[JackMorgan]

In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime.

If a person commits a crime, then let courts decide, otherwise it's just mob rule and vigilante "justice".

That said, I think it's going to take at least a few more decades before such a ruling is made. I suspect it will come along the lines that internet history is protected speech, and so it's a protected work category and is illegal to fire a person over. Once companies can just point to the law and shrug, then they can ignore the online mob.

Additionally, one would think cancelling should fall under libel and slander laws, and the accused would be able to go after the instigators.

It's uncomfortable when it's "your side" that finds it's goals at odds with human rights, but in the end we're all better off with defending basic human rights. Policing morality is infinitely more difficult and oppressive, no matter how much it really feels good at the moment.

[monkeydreams]

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now.

Will it be illegal at the point of expressing an opinion online?

Will it be illegal at the point of agreeing or liking an opinion expressed online?

Will it be illegal at the point where one is purchasing a product or service and determines where their money will go based on an opinion they hold?

People are allowed to have, express and hold opinion. They are allowed to make decisions based on these opinions.

> Additionally, one would think cancelling should fall under libel and slander laws, and the accused would be able to go after the instigators.

Good news! These laws exist.

> It's uncomfortable when it's "your side" that finds it's goals at odds with human rights, but in the end we're all better off with defending basic human rights.

When "your side" starts advocating that people should not have, hold or act on opinions, you might start wondering who you're on side with.

[rolandog]

Well, I recently was permanently suspended on Reddit, but I've been unable to determine why (also, no previous announcement).

I haven't been permanently banned from any subreddit (no message in my 14 year old history indicated this)... but I've been unable to get any human to tell me what exactly I did was against the Reddit Content Policy.

The curious thing for me was that my alt account (the one I use to try to have some semblance of free speech) was also permanently suspended.

This, to me, felt like I may have been censored in some way (though I really don't know the motive; maybe I was too outspoken against an oppressive government?).

It certainly has had a chilling effect on my online activity.

[monkeydreams]

> Well, I recently was permanently suspended on Reddit, but I've been unable to determine why (also, no previous announcement).

> The curious thing for me was that my alt account (the one I use to try to have some semblance of free speech) was also permanently suspended.

That sucks, especially as there are few ways to appeal these bans.

Perhaps you were banned for upvoting your own content from another account? This will result in a ban for both accounts. If not, it could be a number of other reasons that have nothing to do with cancellation or governmental criticism.

[rolandog]

> Perhaps you were banned for upvoting your own content from another account? This will result in a ban for both accounts. If not, it could be a number of other reasons that have nothing to do with cancellation or governmental criticism.

To be quite honest, there used to be a time in my life where I would've cared about getting up voted and having a popular opinion, but I don't think I've cared enough to cheat the system.

Nowadays, I tried to discern what is or isn't propaganda and I sometimes commented on days-old threads.

[Zuider]

Reddit has introduced a policy where you can be banned merely for upvoting an offending opinion. You may have fallen foul of that.

[rolandog]

Oh man, this could have been my case... I have sometimes accidentally up or down voted links or comments (switching hands to hold the phone, for example).

Now that I think about it, one of the last things I had upvoted was a comment that advocated for peace between the Israeli and Palestinian sides.

I wanted to reply, but I thought that my opinion would not be taken seriously if I used my alt account, so I switched to my real account to write a thoughtful comment.

I started writing it, then I saved it as a draft and decided to go to sleep and think things over so I wouldn't write something offensive, then I tried posting (on the 'RIF' app) and it kept failing to post. That's when, after logging in online, I realized I had been permanently banned.

[commandlinefan]

It’s a shame that every Reddit alternative (like voat and now ruqqus) turns into such a cesspool. I wish there was something like the Reddit of 10 years ago.

[monkeydreams]

I am with you on that one but I think it is the product of the times and situation we live in.

No one can agree on what constitutes free speech, everyone feels that they are the ones under attack (on the Right and the Left and the Centrists). No one can concede ground, everyone holds that they are absolutely correct in every case. So they leave for more tolerant grounds (i.e. where people agree with them and their sense of persecution), where people respect their right to speech, form a mob, then strike back against their perceived enemies.

And then there is the brigading, which everyone thinks is the fault of the 'other' side and endemic to the 'other side's' thinking.

[rolandog]

You're totally right.

It's like there are multitude Battlefields on a War of Opinion & Truth.

In my case I may have compared 1 year ago a certain world leader that was sending minority demographic to specialized facilities to a Disney character.

Though it certainly took quite a while for me to be labeled and permanently suspended.

I don't know why my alt account would be banned as well, though.

[rolandog]

Indeed. I've been trying to find or come up with solutions that don't jeopardize personal safety (think journalists, or citizens living under an authoritarian regime) but that also allow freedom of speech (but not democracy of truth, because then you get a fertile ground for propaganda and a rift in communities).

[Zuider]

On the small reddit clones, the far-right takes on the same role as the far left does on reddit. The Daily Stormtrooper gang, who comprise at most 10 people, will flood those sites with relentless racist material and will attack and deplatform anyone who complains or dissents.

[donjon20on]

My account also got suspended on Saturday. I have no alt account. I have no questionable posts whatsoever. Very confused. Said if was due to multiple content violations without any citation to which post it pertained to, and no previous warnings in over a decade of activity. I am very confused, to say the least. I don't even think I've used a swear word before on Reddit.

[webmobdev]

Every sub-reddit is supposed to be an echo chamber for or against a topic, and if you participate in a sub-reddit, you are expected to echo the majoritarian views of that sub-reddit. Or else start your own sub-reddit that propagate your views.

Possible reasons for a Reddit ban include trying to post to a sub-reddit that has suspended or banned you using another account, doxing / harassment or vote manipulation / brigading.

[ghusbands]

From what you're saying, it's likely that you did/said something 'questionable' on your alt account and Reddit banned all of your accounts that they could identify. Having an alt account doesn't prevent you as a person being held responsible for what you do/say.

[Zuider]

>Will it be illegal at the point where one is purchasing a product or service and determines where their money will go based on an opinion they hold?

But we are not talking of a personal choice to boycott, or even to persuade others to boycott. That action is passive in nature and falls entirely within an individuals liberty to withdraw consent.

Cancel culture involves aggressive mobs that will use covert and unethical means such as targeting a company's advertisers, clients and suppliers, or relentlessly harassing the HR department in order to induce them to fire somebody.

As the OP in this thread noted, this is comparable to vigilantism.

>Good news! These laws exist.

Libel laws are hard to use against anonymous callers and letter writers calling you a 'Nazi.' It is most unlikely that the recipient of such a call will be persuaded you are a literal Nazi, but they will be influenced and intimidated by the strong hostility and disapproval expressed. It would be hard to prove in court that you had actually been libeled, even if you could bring that person to court, but you will still have been damaged.

>When "your side" starts advocating that people should not have, hold or act on opinions, you might start wondering who you're on side with.

But cancel culture is intolerant of other's right to freedom of conscience, and it goes beyond mere disapproval to active personal destruction.

[blablabla123]

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal:

Which actions exactly should be illegal? I assume you don't want to make me force watching movies from certain producers that I don't like anymore. At the same time in some countries retail stores basically have to cater to everyone and already can be made liable if they don't sell something that they advertised for as long as customers stick to terms and conditions.

I rather think that excess cancelling and all that comes with it is a result of perceived injustices. Even if you come up with a very creative law unless these injustices are solved the symptoms will pop up elsewhere. That said, standards in society develop over time and probably the capacity for ambivalence is going to rise again. Also people tend to give more credit to things that have been worked for more than things that have been inherited.

[AstralStorm]

Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment.

Most importantly, accusations of bias are also not a valid reason to fire a journalist.

There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful. Of course, America has the coercive institution of at-will employment, ruining any attempt at fixing it this way.

A good step would be filling class action defamation suit against a class running a smear campaign over barely public and irrelevant things. Consequences for setting up mobs. While platform is not liable, the users are. That could make some people think twice before doing it.

[dTal]

You're going to sue me for running, in my head, the program "if misbehave, then boycott"? Because that's all it takes to be a member of a "mob". Or you're going to sue me for passing on information of <misbehavior>, even if it's true, because you're afraid of being cancelled? That's a fairly horrifying dystopia you're painting.

Nobody has to incite a mob. It just happens. It's collective action. There's no one to sue, unless you feel like suing everyone.

[JackMorgan]

I was discussing an individual being attacked for personal thoughts posted in the past. If a company supports things you don't, sure, just don't support that company. But when a group tries to get a person fired for something unpopular that they said in the past, then using a mob to get them fired is vigilante justice.

[dTal]

Companies fire such people pre-emptively, out of fear of such boycotts. This is the only thing giving "cancellation" any teeth - otherwise, how could a mob "get someone fired"? Why would any company bow?

[Udik]

> Companies fire such people pre-emptively, out of fear of such boycotts... Otherwise why would any company bow?

Because firing someone is cheap. It's not "damage control", it's virtue signalling, as costly as it is for others to express their outrage on twitter.

[shadowgovt]

But a group trying to get someone fired for what they did or said in the past is the individuals in the group exercising their own protected political speech. It's difficult to see how that can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself.

[hackinthebochs]

If firing for speech is made illegal, then a boycott will be ineffectual and thus not happen. You don't have to outlaw the speech of the mob, just the ability for a company to fire someone over someone's past statements.

[jimmydorry]

It is indeed difficult to see how cancelling can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself.

If there was an easy solution though, it would probably already be in place.

[ashtonkem]

> Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment.

No, it is not. It is supposed to be protected from the government punishing you over it, any other requirements are purely made up.

> There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful

So you would use the power of the state to suppress speech in the name of free speech? I don’t think you’ve thought through the long term consequences of this.

[Zuider]

>No, it is not. It is supposed to be protected from the government punishing you over it, any other requirements are purely made up.

The United States has an unusually robust legal protection of free speech in its constitution. It is the case that this only protects citizens from the state, and any other protections people imagine it provides are, as you state, 'purely made up.'

Even so, the First Amendment is based on a prior ethos of the value of free speech.

The philosopher, J.S. Mill, in his impassioned defense of freedom of speech saw both government and private actions as being threats to free speech, and advocated protections against both.

There is an adage which has been much repeated in recent years that freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequences. That depends on what those 'consequences' are. One may disagree, argue back, or even block a person with whom you disagree, but it crosses a line when you respond by trying to destroy a person whose views you reject.

[jhgb]

> any other requirements are purely made up.

Protection from the government punishing you over political speech is "purely made up" as well. All laws in all countries are "purely made up", humans made them so.

[ashtonkem]

It’s fairly obvious from the context that we’re talking about the American tradition of free speech, and the jurisprudence around it. So in this case “made up” means “there is no case law to support your assertion about how the principle of free speech should work in American law”. I find an attempt to assert that all laws are made up kind of lazy side stepping of bother the issue at hand and kind of annoying.

Furthermore, even if one just decides to YOLO a few centuries of American jurisprudence on the matter, one will quickly find oneself either advocating for authoritarianism, or recreating our existing speech system from scratch. Those are the only two logical outcomes that can come from an assertion that one parties speech should be suppressed in order to “protect” (promote, imho) the speech of another group.

[jhgb]

> It’s fairly obvious

But why? Do people from other countries deserve to have their digital pasts weaponized? That was absolutely not obvious to me.

[Udik]

> Which actions exactly should be illegal?

Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob.

You are of course free to boycott whoever you want- but my impression is that those threatened boycotts won't really cause much damage to companies. People keep saying that firings are meant to "limit damage" but I have yet to see proof of this. To me it is mostly virtue signalling on the part of the involved businesses- it's not meant to prevent an economic damage but as a form of PR and advertising.

[goatinaboat]

my impression is that those threatened boycotts won't really cause much damage to companies

It still boggles my mind to see multi-billion dollar multinational companies cowering in terror from what is probably no more than a few dozen Twitter users in each case, none of whom were customers anyway, they just have too much time on their hands

[bigbillheck]

> Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob

Weird way to end 'right to work' laws, but any port in a storm I guess.

[JoshuaDavid]

Assuming you meant "at-will employment" not "right to work", I unironically agree.

The symptom is that accusations or out-of- context statements or actions can spark a brief but intense reaction on Twitter, and companies frequently fire their employees based on that Twitter reaction. And then those employees may lose access to healthcare or otherwise be in a very precarious position.

So the issues are - The internet remembers forever. - Twitter mobs are self- amplifying and the size and intensity of the mob is not significantly correlated to the intensity of the perceived offense - Twitter mobs don't react based on the most correct information, but rather the most viral - Companies fire people based on Twitter mob actions because: - Companies can be liable for creating a "hostile work environment" for failing to act on things their employees did outside of work hours. - Companies can fire anyone for any reason except being a member of a protected class - Healthcare is tied to employment, so getting fired is disruptive since you need to get new insurance, which in turn probably requires you to switch doctors, get your medical records transferred over, etc.

The symptom of "people are having their lives massively disrupted by relatively minor things they did decades ago" could be approached from any of these angles. So

1. Fix Twitter (and it is specifically Twitter that is the bulk of the problem) to have a way to disprove of a message without further amplifying it 2. Fix the incentives for businesses so that the business is not responsible for what the employee does on their own time. 3. Fix the social safety net and healthcare system so getting fired is not ruinous. 4. Add more employee protections, making it harder to fire people without cause.

I personally think any of the above would work, though I'm wary of 1 (the laws required to obligate this would probably have significant chilling effects elsewhere) and 4 (depends strongly on quality of legal implementation, and I don't have a lot of faith in our legislators to write well thought out laws). I personally favor 2 - as an employer if you're not paying someone for their time I don't think you should get to dictate what they do with that time.

[CodesInChaos]

Did you confuse at-will employment (employer can fire for any reason) with right to work laws (companies can't have an agreement with a union that forces all employees to join or pay union dues)?

[Udik]

I don't understand what you mean, can you elaborate?

[ceejayoz]

> Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob.

So, all I have to do is hire a few Twitter bots once in a while and I’m permanently unfireable?

[hackinthebochs]

You can still be fired for cause. But the company will have to do work to document that to demonstrate it wasn't for past statements.

[bjl]

So you're incentivizing being racist on the internet to make it harder to fire somebody.

[Udik]

This is silly. A twitter storm is a pretty well defined, public event. Do you seriously think it would be common to post racist stuff on the internet, and then organise a permanent campaign against yourself, in order to become un-fireable for causes that are work related? A company that wants to fire you for your poor performance can do so, and if you sue them it's not going to be hard for them to prove they have a legitimate cause which has nothing to do with your self-organised mobbing campaigns.

[woodruffw]

This is an astounding response: in reaction to people bullying each other on the Internet, you want to empower everyone to use the force of the law to silence their critics? In what world is that either (1) a reasonable de-escalation of a social ill, or (2) a net win for free expression?

I'm not very old, but I am old enough to know the history of SLAPP lawsuits and anti-SLAPP legislation[1]. Barbara Streisand lost a SLAPP motion so hard that we named an entire effect in free expression after her! Do you really want a world in which well-resourced parties can leverage the courts to silence dissent?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

[ben_w]

While I agree that the status quo isn’t stable and must change, I don’t think what you’re suggesting will be stable either.

The internet is one place where 99.9% compliance with a social norm or law isn’t good enough to prevent the remaining 0.1% from causing enough damage to be un-ignorable, even if you manage to get worldwide agreement on updating the law. (Consider that e.g. the UK does not have American freedom of speech, and if anything considers the American way of doing things to be strange and somewhat anarchic).

I sometimes wonder it would help if social media posts had to be deleted after a short period, perhaps a few months or a few years? (The pre-internet social media, being conversations and occasionally letters, was probably >99% forgotten in hours, and most of the rest was hearsay).

Or it would help, or make things worse, if it became easy for people to change identity?

[tomjen3]

Is there a standard way to convert an encryption key into a human readable name?

Because then we could have a service where you signed everything with your key and then you were know as whatever the hash of that key is - and you can create a new identity with a new key, but your name won't be linked to any real world identity.

I barely use Facebook or Twitter compared to reddit, and I suspect it is because of the real name issues, that makes those places just not as much fun.

[swebs]

That sounds like the tripcode system you see on imageboards like 4chan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Tripcodes

[ben_w]

Yes, but people are leaky with regards to OpSec even when they’re trained and motivated to be non-terrible at it, and most people are not trained at all.

[kodah]

This is called PGP

[ttt0]

GPG?

[ashtonkem]

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime.

I’m incredibly dubious that you can write a law that accomplishes this that won’t run afoul of the first amendment. And honestly, I think that literally jailing attempted “cancellers” would have way more of a chilling effect than whatever “cancel culture” causes.

The solution for this is to change the culture, not to weaponize the power of the state to harm those you dislike. Please stop suggesting it, it will only make things worse.

[II2II]

If you walk up to someone and punch them, it is reasonable for that person to press charges even though the repercussions may only last a few minutes. The consequence will be more-or-less immediate, even if it starts and ends with a discussion with a police officer.

If you slander someone, their recourse is to sue even though the repercussions may last for months or years. The consequence will not be immediate and the victim may not even have the means to pursue it.

I don't know if there is a good solution to the problem. You are perfectly correct in pointing out that the proposed solution can weaponize the power of the state. On the other hand, speech can, and has been, weaponized.

[ashtonkem]

I believe your proposal weaponizes speech even more; giving the ability of someone to accuse someone else of cancellation, which brings with it the threat of criminal action.

It seems pretty obvious to me that this would make “cancel culture” markedly worse.

[II2II]

Just to be clear: I am making observations, not proposals. I see the current situation as a problem, but do not see a clear way to resolve it.

It is difficult to understand why such an outcome is obvious. At one end of the spectrum, people are making claims that should be actionable through legal measures yet they choose to do make it actionable through speech. There are many reasons why this could be the case: lack of confidence in the legal system, expedience and perceived severity of punishment, or a lack of evidence to support the claims (assuming they are true). Regardless of why, I would classify it as vigilantism. Vigilantism has not place in a civil society that respects the process of law. In cases where the initial act was illegal, I find it difficult to call the threat of criminal action a tool of "cancel culture".

Then there are allegations that many may considered as immoral, yet are legal. The people making the allegations cannot use the threat of criminal action to cancel someone, unless they resort to slander (e.g. make up a criminal act). That is pretty much the current situation. On the other hand, those on the receiving end would have more recourse against deliberately malicious acts. Since there would be due process, I find it difficult to think of it as a tool to cancel those making the allegations.

[ashtonkem]

> At one end of the spectrum, people are making claims that should be actionable through legal measures

Be precise. What claims are actionable? Provide examples.

I think you might have a wildly inflated idea of what is and is not legally actionable, which is driving erroneous conclusions about what the law is, where it is going, and the limits of what is and is not possible in the courts under current jurisprudence.

[hooande]

Imagine you start a company and one of your employees says or does something reprehensible. Investors fear a boycott and threaten to pull out of a fundraising round. You either fire that one person, or the whole company goes under and everyone that works for you could lose their job (including you).

If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse.

It seems like a better system would be one where everyone is responsible for their own behavior.

[mongol]

But if it is illegal, then all the people working for cancelling the employee will know it is hopeless.

[sundaeofshock]

They won’t be able to get the person canceled, but they can still boycott the person’s employer. Said employer will be economically harmed, with no way to end the pain.

Companies don’t like being harmed in this way, so they will most likely respond by digging very deeply into every job candidate’s past to avoid hiring someone who may be “canceled” at a future date.

Here’s the thing: most people have done pretty shitty things in their past. However, most people don’t rise to a level of prominence that it ever matters. They are able to live normal, productive, happy lives.

Making “cancel mob” terminations illegal ends all that. Is this really the path we want to go down?

[account42]

> Making “cancel mob” terminations illegal ends all that. Is this really the path we want to go down?

Yes? The problem with cancellation is that individuals are targeted which means that for most people it is not a problem and they have no incentive to stop it. The mob cannot go after everyone. Employers cannot filter out everyone - then they have no employees.

[galtwho]

> If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse.

well then the investors can't ask for the firing, they have to demand something else.

[nonameiguess]

It's really bizarre that you think this. Sexual preference still isn't a federally protected category. Neither is political affiliation. You're protected from the government arresting you for the views you express, but unless you have a separate contract or more protective local laws, a U.S. employer can fire you for being a Democrat or Republican.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...

[ttt0]

You're trying to apply current law to mere predictions of what the law might be in the future. He's saying that for example political affiliation might become a protected category. Nothing bizarre about it.

[webmobdev]

Right to Privacy - specifically, the Right to Be Forgotten ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten ) - is also very important here. Americans are certainly behind EU on this aspect, as many European countries have successfully passed legislation that a person has the right to get his personal information deleted from internet services (mainly search engines).

[username90]

Firing people for cases like this is already illegal in most of the developed world. You need a cause and "people on twitter were angry" isn't one.

[TechnoTimeStop]

Except that its in the China Russia KGB CCP interest to hurt American industry wherever and whenever they can. Who actually goes around sifting through all of these peoples content? Its honestly pathetic. Fix social media now. We're all under attack!

[2Gkashmiri]

i have a question. What about "right to be forgotten" ? if doxing would be illegal in future, would that mean the crony capitalists like google and facebook would decide declaring your old photos and "stupid" past as "too important" and just like your AFK history is written and unchangeable.