porn.  Is the free market at play.

[delphonso]

Zangi, I don't think you get it. It's infringing on my free speech if I suffer repercussions for spouting hate.

[/sarcasm]

[wierd]

I have some rather specific views on this subject:

People are entitled to have an opinion, AND to share it-- they are NOT however, entitled for there to be no consequences for sharing opinions that others do not like, as others are entitled to THEIR opinions, AND the right to share them.

In terms of "you cant talk about that here" -ism, I consider it in the same vein as "You can't talk about evolution here, this is a CHRISTIAN FORUM!".  Same basic kidney, just a different paint job.

What I have no qualms about, is shutting down speech that incites violence; You really cannot justify incitement for things like forming lynch mobs, illegal posses, and things of that nature.  Grandpa wanting to talk about how "Teh Gayz are RuiNingEvEryTHANG!", as long as it is just "Old man yells at cloud", should not be a problem.  The counter for that is for "Teh Gayz" to be allowed to talk about old geezers that just cannot get over themselves, and to tell the old man to shut up.

When the conversation turns to "We needz ta beat dem damn gayz!", or similar incitement, THEN the hammer comes down from on high.

[Maximum Spin]

It's fascinating to me how people can talk past each other like this.

To a first approximation, people who complain about "cancel culture" are not complaining about people or companies choosing who they are and aren't willing to befriend or employ. They are complaining about the culture of fear that makes everyone with a social reputation to protect, which is everyone, decide that they aren't willing to befriend or employ people they would be perfectly happy befriending or employing in a world where doing so did not cause massive angry mobs to threaten them with being placed on the same social blacklist if they do, and about the vicious mob mentality among the class of rich first-worlders who own everything which sustains that culture.

[RoseHeart]

Just a form of bullying really.

[da_nang]

Cancel culture is Alice's fighting Bob by demanding Charlie stops doing business with Bob.

In its most extreme form, Alice can kill Bob with it by demanding Charlie stops selling or providing essential goods and services to Bob such as food, water, or healthcare, or the employment needed to get the money to purchase the goods and services.

So the unrealistic worst-case scenario of this quasi-banishment is extrajudicial murder. A more realistic worst-case scenario is the creation of parallel societies where the Alices and Bobs live their lives and run their economies separately from one another since they cannot coexist.

Even then, one of the parallel societies is likely to suffer more since modern society has come to depend on privately-owned infrastructure that are difficult to replace or compete against. Even a simple Internet forum depends on a large list of privately-owned infrastructure, ranging from telecom infrastructure to financial institutes, and still must fight against the network effect in order to be successful or solvent.

Another reason one of the parallel societies is likely to suffer more is because natural resources do not care for where the borders of each society go. Thus it's quite possible for a parallel society to be left without access to a natural resource that is essential for a modern society.

Is this really the path we want society to go? Is it really reasonable for Charlie to stop doing business with Bob because Alice demands it?

It's not like Charlie really cares about what Bob is doing. Plenty of Charlies do immoral shit in Timmy's backyard such as child labor, sweatshops, polluting the environment, or doing business with Timmy while Timmy commits genocide, yet Bob's saying stupid shit is where they supposedly draw the line?

We took away the power of monarchs and government to banish people for a reason. So why stop there? Why not take away society's power to quasi-banish people as well?

Not wishing to hang out with undesirable people, refusing to buy goods or services from them, refusing to use their services, or refusing to work for them, is one thing.

Denying them goods, services, or employment, is another thing entirely.^[1]


[1] For those bringing up the gay wedding cake: if it's not a standard product they're selling, then I see it as a commission. In other words, they're not denying you goods or service. You're the employer and they're refusing to work for you (much like, say, a DeviantArts artist's refusing to draw porn commissions).