This is a rational reaction. It's also a great example of the chilling effect on speech, that cancelling can have.

And when the chilling effect is strong enough, it atomizes and isolates individuals, makes them feel powerless, and creates a false sense of consensus around a particular issue.

Domination and coercion over genuine persuasion -- that's the point.

You're not wrong, but it's pretty sad. When moderates are afraid to speak because of what extremists will say, we have a vicious cycle.

[edit: btw I'm just making a general comment. I'm not saying anything in particular about RMS's or Noah Bradley's cancellation/re-emergence, and not just because of your advice. I haven't been following these events and don't know who said what or what actually happened. I don't want to be one of those uninformed voices in any direction.]

So it is better to kowtow to the mob and let them burn the village down? I agree that it is best to avoid it but that does not mean that this one-sided parade of outrage should be tolerated.

I think you are right.

And it really bothers me because sometimes I see something really unfair, and it is hard to not say anything, but it is not real life and you only need a handful of anonymous people with enough time on their hands to make your life hell. Just because you're not anonymous.

I almost regret being my real me online. We always had trolls, but this is something else.

I almost deleted this comment before sending it. That's the level of self-censorship because what for? What's the point of sharing my opinion here? Is it worth it? Probably not!

I find myself self-censoring more and more here on HN. I never had a problem until someone on here accused me of being a racist because my company consisted of primarily white people. It really messed with my head for a little bit. I mostly try and shy away from any contentious topic online now. I haven’t felt this pressure IRL (yet?) because people that know me know that I’m a very reasonable person who doesn’t hate anyone or any group.

> because people that know me know that I’m a very reasonable person who doesn’t hate anyone or any group

That, and other aspects of reality may not interest the kind of people who would 'cancel' someone.

This is exactly why cancel culture is so toxic (and to lessor extent all "political correctness"). It is oppression, repression and censorship. It is mob rule, happy only when they get a lynching, no matter the guilt or innocence.

Do you think Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, or Kevin Spacey should have been cancelled?

I agree that it's overboard on a lot of things, especially in the past couple years, but I think it's important to remember the "cancel culture" started as a way to hold certain people to account who were exhibiting socially unacceptable behavior, but were not being socially punished.

All societies have social norms, and all societies have informal (i.e. not through the legal system) means of enforcing those norms. There was a pretty significant gap in U.S. society's ability to enforce social norms against certain types of people, and social media filled that gap.

Now some people have taken that tool farther than can reasonably be justified, but the best way to fight back against that excess is not to say "cancel culture is oppression!" because it DID fill a need in our society, it DID punish people who deserved to be punished, and I don't think we can get the cat back in the bag. So, don't fight the tool, fight the people using it where it isn't justified.

(Who gets to decide when it's "justified" you ask? Well, we do. As a society. Together, online. We're going to have to figure it out. But if we go into a discussion about cancel culture assuming the other side is only interested in opression, repression, and censorship, it's not going to go well.)

Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey were literally charged with crimes, and Matt Lauer probably could be. There is no reason in theory that the criminal justice system couldn't handle the cases you brought up. Whether we need Twitter in practice to hold the justice system accountable is another can of worms, but there's a huge difference between calling out criminals that slipped through the cracks and calling out people that did random things we've now decided should be punished despite having no formal process in existence to do so.

I think people are way too impatient honestly. There will be things we will realize should be illegal, there will also be things we think we realized should be illegal but then turn out to be horribly wrong about. If people want next day enforcement there will be a lot of damage caused by these latter cases. I'd much rather a few assholes get off while we work out the proper way to enforce something (if at all).

The problem with allowing the people as a completely unmoderated mob to decide things is twofold - group dynamics make people utterly irrational, and there is little way to hold someone accountable if they falsely set off a mob. There would need to be some sort of anonymous voting function if we wanted to combat the former. For the latter, how about we introduce a formal mechanism for suing a Tweeter for slander?

A mob on twitter doesn't decide anything

The idea that unless something is criminally prosecuted there should be no repercussions is toxic.

I never said that criminal prosecution is the only way there can be repercussions, it was just the obvious factor in the examples OP gave. Aside from civil prosecution, it is perfectly reasonable for companies, schools, etc. to enforce their own rules - so long as they are made clear from the outset and enforced as evenly as possible across the applicable population. The problem with social media justice is how unpredictably it is enforced, which is part of the problem I was describing where we can't just make things retroactively illegal at the drop of a hat. "Illegal" extending to actions that are forbidden by an organization for example, not just the US government.

Mobs on Twitter absolutely do decide things. Yes, a company or school or whatever has to be kowtowing to said mob for there to be "real life" consequences, but in a number of cases the mob has absolutely acted as the jury. This is something that OP was literally praising.

Whoa, try reading my comment a little more generously, please. I specifically said the current iteration of cancel culture is going overboard. I was not praising cancel culture.

My main point was that cancel culture arose because of a real gap in our society's ability to handle certain types of people doing certain types of awful things... you mentioned that a lot of it could be handled by the legal system, but the reality was, it wasn't.

Weinstein wasn't charged until after he was cancelled. Same with Spacey. Lauer has never been charged. Epstein had been hit with some stuff, but basically let off with a slap on the wrist.R. Kelly had been acquitted before, and was basically unpunished.

All of these people's actions were (1) well-known in their communities ("open secrets"), (2) ongoing, and (3) not punished by any of the traditional institutions of society. Given that reality, and a global communications network where anyone can share their story, how could cancel culture not arise?

If I was praising anything, I was praising the fact that real abusers who operated with impunity for years were finally getting told to just stay home. Because other than Weinstein, that's basically all that happened.

Now, cancel culture being wielded against people like in TFA, that's way overboard, it's counterproductive, and people should stop it. But I think that's something we're going to have to solve as a society, through social discourse, not with government regulation.

Yeah sorry, I know you were saying it has gone overboard, I didn't mean to present your comment as praising cancel culture in its entirety. But I did read it as praising some aspects of what these mobs can do, which the person I was replying to claimed wasn't a thing at all. More to your point, I get that there have been some positive applications, but I'm just not sure it is possible to avoid much of the bad (which IMO outweighs the good). At least not without fundamental changes to how the call outs are currently done.

> I get that there have been some positive applications, but I'm just not sure it is possible to avoid much of the bad (which IMO outweighs the good)

If people could just grant everything else and get right down to this point, the discourse on this issue would be so much more useful and interesting. And much harder. Thank you for a thoughtful comment.

> but were not being socially punished.

That you think social punishment is a thing that should happen, means you and I have irreconcilable world views / moral values.

This is probably good advice but that is exactly what is wrong with this. There's a negative gain to questioning if the person indeed even did something wrong or opening it to debate. There's positive gain for those piling on to the outrage as they are seen to be of good virtue.

Yes, and misunderstanding is not required, only an uncharitable interpretation, sometimes on purpose.

There are quite a few topics where any appeal to logic is not condoned or appreciated. To the extent that mere mention is enough for the mob to turn. For example, any time a woman or child may have been mistreated. There are others of course, but too charged to list.

Steer clear of these subjects, especially if on the autism spectrum and can't read that the discussion has changed to emotion-only mode.

Before social media, it was normally considered impolite to discuss religion, politics, or other sensitive topics in the presence of people you don't know well. I think this is probably good advice on social media, though people forget it.

I don't think it's self-censorship so much as a thing humans do to maintain the fragile network of relationships that holds society together. There are all kinds of things we want to do but refrain from doing in order to be polite: is not picking your nose in public self-censorship?

No, just post anonymously. Way better. Then your voice is heard, but you don't have to suffer personal consequences.

As a woman who has been posting anonymously for years to avoid uninteresting personal attacks, I've come to enjoy and rely on it. Maybe the entire Real Names idiocy started by Google+ can be forgotten about and we can move on? Nothing wrong with an anonymous handle.

The irony is that taken out of context, this one sentiment sums up everything that is wrong with the internet and, more specifically, social media.

When removed from consequences to our actions, we’re free to say pretty much anything we want.

If everyone actually cared about the impact our words had on others, we wouldn’t have to resort to the using the same response that caused the problem in the first place.

The opinion of a person with some credibility, like name is N, lives in a city M, occupation is X is valued more than some of anonymous.

Because nowadays there are too many fake accounts, even paid trolls, and talking to them (or even listening to them) is just waste of time, not a meaningful conversation.

My twitter account is anonymous and I sometimes get replies like why would I want to talk to nobody. And they are right, they probably shouldn't.

Anonymous accounts can have a reputation, too. I have been on HN since 2008. I wouldn’t like to have this account burned. In a way, I do have a reputation of not posting total shit, since I’m still here.

Same is true for many communities where users gain popularity and trust if they participate in a meaningful way.

bingo - this; add to that higher stakes conversations, like political grouping, and you have started down the path of why anonymity is irreplaceable in public discourse.

> better to stay away entirely from certain sensitive topics

Yeah... but the world would be a better place if we didn't have to.

Honestly, you don't have to.

Getting cancelled doesn't just cost your job, it also costs friends and family and possibly your spouse as well. So even if the probability is small the consequences can be so huge that any person prone to anxiety won't be able to live with the risk and instead just changes their behaviour to avoid it. And when anxious people don't they just commit suicide when it happens, making the effective consequence death, avoiding that at all cost seems reasonable.

That is their intention. To shutdown discourse and shift the Overton window. This flows onto preference falsification.

I agree with you on the overton window part, and that's why i'm not against "cancel culture" even though i won't participate in an obvious bourgeois plot (/s).

The social liberals are the 3rd political group who used it, i'd say at least as efficiently as the far right (first group that used internet to shift the Overton window) and more efficiently than the libertarian/fiscal liberals (second group).

But as social liberals are far more numerous than the far right, the impact is magnified. I find it hypocrite that members of the first two group trying to open the overton window are calling them out on this.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted, but part of “the right,” American Christian evangelicals, did indeed create the format of cancel culture that we see today. The linked article has a decent overview.

It’s not totally accurate: boycotts have been around much longer, and can serve broader purposes. I think it’s fair to say that evangelicals were the first to boycott companies based not on their systemic practices but on individual people’s lifestyles.

I remember in the 90s when Amy Grant, a contemporary Christian music icon, was shunned because she got a divorce. Fast forward to 200X when the Dixie Chicks were then canceled for criticizing GWB. We could also jump back to Bill Clinton’s impeachment…

https://religionnews.com/2020/06/17/evangelicals-perfected-c...

“When the Nazis arrested the Communists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist. When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat. When they arrested the trade unionists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist. When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.” https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niemöller