Then your employer sees the shitshow, fears the resonance and things become more intimate than just cancelling the show. Saying “oh, it’s only true between you and the govt” effectively revokes the claimed right in a society. As a result, only those can speak freely who agree with a vocal majoriry. But that just seems like an obvious default, not a progressive achievement. Or is that wrong?

It seems that people mistakenly cry 'censorship!' when most of the time cancel culture is really plain moderation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderation

> most of the time cancel culture is really plain moderation

Most moderation ends with people losing their jobs? Really?

That would make vigilante justice, lynch mobs, all the way up to genocide examples of extreme "moderation". How do you differentiate moderation that kills someone from moderation that silences someone, kicks them out of their community, and costs them their jobs? They differ only in degree.

A free society necessarily must permit some degree of what could be considered vigilantism - even if the vigilantism is intended to restrict someone or something else's freedom in some way. I'd call this the "meta-paradox of tolerance".

The difference in degree you mention is the boundary between legally (and sometimes morally) acceptable and unacceptable forms of vigilantism.

It's pretty easy actually, noone gets murdered or maimed.