- Anonymously over the Internet.
A private text, a public tweet, a personal blog post or video, anything caught by a camera without your consent or awareness. All are susceptible of being used to ruin your life if a large enough group of people are willing to.
The examples of people "accidentally" ruining their own lives with a racist or sexist tweet is a pretty short list.
An innocuous and innocent opinion today could be, in 10 years, considered extremely offensive. Anyone can drag that "now offensive" comment out of the past to nail you.
I can think of jokes I made 20 years ago that were not even slightly offensive at the time, that would get me instantly fired today. Good thing I didn't post them on a medium like the Internet that is infinitely achievable and searchable.
Not once. For all the power the mob has to ruin lives, you'd think there would be lives ruined -- not mildly inconvenienced or temporarily embarrassed.
That doesn't ruin lives, it's a relatively common occurrence, particularly in the modern day. People are only equating it to Orwellian dystopia and Stasi oppression because politics has become involved. But it's not cancel culture's fault that at-will employment exists entirely at the whim and mercy of the employer, or that political activism (which cancel culture is) is clearly free speech. It's always been the case that if someone can convince your boss to fire you, you can be fired.
Rich people being temporarily embarrassed? I don't give a shit, and neither should anyone else.