The lead of this open letter effort Pedro Domingos has stoked controversy on twitter [1] for the last few months. The replies are also critical of his behavior.

[1] https://twitter.com/pmddomingos/status/1344215079890272257

They are trying to cancel him, unsurprisingly

I thought cancel culture was also not buying stuff from companies you think are not acting ethically. You might agree it’s good to “cancel” facebook by not using their product?

In the context of this letter, it's about institutional boycotts of individuals, not individuals boycotting institutions. From the text,

>calls for academic boycotts, attempts to get people fired, inviting mob attacks against ‘offending’ individuals, and the like.

These are all referring to the many coming down on the few, not the other way around.

The parent comment seems to be speaking about cancel culture more generally though: “Cancel culture doesn’t accept any arguments - that’s the whole point of the cancel culture”

I’d argue that’s not the point of cancel culture. I think cancel culture is the result of unethical actors not getting punished by the people in charge any more. The only way you can punish them is to not buy their products.

>unethical actors not getting punished

I'm surprised that this basic foundation of the popularity of "cancel culture" doesn't get pointed out more. It's dead obvious, and something virtually everybody can sympathize with, whether they admit it or not - but people want to find other, more easily attackable qualities to describe cancel culture as being "about". Like most topics that consist mostly of irrational side-taking, it would be a lot less messy to just criticize specific examples, instead of making it into culture war on purpose by forcing it into the mold of the monolithic "them" vs the monolithic "us".

The word "cancel culture" is really a red herring - what this letter is talking about is how academics get frozen out if they get in trouble for saying things they shouldn't.

Talking about "cancel culture" is an attempt to avoid defending specific indefensible behaviour.

>any little thing that displeases SJWs

>against just about anyone all the time

These are exaggerations. It sounds like you're harboring an irrational hatred for "SJWs", and are using misdeeds conceivably attributable to that group, however you define it, to rationalize the delegitimisation of anybody who seeks to expose harmful behavior.

>The only way you can punish them is to not buy their products.

I'm sure that's related to the definition of cancel culture in some contexts, but none of the people signing or intended to be swayed by this letter sell any products. This letter is specifically talking about academic bullying as a means of intellectual suppression. That has little if anything to do with products like Facebook, I really don't see the connection.