>We are already on our way to full blown censorship. Cancel culture et al is effectively the beginning of the same outcome. Censorship starts with chilling effects

I suggest checking the US history, both somewhat recent and not recent at all. Cancel culture is just the continuation of the old tradition of "naming and shaming", it isn't something new.

First there was "tarring and feathering", then there were the witch hunts in MA, then, more recently, there was the red scare. Current "cancel culture" is pretty much just a much lighter version of that, and we are definitely not moving any closer to "full blown censorship". In fact, I think that the modern "cancel culture" (despite me being very much not a fan of it) cannot even hold a handle to the red scare investigations of just 60-70 years ago