[UncleMeat]

> I still regularly encounter educated people who can't tell the difference between free speech and threats, harassment, etc.

That's not what is happening. What is happening is that you and that person disagree on what a threat is.

[throwaway894345]

If cancel culture doesn’t depend on implicit threats of career repercussions, then no one should object when we pass laws to protect employees from this kind of mob-based termination. Of course, in this substantial thread, I don’t think anyone has disputed that CC is about threats and harassment and at least one CC proponent has advocated against employment protections. This is consistent with my observations in other HN and Twitter threads, but I’d be happy to be wrongness provided we protect employees from this kind of mobbing.

[UncleMeat]

I'd love it if free speech advocates were uniform in their attack on "cancel culture".

I have two friends, each faculty members at top schools, who have been personally attacked on Fox News and called enemies of America. This has led to hundreds of people sending them death threats via email and constant calls to their department chairs demanding their firing. Not a peep from organizations like FIRE.

And why is sending an email to somebody's boss saying that they are an asshole and should be fired fundamentally worse than posting on social media about how so-and-so is a secret jew who works for the new world order and literally sacrifices babies to satan?

[throwaway894345]

> I'd love it if free speech advocates were uniform in their attack on "cancel culture". I have two friends, each faculty members at top schools, who have been personally attacked on Fox News and called enemies of America. This has led to hundreds of people sending them death threats via email and constant calls to their department chairs demanding their firing. Not a peep from organizations like FIRE.

FIRE focuses on the exercise of free speech in education, so if your friends weren't fired or reprimanded for exercising their rights, FIRE probably won't weigh in. Doubly so if no one writes to FIRE on their behalf asking them to cover the case. Ultimately, FIRE can't cover every case (they're a nonprofit), so it might also just be bad luck that your friends' case wasn't selected. Hard to say. It certainly could be that FIRE is discriminating against your friends' for the content of their speech, but FIRE and Fox News are rarely aligned (indeed, FIRE got its start defending academia against conservative illiberalism).

> And why is sending an email to somebody's boss saying that they are an asshole and should be fired fundamentally worse than posting on social media about how so-and-so is a secret jew who works for the new world order and literally sacrifices babies to satan?

No one is making this argument.