That's not compatible with people whose livelihood directly or indirectly relies on having a large and/or dedicated audience on Twitter or other social networks, or people who by the nature of their livelihood are public figures even if they're not active on social media.

Which isn't to say that your advice is poor advice!

A YouTube personality I follow got cancelled not long ago. They responded by exiting Twitter, but there were complications. One of the things they mentioned that had never occurred to me is that as a published author, they had a contractual agreement with their publisher to maintain an online personality.

They had to come to special terms with their publisher to modify contract because the nature of cancellation is such that at the time, there was basically nothing they could say that would improve their "brand," so the purpose of the contract stipulation had become counterproductive. But as parent notes, this is a real problem some people have, depending on their profession.

If your job requires you to put on a public performance on social media -- do exactly that.

Key word there being "performance". Lie.

The key word is definitely performance. But people generally don't call actors liars for doing their job.

One should not pretend that social media is a place to broadcast your unedited inner-most feelings. It's media. Even if you are honest, it doesn't mean you're good enough at expressing yourself that what you intend to come across actually does. If you don't feel you'd be confident expressing yourself millions of people on prime-time television, you shouldn't feel confident expressing yourself to millions of people on twitter.

> But people generally don't call actors liars for doing their job.

That's a fair nitpick, actually. What I meant to emphasize is that the truth should have no bearing on your performance, except to the extent that it affects which performance you elect to give. As the saying goes, on the internet, no one knows you're a dog, nor should they.

I see what you meant. We are in total agreement.

These days it seems somewhat more difficult to be anonymous online. I'd be better off having a username of numbers, such as yourself. I have published a few writings online but if I really wanted to throw that into a blog I'd definitely construct a new online persona to do it.

I've tussled accidentally with mentally ill individuals online and experienced harassment that was bordering on dangerous. I would not be quick to put myself in that position again.

Doesn't take an online interaction, either[0]. Say nothing, ever.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes...

I don’t understand your comment. He was cancelled over actions IRL. Whether he had a Twitter or not, other people do and they know his name and where he works.

He was cancelled because he wrote a public apology on Twitter and that's how people found out about him. Twitter is completely to blame here - maybe along with being so naive to think that writing an apology on Twitter is a good idea.

> Twitter is completely to blame here

Don't blame knives for killing people, blame people who kill people.

I think the issue here is that Twitter came too quickly into our lives, and people did not have time adapt to the new reality.

Three hundreds years ago people would happily join a mob on a square trying to burn a woman because she is a witch or a traitor or unfaithful. Today people would just tell them they are coo coo and continue with their business.

After a couple of years people will learn to react to Twitter cancelling mob the same.

Sorry I should have said "Twitter culture" not Twitter. And I do hope you are right about it eventually fading away.

I think there’s a bit of selection bias here. There’s no evidence he wouldn’t have been fired for his actions if he didn’t publicly apologize. Many people are fired for the same actions, we just don’t hear about it.

What does internet anonymity have to do with this? He was cancelled was what he did in real life?

Noah Bradley did not get cancelled for online behavior, he got blacklisted in the art industry for being a sexual predator.

I find it a little odd that in the original apology he refers to himself as a sexual predator but in this blog post he was a “womaniz[er]”.

The term womanizer generally refers to people that have lots of sexual encounters with different women, and has a strong connotation of “I’m very attractive to the opposite sex and am sometimes careless about which sexual advances I accept”

“Sexual predator” on the other hand indicates the use of force or coercion in order to initiate sexual contact, the use of professional or financial pressure to obtain sex, unwanted sexual behavior directed at folks that don’t want it, etc.

The wording in this article kind of seems like he got canceled for being too cool and getting laid too much, which is what he meant to say but accidentally wrote “shitty, creepy sexual predator”(0) in his apology instead. What a typo!

0 https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...

The term Sexual Predator has been expanded to cover a lot more in that circle. It's similar to how anybody who has sex with a celebrity is technically raped because of the power difference. It's impossible to give consent when your partner is more important than you are.

You might think this sounds insane, but it's a real thing: https://www.nsvrc.org/i-ask-how-power-impacts-consent

The handouts on here handwave the issue at the end "consider how holding a position of power might influence the situation" but some people advocate that any power imbalance inherently makes consent impossible and they will attack people on Twitter over it.

From his apology:

“I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about.”

I do not get the impression that he apologized for having sex with people while also being guilty of being prominent in his industry. I’m not entirely clear how “any sex with a celebrity is rape” is a salient point here.

Would have to ask him but I wouldn't be surprised if he used the terminology in this new loose way, and now regrets doing that.

Aside from his stated specific behaviors that are generally accepted as being under the “old” umbrella of sexual predator, I suppose it is entirely possible that he meant to call himself “a sexual predator” under the “new” definition that somehow applies to any sexually active person that is wealthy or employed as a manager.

I genuinely am just now learning about this “new” shift in definition as my understanding was that the term was applied to people due to their behavior towards others and how they’re experienced by the other involved parties. Expanding it to mean “anybody with money or status” doesn’t seem useful aside from maybe diluting the phrase’s meaning in such a way that it provides cover for actually abusive people.

yeah, just go sit in the back of the bus, don't be uppity, it should be enough we gave you rights, don't throw that back in our face by exercising those rights.

Alternatively, don't be a sexual predator that assumes it will never lead to any consequences later in life.

Whats the difference between having sex and being a sexual predator?

Do you just make things up as you go?

The frightening thing about "cancel culture" isnt that its new or eye-opening. Its has always existed, sandboxed, in places called school playgrounds. The world have adults has this annoying thing called due process. Filing cases, going to court, giving evidence etc etc.

Now that the playground rules are stating to proliferate into adult spaces, companies - surprisingly - have started to use playground platforms to make -what used to be - adult decisions about who to fire, who to buy from, whose services to use...from a 240 character platform. No due process, no due diligence, nothing. Just tweets.

God bless us all.

> Whats the difference between having sex and being a sexual predator?

I don't think it's necessary to answer this because "sexual predator" was literally Noah's description of himself and his behavior (in those words) in the apology post that led to Wizards no longer wanting to work with him.

I mean, "angry mobs" have always existed as you said yourself. They didn't seep into "adult spaces", they've always been there. We don't need to blame Twitter, the Internet as a whole, anonymous communication platforms or anything else for human nature.

The fight against cancel culture is a fight against people doing things. It's literally that. "Cancelling" is just a framing device for a myriad of behaviors and reasoning behind those behaviors. If this post gets downvotes, "cancel culture". If OP's post gets a bunch of negative comments, "cancel culture".

TL;dr- There's never been an egalitarian, logic-only meritocracy, in human history, and people getting upset that there isn't one is as reasonable a choice as other people deciding to "cancel" someone.

I recently had a mentally ill family member try to work up a mob to get another family member fired from their job over some perceived slight. This person was able to get attention from media figures on Facebook who were interested in writing a story. They attempted to make noise on Twitter using the employer's account.

I don't think anyone had tools like this at their disposal in the 1990s. You could call up someone's employer and lie about an employee saying something bad about immigrants at a birthday party and they'd probably just hang up on you or threaten to call the police for harassment.

I was commenting on the causal relationship. The fact that vigilante social pressure is easier today is technically true, but not really addressing my point about the fact that people wanted (and did) do this. Your example is a guess. I promise you, in 1990 if I wanted to ruin someone's life, I could have (go check out the movie Fear).

The Salem Witch Trials were cancel culture. Jim Crow lynch mobs were cancel culture. The Red Scare was cancel culture. Same idea, new execution.

(Edited for spelling error)

What would you suggest you do when you have been behaving incorrectly? You can’t change the past.

That's an odd strawman. I... wouldn't behave incorrectly in the first place. It's not a difficult concept to understand for most people I hope, especially with sexual harassment.

>> I... wouldn't behave incorrectly in the first place. It's not a difficult concept to understand for most people I hope, especially with sexual harassment.

> I wouldn't be poor in the first place!

> I wouldn't be sick in the first place!

> I wouldn't be in their shoes in the first place!

What an argument.

What do those issues have to do with someone who chooses to be a sexual predator?

Do you not see how one of those things is a choice and the other 3 aren't?

I hear this said a lot today by people I grew up with. No dude, I was there. I remember how much you loved to tell racist jokes. Not one example, dozens.

What does that anecdote have to do with me living my life and continuing to live my life without being a sexual predator?

The point is: In a society in which we have violent factions opposing one another on an single basic idea, what sins are truly and permanently unforgivable by a society? We would all seem to agreed that a legal framework is more valuable than vigilante justice, but people on all sides admit the courts don't work all the time. What is the right choice? And can offenders reform?

For example, I'm of the (extremely unpopular) opinion that we're too hard on sex criminals. The framework the US has put together doesn't just not help reformation, but in many ways encourages recidivism by limiting employment and housing options. But what's the right choice? Am I right because I'm backed by dozens of studies by social scientists? Or is the local parent mob right to "protect their children" by keeping laws on the books that keep sex offenders in the fringes of community? If a child molester gets off on a technicality, is the victim's father who murders him a hero or a villain?

What about other crimes? In China you can go to jail for 10 days without prosecution for possessing pot. Here in NJ I can smoke a blunt on my front lawn as a police parade goes by and I'm fine. Who is right?

IDK, I'm just rambling at this point. This whole debate is so stupid and circular and hypocritical and fluid on all sides.

Everyone makes mistakes, behaves incorrectly, and causes harm though. Everyone has. You, me too.

I don't follow your logic. So like, because I ran through a red light once we should forgive all sexual predators?

No. Because we all behave incorrectly and cause harm -- most of us at some points in our life, serious, grave, harm even -- we should not cast out anyone who has from society and say "well, if you don't want to be cast out from society don't behave incorrectly." Because we all would be. (Someone that runs a red light can run over a pedestrian, and sometimes do, it's not thing separate from causing grave harm...)

This isn't talking about "forgiving" at all, in fact. i think the only person who can "forgive" someone who has done harm is the person they have done harm to, that's not even in the capacity of anyone else to do, is it?

This is, by the way, very related to "abolish prisons/policing" stuff.

When someone has done grave harm, and the recommended response is to try to keep anyone else from employing, doing business with, or even socializing with them -- what is the goal, what do you expect to accomplish? Preventing them from doing further harm? Repairing the harm done to those who had harm done to them? Making it less likely others will do harm? Just pure vengeance? Which of these are accomplished, how well, by this technique? What kind of community or society is creating, knowing that we will all do harm and all have harm done to us?

Some people had the norms change out from under them. In the past the societal norm was that Women were supposed to be shy and demure and pretend to be uninterested in sex. The men were supposed to take charge and "conquer".

Nowadays we know this is dumb and causes tons of unwanted harassment. People changed and made the world a better place, which was great. Then we went back and started prosecuting people for doing what they were told they were supposed to be doing at the time. This is why we have grandfather clauses in the law.

The difference between Sexual Harassment and Flirting is if the other person is into it.

I'm glad we've found the first person in life who has never made a mistake! What a shining example you are.

I have never been a sexual predator and will commit to never being one in the future. This is something I would wager the vast, vast majority of the public can commit to too. This is not something weird or out of the ordinary.

Or you just haven't realized which actions you've taken are predatory yet.

This is really the chief danger here - it's the ability to retroactively label anything as predatory. You don't actually have to be guilty; in fact, what's perhaps the most dangerous aspect is that you don't have to have even been a party to the matter, innocent or not. Someone who just plain doesn't like you can levy an accusation, and even if you've literally never interacted with them in your life, you're guilty. I've seen it happen firsthand.

To quote Cardinal Richelieu, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

This behavior really has nothing to do with the nature of the crime at hand; it's been used to discriminate against people by race, by gender, by interest, by religion - by just about anything. Giving human beings the ability to arbitrarily punish other humans, without recourse, is obscenely dangerous.

Someone, somewhere, thinks something you did is reprehensible.

So, to you, there's no possibility for a person to redeem themselves regardless of the nature of their transgression?

Alternatively, stop labeling everything and everyone sexual predator.

Noah explicitly admits in his original post last year, "I was a sexual predator" https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...

Should everyone who has ever behaved inappropriately in that area lose their employment when their behavior comes to light? Does it matter if they've since stopped behaving like that? Where do you draw the line? Should they be excluded from productive society altogether if one instance of misbehavior can be found, at any time in the past? Is that best?

Surely that's up to their employers to decide. I don't think anyone should feel obliged to employ Noah Bradley just because you happen to think that his apology is sincere.

Your point well taken, but my issue is not so much that these companies decided to terminate his employment. I think that was cowardly and in essence caving to an imaginary mob, but let's leave that aside.

My contention is that this whole spiraled up from discovery of some bad behavior from the past, that seems to have been inflated into an exaggerated character assassination.

My contention with the grandparent comment is that "just don't be x" is not really an option if we are seeking redemption for past sins.

I think the point in this case is pretty simple. A company can't employ this guy and also credibly claim to be concerned about creating a safe environment for women at conferences and other events. There's nothing 'exaggerated' about that.

Sometimes actions have long-lasting consequences. Apologies can't magically wash those away.

There is an assumption being used by these companies, and Twitter generally, that I disagree with: "Once someone has behaved in a certain way, they can never be trusted not to behave in that way again".

I think people are judging on a case by case basis. But in general, if you do something very bad, it is very difficult to persuade people that you've genuinely changed. How could it be otherwise?

Try thinking about it with Noah replaced by one of HN’s favorite ‘bad guys’. Facebook periodically puts out statements saying “Oops, sorry, but don’t worry – we totally respect privacy now”. How long would it take for you to believe that Facebook had really changed? How would you feel about a privacy conference accepting sponsorship from Facebook, and justifying this decision by pointing to one of the apologetic statements?

That is - stop using the internet as the disruptive communications network it way designed to be.

Originally, the Internet (including, but not limited to, the World Wide Web) was a place where nobody was interested in who you were as a person. It was and is geared towards structuring and disseminating knowledge.

In that sense, the entire somesphere is a tumor to the Internet.

That's a very tunnel vision view of the early web. You're ignoring BBS's, AOL, usenet, IRC, etc. which were all created with the explicit purpose of people connecting and talking to other people. You can go even further back to things like Community Memory and the Homebrew Computer Club--computing has firmly been embracing people connecting to other people since the early days.

I was huge into the BBS scene for years. I had a handle. Only a few close personal friends knew my name.

I think most of us here are anonymous.

Sure you could connect with people, but you wouldn’t connect with Firstname Lastname, you would connect with some nickname that you were associating with some cool stuff they had written about.

It was not inherently about people, it was about what those people managed to bring into virtual existence that was interesting, and it was that you wanted to connect with.

None of those need, or benefit from, your real name.