I also get cancelled on several forums on a regular basis when I say bad things about pharmaceutical companies or against government etc. even if it's completely neutral. I've seen all reasons already to censor me: - insults - conspiracy - talking about controversial topics in general
none of those were true, ever..
Also “cancel culture” is mostly not a bad thing, it’s more like “consequence culture”. The people who find themselves “cancelled” almost always still end up with large platforms.
> The people who find themselves “cancelled” almost always still end up with large platforms.
Survivorship bias. Most of the people who get cancelled just disappear. They don't have FU money or a big following. We only keep hearing about the few who are too big to cancel.
Plus you're not taking into account how much of a chilling effect all of this has. Many people are now self censoring. That has a regressive effect on society. We can't progress without free and open exchange of ideas.
I don’t buy the idea that the supposed “chilling effect” is a bad thing. If “self censoring” means there are fewer people spreadinf misinformation, then I’m all for it.
But ultimately individuals can't and shouldn't be prevented from doing anything they want within the bounds of law.
Is Joe Rogan really the problem? If you don't like it, don't listen to it. I don't.
Someone else framed this in terms of centralized vs decentralized distribution, which brings up a lot of important considerations — if Neil Young or Joni Mitchell would just distribute their songs themselves, they wouldn't have to issue an ultimatum. Likewise, if Rogan did so he wouldn't be the target of censorship.
But why isn't Young making that his hill? He doesn't care about freedom of speech, he just wants his ascendant. And Spotify could do what used to seem to me to be common sense, support its artists and drop those calling for restrictions on other artists' works.
This is a bad cultural route we're headed down. It doesn't go anywhere well. "Cancel culture" became a sort of buzzy topic of conversation, but it's a real problem and goes deeper than the referent of that catchphrase.