Icy Gull
Back on the rollercoaster
- Jul 5, 2003
- 72,015
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[Misc] Cancel Culture/Online Shaming
- Thread starter Eeyore
- Start date
smillie's garden
Am I evil?
- Aug 11, 2003
- 2,736
What is diddums not allowed to say these days? C'mon, out with it so I can cancel you.
In the US it refers to a practice which can see certain individuals banned from speaking at certain events. The most common being campus talks where a figure has a talk there cancelled or informed that they won't be invited to speak there. Another form is where advertisers on a show will be targeted to withdraw their support for it if that show has a viewpoint which a group finds offensive or distatesful. For example a show on Fox. It can also range to an individual's YouTube channel.
The tactic originated from the more extreme left. What's started to happen now is that the more mainstream left have started to experience it. When it was being used against the likes of Hopkins people were relatively happy (perhaps it was clearer cut). Of course the nuance to all of this is that once it is accepted as a practice then it might be used against others who never thought they would qualify (as they were progressive or in a similar spot on the political spectrum).
The tactic originated from the more extreme left. What's started to happen now is that the more mainstream left have started to experience it. When it was being used against the likes of Hopkins people were relatively happy (perhaps it was clearer cut). Of course the nuance to all of this is that once it is accepted as a practice then it might be used against others who never thought they would qualify (as they were progressive or in a similar spot on the political spectrum).
Uh_huh_him
Well-known member
- Sep 28, 2011
- 12,123
I am opposed to cancel culture primarily because the far right are able to take the moral high ground, because of it.
If you allow them to express their opinions freely, everyone can see what a bunch of twats they truly are.
But instead they have managed to stake the claims to the freedom of speech movement, previously occupied by the left.
Massive own goal by the left, leading to growing support for right wing ideologies from the disenfranchised.
That depends on how far to the right your own stance is. Some complaining of left wing bias are further to the right than Katie Hopkins etc.
Uh_huh_him
Well-known member
- Sep 28, 2011
- 12,123
The far right don't want to get rid of cancel culture, it benefits them far more than the left.
They just want to raise awareness to it, because it highlights a level of hypocrisy which damages the opposition.
They just want to raise awareness to it, because it highlights a level of hypocrisy which damages the opposition.
BadFish
Huge Member
- Oct 19, 2003
- 18,201
Yes, I agree that was ridiculous.
Would have been great for the BBC to stand up for him.
Comcast
father_and_son
Well-known member
We have passed through a period (let's say just the 20th Century, but obviously stretching back further) of rampant racism, sexism, bigotry and generally unsavoury behaviour/attitudes.
We (or at least many) have now lurched the other way and, while we briefly passed through a period of improvements in gay/women's/minority rights, it was only because the pendulum was swinging through that ideal point.
Cancel Culture represents the swing going too far but, it is a phase we'll pass through and things will return back to a better state soon.
Social media allows for a speed of change in society that we haven't experienced before and we haven't yet learnt to handle it properly.
We (or at least many) have now lurched the other way and, while we briefly passed through a period of improvements in gay/women's/minority rights, it was only because the pendulum was swinging through that ideal point.
Cancel Culture represents the swing going too far but, it is a phase we'll pass through and things will return back to a better state soon.
Social media allows for a speed of change in society that we haven't experienced before and we haven't yet learnt to handle it properly.
An open letter regarding this was written the other day, signed by people across the political spectrum including Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Fukuyama and former George W Bush speech writer David Frum. Here's an extract:
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.
Full letter here: https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Billy Bragg wrote a thoughtful response:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/10/free-speech-young-people
Four other writer gave their thoughts, some in favour, some against, here:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2...h-under-threat-cancel-culture-writers-respond
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.
Full letter here: https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Billy Bragg wrote a thoughtful response:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/10/free-speech-young-people
Four other writer gave their thoughts, some in favour, some against, here:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2...h-under-threat-cancel-culture-writers-respond
portlock seagull
Well-known member
- Jul 28, 2003
- 17,777
Agree. It’s dangerous for one thing because, astonishingly I know, the mob is often pig ignorant. People get ‘lynched’ for all sorts of ridiculous, spurious, unfair reasons. And the same bigots refuse to even acknowledge their dumb ****ery even after it’s pointed out to them afterwards.
I've been seeing a lot of this in my various twitter feeds, it's become quite the talking point following the harpers letter posted above by bakero. A letter that has faced a lot of push back, some of the writers have claimed they were misled, and various different accounts of what people were told they were signing appears to back that up. Several asked for their names to be removed. Many of the vague examples of cancel culture the letter gives have been analysed and largely dismissed. Many feel that the letter was simply an opportunity for some of the signees to whine about being called on their nonsense.
I liked this response to it: https://theobjective.substack.com/p/a-more-specific-letter-on-justice which argues a similar point, while also highlighting how wrong the harpers letter is.
This thread was also a good response: https://twitter.com/DavidLoySD/status/1280868674266521601
I defend freedom of speech for a living. I respect many signatories of this letter, but I think it's misguided in several important ways.
The First Amendment prohibits government from suffocating civil society by punishing speech because of its content or viewpoint. Without robust freedom of speech from governmental censorship, protest, dissent & social movements cannot long survive. But within civil society, individuals and organizations are free to define their own terms of debate. That’s not censorship. It’s society in action. Nothing in the First Amendment does or should ensure that outrageous speech will not result in social opprobrium. A civil society actor need not “tolerate” a viewpoint it abhors by providing a platform for it. One who espouses that viewpoint is free to seek another platform or build their own, but they have no right to compel another to host it.
The letter is long on rhetoric and short on citations, but to the extent I can identify an example from its parade of horribles, James Bennett is the “editor fired for running controversial pieces” such as the Tom Cotton op-ed. There are two problems with that frame. First, James Bennet wasn’t fired because Cotton’s piece was “controversial.” He was fired because he defaulted on basic journalistic standards by failing to read the piece or ensure rigorous fact checking and quality control. Second, it is within the purview of the New York Times to decide a major newspaper should not provide a platform for the henchman of a proto-authoritarian racist demagogue to incite the gunning down of protesters, and that any editor who disagrees may find other employment. Cotton can still publish elsewhere. Bennet can still edit or write elsewhere. Neither is silenced. But none of us is obligated to amplify or pay them.
When a white supremacist sits in the White House cheering on white supremacists & attacking the constitutional foundation of our republic, it is naïve to believe “exposure, argument, and persuasion” by themselves will win the day. Much as one might wish it were different, we do not live in a debating society. We live in a country permeated by systemic racism & threatened by proto-fascist demagogues & white supremacists. A major newspaper or other cultural institution cannot pretend to neutrality. It must choose whether it will use its power to defend the constitutional foundation of our republic or amplify those who would destroy it. I don’t want the government to have censorship powers, because that power would inevitably stifle protest & dissent. But the right to freedom of speech exercised by Tom Cotton gives me or the New York Times the power to refuse to amplify his message.
Also this twitter thread https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1280506631671951363
It is still not clear to me what these people actually want?
This entire letter just sounds like prominent figures whining about people criticizing them online.
Like, what is their proposed solution to a widespread, inchoate "spirit of censoriousness"? It's like complaining about no one saying "excuse me" when they bump into you anymore.
This is such ["BS"]. Each of these examples is a subtweet of a real case, each of which is far more complicated than how it's being summarized here. Even presenting these in plural makes them seem simpler and more widespread than they are.
I could be wrong, but I'm reading this [comment about books being withdrawn for inauthenticity] as a reference to "American Dirt," which:
a) was not withdrawn
b) was the no. 1 book in America for many, many weeks
c) was a work of literature. Did the author expect it not to be reviewed?
I have no ****ing clue what this [comment about journalists not being allowed to discuss some subjects] is subtweeting but journalists have ... always been barred from writing about certain things?
I completely agree that online harassment has gotten out of control. But it's appalling that high-profile figures would single out harassment by SJW-types as if it exists in a category all on its own.
Should people send death threats to JK Rowling? No. Other than internet randos, no one is saying that's OK.
But if the real issue here is online harassment, why wouldn't you mention Leslie Jones and Anita Sarkeesian? Or Ijeoma Oluo getting ****ing swatted?
This entire project is aimed at people without any power. If the shittiness of online discourse really concerns you, then push platforms for better moderation. Get police to investigate threats.
But that is transparently not what this is about. It is first and foremost about defending the right of powerful people (James Bennet, JK Rowling, Tom ****ing Cotton?!) to state odious views in public while maintaining the fiction that they're not the villains.
Also notable how many of these signatories spent the last month scolding activists for the “strategic error” of using the slogan Defund the Police. These same people are now reinforcing one of the most important tropes of the far right.
I've seen some other twitter feeds (including a fun one where the author imagines going about his daily life discussing the letter with people who are struggling for healthcare, food, etc). And another about the mechanics of producing an open letter signed by a wide range of people and how the harpers letter fails in that process (it also makes a great point about the importance of who is signing it, and how what it says changes based on the names attached even if the text doesn't change), but I don't appear to have saved those anywhere.
I think an overriding feeling I'm getting from the various people I follow on twitter is that cancel culture has always been a thing, but has targeted the fringe, the voiceless. Now they have a voice and the ability to hold powerful people (or even 'privileged' people who maybe aren't considered to have power) to account, it's suddenly an issue.
I liked this response to it: https://theobjective.substack.com/p/a-more-specific-letter-on-justice which argues a similar point, while also highlighting how wrong the harpers letter is.
This thread was also a good response: https://twitter.com/DavidLoySD/status/1280868674266521601
I defend freedom of speech for a living. I respect many signatories of this letter, but I think it's misguided in several important ways.
The First Amendment prohibits government from suffocating civil society by punishing speech because of its content or viewpoint. Without robust freedom of speech from governmental censorship, protest, dissent & social movements cannot long survive. But within civil society, individuals and organizations are free to define their own terms of debate. That’s not censorship. It’s society in action. Nothing in the First Amendment does or should ensure that outrageous speech will not result in social opprobrium. A civil society actor need not “tolerate” a viewpoint it abhors by providing a platform for it. One who espouses that viewpoint is free to seek another platform or build their own, but they have no right to compel another to host it.
The letter is long on rhetoric and short on citations, but to the extent I can identify an example from its parade of horribles, James Bennett is the “editor fired for running controversial pieces” such as the Tom Cotton op-ed. There are two problems with that frame. First, James Bennet wasn’t fired because Cotton’s piece was “controversial.” He was fired because he defaulted on basic journalistic standards by failing to read the piece or ensure rigorous fact checking and quality control. Second, it is within the purview of the New York Times to decide a major newspaper should not provide a platform for the henchman of a proto-authoritarian racist demagogue to incite the gunning down of protesters, and that any editor who disagrees may find other employment. Cotton can still publish elsewhere. Bennet can still edit or write elsewhere. Neither is silenced. But none of us is obligated to amplify or pay them.
When a white supremacist sits in the White House cheering on white supremacists & attacking the constitutional foundation of our republic, it is naïve to believe “exposure, argument, and persuasion” by themselves will win the day. Much as one might wish it were different, we do not live in a debating society. We live in a country permeated by systemic racism & threatened by proto-fascist demagogues & white supremacists. A major newspaper or other cultural institution cannot pretend to neutrality. It must choose whether it will use its power to defend the constitutional foundation of our republic or amplify those who would destroy it. I don’t want the government to have censorship powers, because that power would inevitably stifle protest & dissent. But the right to freedom of speech exercised by Tom Cotton gives me or the New York Times the power to refuse to amplify his message.
Also this twitter thread https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1280506631671951363
It is still not clear to me what these people actually want?
This entire letter just sounds like prominent figures whining about people criticizing them online.
Like, what is their proposed solution to a widespread, inchoate "spirit of censoriousness"? It's like complaining about no one saying "excuse me" when they bump into you anymore.
This is such ["BS"]. Each of these examples is a subtweet of a real case, each of which is far more complicated than how it's being summarized here. Even presenting these in plural makes them seem simpler and more widespread than they are.
I could be wrong, but I'm reading this [comment about books being withdrawn for inauthenticity] as a reference to "American Dirt," which:
a) was not withdrawn
b) was the no. 1 book in America for many, many weeks
c) was a work of literature. Did the author expect it not to be reviewed?
I have no ****ing clue what this [comment about journalists not being allowed to discuss some subjects] is subtweeting but journalists have ... always been barred from writing about certain things?
I completely agree that online harassment has gotten out of control. But it's appalling that high-profile figures would single out harassment by SJW-types as if it exists in a category all on its own.
Should people send death threats to JK Rowling? No. Other than internet randos, no one is saying that's OK.
But if the real issue here is online harassment, why wouldn't you mention Leslie Jones and Anita Sarkeesian? Or Ijeoma Oluo getting ****ing swatted?
This entire project is aimed at people without any power. If the shittiness of online discourse really concerns you, then push platforms for better moderation. Get police to investigate threats.
But that is transparently not what this is about. It is first and foremost about defending the right of powerful people (James Bennet, JK Rowling, Tom ****ing Cotton?!) to state odious views in public while maintaining the fiction that they're not the villains.
Also notable how many of these signatories spent the last month scolding activists for the “strategic error” of using the slogan Defund the Police. These same people are now reinforcing one of the most important tropes of the far right.
I've seen some other twitter feeds (including a fun one where the author imagines going about his daily life discussing the letter with people who are struggling for healthcare, food, etc). And another about the mechanics of producing an open letter signed by a wide range of people and how the harpers letter fails in that process (it also makes a great point about the importance of who is signing it, and how what it says changes based on the names attached even if the text doesn't change), but I don't appear to have saved those anywhere.
I think an overriding feeling I'm getting from the various people I follow on twitter is that cancel culture has always been a thing, but has targeted the fringe, the voiceless. Now they have a voice and the ability to hold powerful people (or even 'privileged' people who maybe aren't considered to have power) to account, it's suddenly an issue.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,015
sure, but not when it extends to social and political silencing, attacking free speech and rights of someone.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,015
the range of signatories in the Harper's letter on this subject shows its not "bell-ends". it is not some Daily Mail columnists moaning.
https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Although I don't share your enthusiasm for certain beliefs, you make yet another good point.
However....people fall into different types. I suspect the type that wants to be leaders of 'cancelling' are a tiny minority (like the 'leaders' who start political threads on NSC; sad keyboard warriors). The type that wants to follow (and make their life choices based on what a shoal on twitter have decided to swim behind) isn't important, except when stars align and it becomes possible to manipulate an election (*cough* Brexit *cough*) by getting them all to swim in the same direction for a week or so. The rest of us, I suspect, don't give a shit.
Also, there is a subversive element, particularly in Brits, that doesn't like to lead or follow. I still remember a Killing Joke gig I went to maybe 15 years ago. Gary Glitter had been found out and rightly punished some time recently. However....Rock and Roll part 2 remains a classic track. During the moments before the band appeared on stage R&R part 2 was played via the PA. It was an interesting moment.
Anyway....I doubt this is something that old men like the OP and myself are best placed to analyse. What do young people think about it?
This thread is useless without a poll.
1066familyman
Radio User
- Jan 15, 2008
- 15,233
My views exactly.
BadFish
Huge Member
- Oct 19, 2003
- 18,201
So another example of this would have been Stewart Lee with Jerry Springer The Opera. Closed down by religious bigots who hadn't seven seen the show when it was going to be broadcast on TV.
The Sex Pistols must have been the forerunners for this when they couldn't find a place to play?
The Sex Pistols must have been the forerunners for this when they couldn't find a place to play?
British universities (or, more specifically, student unions) have been 'no platforming' (as it was called) individuals for decades. Keith Joseph springs to mind. In fact I seem to recall Eysenck, the eugenicist, was 'no platformed' when I was a student in the 70s.
As an aside, I understand the logic of 'let the fool speak, then we may all laugh'; it is the thinking behind allowing certain dimbots continued posting rights on NSC. However, the same logic means that we should surely allow the likes of Anjem Choudary, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and Katie Hopkins unfettered media access.
It seems to me, both at large and on NSC, absurd to give a platform to cretins and racists who signal their nastiness and vile agendas while carefully avoiding crossing the line (by nudging and winking their vileness), while maintaining a 'watchful waiting' stance, fully expecting them to cross the line (again) at some point. **** me, just tighten the rules.
And as others have said, nobody has a right to 'speak' without invitation on someone else's forum. The BBC is not obliged to let Anjem Choudary or Yaxley-Lennon to 'speak to the nation'. The problem is that incitement (or whatever law applies to 'hate speach, propagation of racists tropes' etc) is hard to monitor and hard to prove. I guess that some sort of 'no platforming' movement might help in this regard......
Ironically student politics (in London, at the big 3 unis, at least) seems to be in aspic these days. I can't recall anything happening on my campus, er, ever.
Having read a bit more of this thread I see some interesting information but remain suspicious that only the usual suspects have a strong view about it; right wingers claiming it is a left wing conspiracy, left wingers claiming it is a right wing conspiracy.
It seems to me, people have given a new name to old fashioned 'no platforming' with an added twist of cyberbullying, either to highlight the practice as a good thing or bad thing depending on their agenda. Who knew?
I remember early on in the Covid thread someone shared a CT video which I actually watched. It was embarrassing, every single point being made in loud, sarcastic American with lots of “but of course”. The “of courses” all related to an unspecified great conspiracy that he never proved. However, it was filmed in a large Tokyo apartment, surrounded by nice furniture and the latest Mac gear. Crime might not pay but clearly conspiracy does.
On the main subject I’m against no platforming. It’s intellectually inferior. Let people have their views and argue against or mock as you find appropriate but don’t shut down.
However there is something to be said for people’s views affecting their career. I hire people and I look for people to fit in to the team and get on. If I was casting a film or drama I wouldn’t hire Laurence Fox to work with a black actor who was pro BLM or some one young and “woke” because they wouldn’t get on.
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