[mononcqc]

A lot of the people "being cancelled" on twitter are only freaking out because for the first time in forever, they get the direct opinion of people reading their texts unfiltered, and they find out that they are prey to criticism.

For example, Kelly Loeffler, claims to have been "cancelled" while being a sitting US senator.

Cancel culture by popular action is not new (see letter-writing to TV stations, Frank Zappa having to testify in front of congress about censorship for his music albums). The only thing freaking people out is that people who have traditionally been structurally shielded from criticism and direct action (and often behind the cancelling itself) are just now on the receiving end of it.

[wrren]

People expressing their opinions about one's ideas is not cancel culture: it's when critics go one step further and try to destroy the person they disagree with.

Many people have lost their livelihoods and even more are afraid to express their opinion at all because of the disproportionate cost they might incur.

People having been structurally shielded from mob justice in the past is a state worth returning to.

[saberience]

"Many people have lost their livelihoods"

Hmm, sounds intriguing. Do you have any sources for this or concrete examples which can be fact-checked?

[jonhohle]

The ones I can find quickly:

* Nicholas Sandmann (for an image taken out of context)

* Tenured UNC Professor Mike Adams

* Goya Foods' CEO Bob Unanue (attempted)

* Terese Nielsen (allegedly)

* Grant Napear

* Justin Kucera (allegedly)

* Aleksander Katai

* Kathleen Lowry

* JK Rowling (attempted)

* Cornell Professor Dave Collum

* Stephen Hsu

* Leslie Neal-Boylan

* James Bennet

* Melissa Rolfe

* Emmanuel Cafferty

[brandmeyer]

Brandon Eich

[JamesBarney]

* Steven Pinker (attempted)

[8f2ab37a-ed6c]

Brett Weinstein

[wrren]

Matt Taibbi's had a few good articles on this recently. Some excerpts:

"Cancelations already are happening too fast to track. In a phenomenon that will be familiar to students of Russian history, accusers are beginning to appear alongside the accused. Three years ago a popular Canadian writer named Hal Niedzviecki was denounced for expressing the opinion that “anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities." He reportedly was forced out of the Writer’s Union of Canada for the crime of “cultural appropriation,” and denounced as a racist by many, including a poet named Gwen Benaway. The latter said Niedzviecki “doesn’t see the humanity of indigenous peoples.” Last week, Benaway herself was denounced on Twitter for failing to provide proof that she was Indigenous.

Michael Korenberg, the chair of the board at the University of British Columbia, was forced to resign for liking tweets by Dinesh D’Souza and Donald Trump, which you might think is fine – but what about Latino electrical worker Emmanuel Cafferty, fired after a white activist took a photo of him making an OK symbol (it was described online as a “white power” sign)? How about Sue Schafer, the heretofore unknown graphic designer the Washington Post decided to out in a 3000-word article for attending a Halloween party two years ago in blackface (a failed parody of a different blackface incident involving Megyn Kelly)? She was fired, of course. How was this news? Why was ruining this person’s life necessary?"

[domador]

[This is not a direct reply to your comment, but a comment on Hacker News itself.]

It's interesting that a couple of minutes ago, I was unable to even attempt to reply to wrren's comment. It was grayed out, and I guess you can't reply to grayed-out comments. I read the comment and saw an exploration of ideas, not something that would be destructive to the Hacker News community or experience. I reloaded the page, the comment is no longer gray, and I am now able to reply to it. I guess it's been upvoted into acceptability again, and eligible for further discussion.

Did I just imagine that there was no reply link after this comment? (It's an honest question, since this might be the first gray comment that I've tried to reply to.)

Ironically enough (given that Paul Graham founded it) Hacker News itself seems to provide tools for silencing unconventional ideas through downvoting (unconventional for HN.) Apparently, it's not a particularly new problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17612885

Seems like there's some aggressive conventionally-mindedness right here on Hacker News. It happens structurally, in the way downvoting unpopular ideas gets them silenced, and conventionally, in the way discussion about voting on Hacker News is discouraged.

[detaro]

Deep threads hide the reply button temporarily as an anti-flamewar thing (You can still reply by clicking on the timestamp to go to the comments permalink, it's just intended to be a soft deterrent against too much back-and-forth). Purely downvotes shouldn't disable replies, only if a comment gets killed (by flags or automated filters) it gets disabled.

[domador]

So, it's not related to whether a comment is grayed out, but to how deep it is and how recently it was posted. That's helpful to know. Thanks!

[Qworg]

All communities, including this one, require curation and moderation. The down vote is a way to drive out "non-HN" ideas out of the square, as determined by the broad subset of HN users (and a small number of super users).

It isn't aggressively conventionally minded, it is pro social, as well as likely the only way to maintain a level of discourse that the majority wants.

[jumelles]

Many people arguing against "cancel culture" like to say that it ruins people's lives when they're fired, and it's a statement that is inextricably rooted in privilege. Millions of people are fired or laid off every year - why should one only care when it's because someone said something and got cancelled?

[harimau777]

I think there could be a few nuances:

- Since the internet does not forget, someone who is fired due to mob justice is likely to have it affect their ability to hold a job in the future in a way that isn't necessarily true for most firings or layoffs.

- Both losing ones job due to mob justice and due to other factors such as economics can ruin someone's life.

[mononcqc]

Mob justice hasn't been visible for a while often because regular justice was being used for direct oppression in its stead. Injustice is institutionalized, and so as long as the majority group does not see the mob, it does not see oppression even if it exists.

Tell me that for every person getting yelled at on Twitter you couldn't find countless more groups of minorities who have been denied justice over the years, whether because they are aborigines, black, lgbtqia+, or any other group of the kind. That open criticism and denial of cultures and ways of life wasn't just the default mode of operation. That one's life being valued less than someone else's property, beatings by police, harsher criminal sentences, and lack of equal rights wasn't just the mode of operation.

Getting yelled at on Twitter by people fed up with someone's bullshit is not even close to actual mob justice. It's just angry people shouting. Sometimes people shout enough that it turns to direct action (like letter-writing, which was used at least as far back as the 1800s), boycotts, and stuff like that. Today's cancel culture isn't mob justice any more than it was before, and it's not new.

Again, it's just a bunch of people who usually were never on the short end of the stick seeing its shadow pointed their way and freaking out.

[jimbokun]

This is a complete non-sequitur.

Let's respond to injustice and oppression, by trying to extend a little bit of injustice and oppression to other people who haven't experienced it yet, just because we can.

How about less injustice and oppression all around?

[waterhouse]

It's an exceedingly common deflection. "Group X has suffered and/or is suffering worse, therefore your complaint can be ignored." It tends to come up sooner or later when someone complains about the negative impact of certain types of policies.

[renewiltord]

Actually, maybe that's an interesting viewpoint splitter. Would it be better if everyone who hit a zebra crossing button twice were arrested or if only 26-year-old Irish-Americans with less than $500k in their bank account were arrested for hitting the zebra crossing button twice?

The former has less overall state oppression. The latter imposes it on one group. It feels reasonable to me that they could say "If this is going to happen to me, it should also happen to everyone else. If no one else is getting this, then it shouldn't happen to me either." (p->q, ¬q->¬p)

But perhaps you believe that the first part of that is not acceptable and only the second part is.

[oisdk]

> Many people have lost their livelihoods

What are you referring to, specifically?

[pwinnski]

Good question! The phrase "many people" covers up the relative paucity of actual instances, as well as the exact nature of those instances.

Every person who loses their job to a misunderstanding is a tragedy to that person, and every person who loses their job claims it's due to a misunderstanding. We live in a polarized nation such that other companies seem to rush to hire those very same people on purpose, so it doesn't seem to be a huge tragedy, but I'm sure it feels tragic.

It also seems to happen very, very rarely, and usually after events that seem indefensible on their face. That is, rarely are people willing to say "they should have faced no consequences," but often people are willing to say "they should not have faced consequences quite that severe."

[sinker]

If you can't be bothered to recognize even a single instance of this happening, then you've shut your eyes and ears.

[oisdk]

I mean I was interested in examples. People disagree about what counts as a “cancelling” so I was looking to see what the person I was responding to was referring to, with some examples.

[gallegojaime]

Of course a version of it existed, but the going concern with cancel culture is that it doesn't require much thought or effort to cancel someone now. Social media allows you to easily join a mob without judging a person deeply by yourself.

[minikites]

Because previous mobs were well known for their thoughtfulness and judgement?

[throwaway0a5e]

Well previously you needed an actual physical mob so you had to get enough people local to the victim outraged enough to be convinced it's worth their time. That's a much higher bar than doxing someone and sending hate mail to everyone around them.

[gallegojaime]

No - that's why it is a mob.