If it was just a few voices on Twitter, it would be less of a problem. But it's also journalists, academics, grievance entrepreneurs of various stripes — all of whom exert an influence on the general public. It's businesses that don't want to get on the wrong side of those people. And it's employees of those businesses who don't want to get fired.

"Cancel culture" is just a new spin on scapegoating, behavioral contagion, and public shaming, all of which have a very long history.

> Why don't all the sane people just block them and ignore them, and then go on with their lives

Because ‘sane people’ does not include your employer, who will throw you to the mob to appease them. In the US that also means losing your health insurance, so it can be a death sentence for you or your loved ones.

(I'll regret posting this when I'm starving in a gutter.)

> Why don't all the sane people just block them and ignore them, and then go on with their lives as if nothing happened?

They can't afford to do that, because this "mob" is actively dangerous. They will slander their enemies with all sorts of baseless accusations, call their workplaces to try and get them fired, manufacture false flag harrassment/cyberbulling and try to attribute it to them, etc. It's no different from the 8chan trolls - in fact they come from adjacent Internet subcultures, quite literally.

I don't see why would you not include the 8channers who do the exact same thing to prominent women in games or anti-vaxxers trying to destroy the lives of doctors/researchers. There's no difference in tactics or goals.

Probably because 8channers and anti-vaxxers aren't successful in getting people fired, because they don't wield any power among legitimate institutions.

They are successful at making people's lives miserable through harassment like death threats and swatting, and unsurprisingly, those tactics are universally reviled.

> Probably because 8channers and anti-vaxxers aren't successful in getting people fired, because they don't wield any power among legitimate institutions.

Notable exception: Donglegate; a person was cancelled, then the person cancelling got cancelled - her company was DDoSed until she was gone*

Hilarious.

* well, that's what I want to believe because it's more interesting; it's possible backlash of people against first cancellation had it's part in that.

Yea, I didn't remember anything about a DDoS being the reason Richards was fired, as opposed to just a PR person making a splash and bringing unwanted attention to her company. A non-central case of cancellation, and I have no real sympathy for Richards as a person, but it still sucks that it happened.

Because it gets very scary once the handful of truly unhinged people start doxxing and posting graphic and detailed threats and showing up at your house.

Just look at the death threats someone like Fauci is getting for doing his job and informing the public. Not that many people want to deal with being a public target to the worst actors in society.