Cancel culture is fine in some cases

[ceecee]

I understand that a university wouldn't let a Nazi speak, but they started cancelling perfectly rational and well intended people, like Richard Dawkins for example. Universities should be a place where free speech thrives.

Free speech inherently has consequences - good and bad and for many they simply aren't willing to accept that part of the free speech bargain. Many also tend to conveniently forget that the 1st Amendment only protects a person from retaliation by the government for what they say. It has no bearing on everyone else's retaliation - such as a Nazi getting punched. No one stopped that bitch from speaking either.

 

[Coriolis]

When it comes down to mob think and shaming others into taking part in the cancelling without letting them think and decide for themselves... That’s when it becomes a problem

Well, yes, any tool can be misused, but the problem lies in the user rather than the tool itself.

Free speech inherently has consequences - good and bad and for many they simply aren't willing to accept that part of the free speech bargain. Many also tend to conveniently forget that the 1st Amendment only protects a person from retaliation by the government for what they say. It has no bearing on everyone else's retaliation - such as a Nazi getting punched. No one stopped that bitch from speaking either.

Yes. Free speech means you have the right to speak your mind. It does not come with the right for your opinion to be accepted or to escape critique.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Well, yes, any tool can be misused, but the problem lies in the user rather than the tool itself.


Yes. Free speech means you have the right to speak your mind. It does not come with the right for your opinion to be accepted or to escape critique.

people pressured to take part in cancellation and censorship campaigns themselves become tools. So I’d argue the problem can be the tool, depending on which tool we’re talking about

 

[Coriolis]

people pressured to take part in cancellation and censorship campaigns themselves become tools. So I’d argue the problem can be the tool, depending on which tool we’re talking about

The problem you note about people is across the board. Absent "cancel culture", people would be pressured to take part in other processes or activities in counterproductive ways, so again, the problem isn't with the tool but rather with operator error.

 

[tony_goth]

Sure, maybe cancelling someone like Harvey Weinstein wouldn't be such a bad idea, but say, the cancelling of people for saying stupid shit when they were 15 that gets pulled up just because they're famous now?

Most people suffer from a lack of knowledge about individual interests.

But lack of knowledge doesn't mean being stupid. These people still have some sense of justice, at least individually when they're not being pressured. Lack of knowledge is frequent. Lack of intelligence is rare.

I mean, they're able to know when a cancelling is "deserved" or not. Most people have faced what they feel injustice (especially poor people or people with poor people's culture) and don't really like when something "unfair" happens to someone they like or don't know personally.

I mean, almost anyone can assess a "sin" factor for someone, which depends on matter (saying ethnic slurs v. raping people) and on mitigating/aggravating circumstances (such as age of author/victim).

I don't say "sin" in a religious way, but as a sense of moral thinking.

When someone, although guilty in some way, seems to be punished in a disproportionate way, they will react in some way. They will defend him if punishment is felt too harsh.

Child education and resources is an area that requires moderation and censorship because of developmental issues. They cannot process information in the same manner as adults

I don't think there is much difference to process information with little knowledge, or lots of superficial knowledge. Except the latter is generally sufficient to cope with a peer-pressuring environment in order to maintain an appearance of an at least tolerable social desirability. Or I'd say it in a less elegant way : looking PC.

I'm against censorship and I don't like what cancel culture has grown into during the era of social media

I agree with you, but social media is privately owned, even if we have a feeling it's a public place. Pretty much like a nightclub, a bar, or anyone's home. FB is basically someone's house. And in your own house you've got the absolute power to kick, ban, or refuse entry to anyone except for cops, even for no reason. It's private property.

Even this forum is someone's house. I don't like all the forum rules but I abide with them because they're the rules of the house ; I accept and abide by the rules because i'm invited in the owner's house, and out of respect for him, his private property, and the principle of private property. That's it. But the rules I don't like are still useful to me, not only because they may protect me in some ways, but because they help me to train myself to speak frankly in a censored environment, pretty much like this French guy who wrote a book with absolutely no "e" letter (La Disparition, no joke).

For powerless people, it was one of the few ways they could exercise power by refusing to buy or listen to product from musicians who had made racist statements.

Censorship is really useless, people who accept or like racist people will still listen or buy their music.

I was 15 and there was a lot of underground White supremacist music circulating at my private school. Most students listened to it and liked it, even non-White students. But that school was owned by someone who forbade this kind of music for image reasons. Like, I think, drugs in prison.

Another example : GG Allin had a lot of fans and was often seen as an underground rock'n'roll legend, even with songs which were racist or worse.

Ultimately, I see cancel culture as a resistance to change and to a broader degree, a power struggle of the majority seeking to hold onto that power.

As you meant, it is a power... struggle, and not a power Care Bears-like negotiating.

I don't see why it's "oppressive" or "bullying". It's a natural consequence of interactions.

I agree and disagree (sic) with you, because cancel culture is naturally oppressive and bullying.

But basically as I said above, it's simple as "you're weak you die". Darwin is always right at some point. It's not a jungle but an complex organization which obscure jungle's laws without annulling them. Even Sun Tzu said something like "numbers tell who'll win". And I don't read it as "numbers of people" but as "numbers of people weighted by their social importance".

Universities should be a place where free speech thrives.

I agree but don't make yourself illusions. Freedom of speech is not freedom of being listened.

And universities are basically grown people's schools. There is still a teacher who sets a standard. Even if when I was at college rules were more lax than at high school.

I don't like Hitler's doctrine (I'm mentally disabled so in the Reich I would be killed probably as part of Aktion T4), but hunters say you have to be able to think like your enemy. I'm an antifa, my wife too, but almost everyone in my wife's family is a far-righter. But I can listen to some far-righters anyway, not to agree with them, but because their opinions are useful to me as means to find opinions for me (to oppose them and also because I may not disagree with all sub-opinions, such as death penalty). Far-righters can say everything to me except "shut up".

How come you're losing so much time to write this ?

I do this to "train" my thinking. Though I may not agree with everything, I do have an interest to use other people's opinions. I think all contradicting opinions are essentially valid strictly as opinions, but when it comes to choose a side I think someone has to choose the side that fits his interests the best.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I agree with you, but social media is privately owned, even if we have a feeling it's a public place. Pretty much like a nightclub, a bar, or anyone's home. FB is basically someone's house. And in your own house you've got the absolute power to kick, ban, or refuse entry to anyone except for cops, even for no reason. It's private property.

Well they're technically publically shared companies, but I understand your point.

That said, I think this is a weak and lazy argument people too often make to handwave away this issue. They require different standards than those we might apply when looking at a bar or nightclub. I don't think a widely used, free social media service is comparable to a privately owned, for pay brick-and-mortar business such as a nightclub or a restaurant serving far smaller, paying clientele bases. Calling FB someone's house is like saying a privately owned public park space is a house. There's also a potential argument to be made against the "it's privately owned" argument based on previous legal precedent (see Supreme Court case Packingham vs North Carolina). That decision only prohibits government from limiting one's access to these sites and services, but I would look to the broader interpretation Justice Kennedy advocated for in his opinion. It likely won't be the last time a case involving free speech and the internet (itself originally largely a public forum) will come before a high court, and they very well could eventually adopt a broader interpretation more in line with Justice Kennedy's position.


Furthermore, look at Twitter's mission statement:

The mission we serve as Twitter, Inc. is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve – and do not detract from – a free and global conversation.

And Facebook's mission statement:

Founded in 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

Based on these statements, anything short of actual bullying or harassment ought to be allowed, no matter how ridiculous or bad an idea. Regardless of whether bad ideas get through, they do a disservice in not holding to their own mission statements.

Now, if these companies wish to use their power as private enterprises to determine what is and isn't acceptable speech, they have every right to do so based on current law, but their mission statements should actually reflect that decision and they should cease branding themselves as open markets for the sharing and debating of ideas and opinions.

(Besides, it's not hard to block people spewing ideas one doesn't want to read. Just look at Steve Shives' auto blocker that blocks potentially incendiary users from replying to or viewing his twitter posts. And it's quite easy to block people on facebook as well)


From a legal perspective, you're not wrong, but I think we're applying 20th century legality to a uniquely 21st century issue, and until the legal side is updated, this won't be an easily resolved issue.

Maybe we need a publicly owned social media site It's the only clear-cut answer I can think of, at least with the current legalities defined and enforced as they are.

 

[theablekingedgar]

Well they're technically publically shared companies, but I understand your point.

That said, I think this is a weak and lazy argument people too often make to handwave away this issue. They require different standards. I don't think a widely used, free social media service is comparable to a privately owned, for pay brick-and-mortar business such as a nightclub or a restaurant serving far smaller, paying clientele bases. Calling FB someone's house is like saying a privately owned public park space is a house. There's also a potential argument to be made against the "it's privately owned" argument based on previous legal precedent (see Supreme Court case Packingham vs North Carolina). That decision only prohibits government from limiting one's access to these sites and services, but I would look to the broader interpretation Justice Kennedy advocated for in his opinion. It likely won't be the last time a case involving free speech and the internet (itself originally largely a public forum) will come before a high court, and they very well could eventually adopt a broader approach more in line with Justice Kennedy's position.


Furthermore, look at Twitter's mission statement:

The mission we serve as Twitter, Inc. is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve – and do not detract from – a free and global conversation.

And Facebook's mission statement:

Founded in 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

Based on these statements, anything short of actual bullying or harassment ought to be allowed, no matter how ridiculous or bad an idea. Regardless of whether bad ideas get through, they do a disservice in not holding to their own mission statements.

Now, if these companies wish to use their power as private enterprises to determine what is and isn't acceptable speech, they have every right to do so based on current law, but their mission statements should actually reflect that decision and they should cease branding themselves as open markets for the sharing and debating of ideas and opinions.

(Besides, it's not hard to block people spewing ideas one doesn't want to read. Just look at Steve Shives' auto blocker that blocks potentially incendiary users from replying to or viewing his twitter posts. And it's quite easy to block people on facebook as well)

Fundamentally, there is no difference. Twitter and Facebook are privately-owned spaces, and thus only then owners of such can dictate what is posted there. The fact they are mass media isn't relevant from a legal standpoint.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Fundamentally, there is no difference. Twitter and Facebook are privately-owned spaces, and thus only then owners of such can dictate what is posted there. The fact they are mass media isn't relevant from a legal standpoint.

Privately owned but operated as public spaces. We're using outdated legalities and they need to be reevaluated, rather than doubled down upon.

and check the edits, I added more to that post.

 

[theablekingedgar]

Privately owned but operated as public spaces. We're using outdated legalities and they need to be reevaluated, rather than doubled down upon.

and check the edits, I added more to that post.

I don't see the need for differentiation. Property rights are property rights, as Twitter and Facebook own all the servers, coding, trademarks, copyrights, etc. associated. I respect your view but I don't agree. The only reason they're public spaces is because of revenues and profit. it's not out of charity or benevolence. Like any other business, they could fold or retract their products at any time.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I don't see the need for differentiation. Property rights are property rights, as Twitter and Facebook own all the servers, coding, trademarks, copyrights, etc. associated. I respect your view but I don't agree. The only reason they're public spaces is because of revenues and profit. it's not out of charity or benevolence. Like any other business, they could fold or retract their products at any time.

Yes but their mission statements tell a different story. It's irresponsible to say one thing and do another thing completely. The core of my argument was that their messaging has been mixed, overall and that their practices should either reflect their mission statements OR their mission statements should be changed to reflect their actual practices. I agreed with your point that they are private companies and can do as they see fit purely on legalities, but I feel now you're ignoring the gist of my previous post to nitpick and ignore the core argument I was making.

And regarding the argument that there is no fundamental difference, I would disagree and suggest private social media services occupy a grey area between what we would consider public and private spaces. They are increasingly used by a majority of people to communicate and exchange/debate ideas, and they are increasingly used by publically elected officials as forums to interact with the electorate. The closest thing I can think of from recent history are the "company towns" common in 19th and early 20th century America, places where there was a similar grey area or blurring of lines between what constituted "private" vs "public" spaces. Some might have made similar arguments defending company towns' administrators' rights to limit their residents' speech as they saw fit. Our current understanding of what private companies can and cannot allow would not be easily applied as a one size fix for that grey area and similarly, I'm not sure it provides an easy one size fix for the grey area of publically used but privately owned online spaces.

 

[tony_goth]

I don't see the need for differentiation. Property rights are property rights, as Twitter and Facebook own all the servers, coding, trademarks, copyrights, etc. associated. I respect your view but I don't agree. The only reason they're public spaces is because of revenues and profit. it's not out of charity or benevolence. Like any other business, they could fold or retract their products at any time.

Agreed, because even if FB is a publicly shared company, only shareowners own it, and in an uneven manner.

It's easy to own a part of FB : just ask your stockbroker to sell you at least 1 share. But 1 share, even 100, will not make your ownership big enough to have any significant power towards FB, though you might earn some money from capital gains and dividends.

FB is operated by people who may or may not be its shareholders. And they have to operate it as a commercial business, otherwise they may face consequences of shareholders selling their shares.

I don't know FB's CEO's moral quality, he might be a saint or not, he still has to run his business to put food on the table.

 

[tony_goth]

And Facebook's mission statement:

Founded in 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

It might be a mission at heart, but as any name-worthy business, FB has to make his financial survival/prosperity come first.

This means "we, the shareholders, allow you to make your mission with our money, but we expect money from you, and you have to pay even if it means making your mission imperfectly".

 

[tony_goth]

Someone said people were cancelled and not opinions. Cancel culture looks more like "people cancel culture", because individuals are deemed undesirable and not deserving any visibility except for "he's a [insert any insult here] because [insert the worst thing he did in his whole life]". Cancel culture is not only a culture about individual extrajudicial ostracization or modern public lynching, but also a culture in which you are the same thing as the worst damage you ever did to society in your whole life (or for some people just the worst mistake).

But I live in France and there was, and there still is something like "opinion cancel culture". Some opinions are "banned" from the "collective opinion list" independently of any people and declared they're not opinions anymore. In France people say "racism is not an opinion", but I don't really see how someone can disagree with something which is not an opinion. Maybe they said "racism is not something you are allowed to express publicly without taking the risk of getting a criminal sentence". I mean, "2+2=4" and "2+2=5" both look like opinions, don't they ? Maybe the French say "racism is not an opinion" like they say "nobody is supposed not knowing the law" ; the latter is a legal fiction used because it's impossible to know if someone knew the law or not at the time of his offense ; I mean "ignorance of the law is no excuse" means "it is no excuse judicially and criminally" rather than "it is no excuse morally and intellectually". So those who'd agree or disagree with "racism is not an opinion" might find a rightful interpretation here.

 

[Totenkindly]

Ricky Schroder Calls Cops After Kyle Rittenhouse Bail Backlash: Report

At least in Schroder's favor, there's not much career left to be canceled.

Doxing and/or directing violence towards him is pretty lame; meanwhile, though, it still is mind-boggling though that he would post bail for someone in these circumstances, especially if he cares about how he is perceived. There's a reason why Rittenhouse had a $2 million bail on him, and paying off such a large chunk of it wasn't going to win him any kudos or make people look fondly on him.

Basically when someone does something so public that it says something about them as a person, not only does it make individuals respond negatively but it can easily impact their career if they are in entertainment -- if individuals are going to cancel seeing someone's work, then it's not a far cry for the production companies to see an investment in a particular person to also be dubious. This is very much what happened to Johnny Depp after he lost his libel challenge over being called a wife-beater.

It's kind of an odd thing in the sense that, let's say 100 years from now, someone watches a movie with Johnny Depp in it and enjoys the film and even think Johnny Depp was excellent at his role. (Or some similar actor.) But they don't know the actor's personal history. [Note: this is close to equivalent for us watching actors from the 1940's. Without researching it, most viewers won't know the moral deficiencies of the director or the main actors and actresses in those films.] So a film or particular portrayal could be considered a work of art, detached from the history of the director or cast.

But once you know of the things, then an emotional response gets generated, and sometimes an ethical conviction. Maybe classical music is a better comparison, since that music is still fairly known even if 1-3 centuries old. People still love Wagner (as an obvious example) but are conflicted over his German nationalism and anti-semitism, etc:

Wagner was a prolific writer who published essays and pamphlets on a wide range of subjects throughout his life.[3] Wagner's writing style is often verbose, unclear and turgid, which has greatly added to the confusion about his opinions. Several of his writings have achieved some notoriety, in particular, his essay Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music), a critical view on the influence of Jews in German culture and society at that time. The essays he wrote in his final years were also controversial, with many readers perceiving them to employ an endorsement of racist beliefs. Some commentators also believe that some of Wagner's operas contain adverse caricatures of Jews.

Wagner was promoted during the Nazi era as one of Adolf Hitler's favourite composers. Historical perception of Wagner has been tainted with this association ever since, and there is debate over how Wagner's writings and operas might have influenced the creation of Nazi Germany.

Wagner controversies - Wikipedia

I don't really blame people who can't read or listen to certain works of art because of the associations of the creators. (I have some convictions as well on a personal level about things or businesses I just can't bring myself to frequent.) I guess we just get into a situation of how that works on a communal basis.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Someone posted something about there being no special case for children developmentally, so I can address that fallacy. There is a reason children are shielded from overt sex and violence. Their ability to process complex emotions including those resulting from fear of violence, or the complexities of adult sexuality makes certain information damaging psychologically to them.

As a teacher of children, I also have a value to respect family values and assumptions because young children are not developmentally ready to challenge their parents' paradigms. As a result I work as a teacher from a neutral perspective that mildly supports parental paradigms. By the time they are teenagers and young adults, then they are developmentally and cognitively ready to start questioning and creating paradigms for themselves.

The frontal lobe in the brain doesn't finish developing until the mid-20's. This is the judgment center for the brain, so before that point a person doesn't not have the full capacity to regulate emotions and make decisions based solely on personal will. I would say that later in life both will and choice can be compromised through chemical imbalances and mental shock. For this reason, I also edit in contexts of trauma at all levels. I think it is morally wrong to try to convert people on their deathbeds when their cognitive functioning is compromised.

I tend to believe in some editing and moderation when there is cognitive impairment or it is not fully developed. I also question the wisdom of certain movies in a dementia facility could be damaging like extreme horror. If someone can barely process reality, should they be watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? For a group of residents with Alzheimer and dementia, I say 'no'.

It's interesting that highly valuing the sanctity of individual will is what drives me to value some editing of information for compromised individuals.

 

[Mole]

Free speech is indivisible, your free speech is my free speech, and my free speech is your free speech.

The narcissists value their free speech more than your free speech, and if they don't like what you say, or are offended by what you say, they will cancel you.

Cancelling is a popular direct attack on free speech.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I will dare to be a little bit controversial. For me what is in US known as cancel culture can be one of the most vital tools of democracy. In other words if you live in the area that has openly totalitarian past it is kinda good that you try to cancel some things from that era(s): the politicians, the press, the iconography, the constitutions that have driven people into camps ... etc. Otherwise you get what you have in this part of the world, that totalitarian stuff become kinda cool. Or that a convicted war criminal comes into a city with his followers and holds speeches that intimidate and troll locals that were sent into the camps or lost parts of their family (don't even get me started on property). Therefore for me criminal law is fundamentally a form of cancel culture and people who are fundamentally against it at any level need to have their head checked, or they simply need to be introduced to genuine totalitarian stuff. Just so that we can see if they can stomach it.



Therefore I don't see a fundamental problem with the cancel culture as long as we remain in the domain of facts and common sense. Since some things evidently need to be canceled for the sake of everybody. Because it often happens "leave him be, leave him be" and then the one year he announces his campaign and in the end someone ends in a camp (with rest of the family). Sounds paranoid but here we had a number of such systems and therefore certain standards have to be maintained. You simply shouldn't be politically relevant if there are tapes of you bragging on evening news how you were killing civilians. Kinda the same goes for the media that are trying to present "the hero" and the joy he felt in the bloodshed ... etc. I understand that these are perhaps things that western mind can't fully phantom but tolerating just about everything isn't really the answer in my book.


So for me cancel culture is vital part of any genuine/functional democracy.

 

[citizen cane]

It's a case-by-case basis thing. It bears mentioning that there is a lot of black and white thinking on both ends of the spectrum. Some folks seem to want every publicized transgression to have public consequence. Others seem to view public backlash of any sort as part of a monolithic 'cancel culture' entity, and insist that public outcry against even the most dangerous or offensive transgressions is some sort of wrongdoing. Both of these are patently wrong and destructive to civilized society.

 

[Mole]

First they take offence, then they cancel.

 

[Obfuscate]

Free speech is indivisible, your free speech is my free speech, and my free speech is your free speech.

The narcissists value their free speech more than your free speech, and if they don't like what you say, or are offended by what you say, they will cancel you.

Cancelling is a popular direct attack on free speech.

i rarely find myself agreeing with you... this is a pleasant deviation from that trend...

post script:

i am not sure the word narcissists was requisite...