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Comment by VictorPath | Hacker News Reader

Applebaum talks about Twitter and cancel culture. Of course, her bemoaning of "judgement" on Twitter is odd, because she has used Twitter to throw mud at "Russian spy" and "Russian propaganda" tool Edward Snowden ( https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aanneapplebaum%20snowden&... ), "apologist for Milosevic" and Nobel laureate Peter Handke ( https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aanneapplebaum%20milosevi... ), "bizarre" Noam Chomsky ( https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aanneapplebaum%20chomsky&... ) etc.

Ok for her to judge and cancel on Twitter, not for the "mob" that judges her and her friends.

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I think there's a difference between noting someone else's choices and actions as wrong or 'bizarre' vs. the outcomes we see with the sort of mob justice that results in people losing their jobs over misquotes or sincere questions that might be uncomfortable.

I'm not a part of any cancel culture because I call someone 'bizarre'.

Well, until enough other people start calling the same person bizarre.

None of the people you mention were "cancelled" on Twitter. Criticising or expressing a negative opinion about someone is not "cancel culture."

> "Russian spy"

> "Russian propaganda"

> "apologist for Milosevic"

ie "What they say doesn't matter because it's to serve motive X"

Using a label to dismiss all messaging of an actor (abstract), as it suits an agenda, is the defining characteristic of "cancel culture".

This is generally a precursor to a bandwagon/snowball to de-platform the individual. This happens when a portion of individuals begin picking a side by taking action, sometimes out of caution. ie The proactive individuals don't want to face the possibility of similar behavior within a social network.

The defining characteristic of cancel culture is harassing someone’s place of employment until the ‘offender’ gets fired.

The defining characteristic of cancel culture is people with massive platforms who spend a lot of time trying to get people fired for saying then they disagree with complaining when people are rude to them on twitter (at best, much the time they are crying about people politely pointing out mistakes in what they are arguing).

> Using a label to dismiss all messaging of an actor (abstract), as it suits an agenda, is the defining characteristic of "cancel culture".

Only if the label by itself causes sufficient harm to silence, exile or otherwise ruin someone, eg. "white supremacist".

I'd say cancel culture is any widespread or coordinated attempt to silence, exile, or ruin someone for non-overtly harmful speech or behaviour. Sometimes that's attempted by applying a label, but not always.

I think we can all agree that someone who engages in harmful actions should be silenced, exiled or ruined, although the legal system is supposed to adjudicate that (accounting for proportionality, remorse, recompense, etc.).

The disturbing part of cancel culture is that this is now being extended to speech and thoughts, and there's no check on the mob's power.

> Only if the label by itself causes sufficient harm to silence, exile or otherwise ruin someone, eg. "white supremacist".

There's no "only if" because in any sized community that can and does apply, even if it's not on TV. It's often part of a modern culture, which has unspoken or explicit rules that result in this behavior. eg Getting banned from a conservative subreddit because you point out what a piece of garbage Rush L was.

I'd say the qualifier is applicable and important. It distinguishes between cases where the label has little effect, like a evangelical preacher calling someone a "sinner" (who isn't?), and calling someone a white supremacist.

Even your example of being banned from a conservative subreddit can be ruinous if conservatives are the primary market for your goods or services, but no big deal if you have nothing to do with conservatives.

The point is that I think the effect or intended effect of the label should dictate whether it qualifies as cancel culture, I don't think just any label should do.

For instance, if I try to dismiss your argument here because I think you love "My Little Pony", I don't see how that should qualify as cancel culture.

How specific does this get, you can't label things?

This isn't about labeling. My response is also not, specifically, about the story.

This is about what is and what is not cancel culture. "Cancel culture" describes a culture, which necessarily exists in a community. It's been around since before the term "pariah" existed. There are cultures where specific acts have the effect of irrevocably excluding you from a community (exile). Now the rumor of an act or thought is, amplified by communication channels, to result in the same stigma.

>Using a label to dismiss all messaging of an actor (abstract), as it suits an agenda, is the defining characteristic of "cancel culture".

No, it isn't. The defining characteristic of cancel culture has always been using collective online action to have someone ostracized from social or political circles, removed from their job or professional relationships, etc.

>This is generally a precursor to a bandwagon/snowball to de-platform the individual. This happens when a portion of individuals begin picking a side by taking action, sometimes out of caution.

Correct. that is cancel culture, and that part never happened in any of these cases. Simply calling someone names isn't cancel culture. If it were, every opponent of cancel culture referring to "witch hunts", "pearl-clutching mobs" or "Marxist SJWs" would be engaging in the very activity they denounce by denouncing it.

>The defining characteristic of cancel culture has always been using collective online action to have someone ostracized from social or political circles, removed from their job or professional relationships, etc.

That's because the whole thing is a moral panic imagined by liberals in the media who were mad that people could reply to them without the filter of the NYT letter pages editor (it was then embraced by conservatives as well for similar reasons and because "you can't even say X anymore" is convenient way to push the buttons of older conservatives). Most of the supposedly dire results of being 'cancelled' are utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of people because most of them are various forms of 'not getting as many media gigs'. Ordinary people can't get 'cancelled' because we don't make a living going on CNN or giving talks at universities.

Sure you can cherry pick examples of people saying something stupid on social media and their workplace massively overreacting (similarly you could find real examples behind the moral panics of the 80s and 90s - well ok, maybe not actual demonic possession but most of the rest of it was based on at least a few semi-real cases). That's not what any of the people crying about cancel culture care about. If it was they'd be advocating for stronger protection for employees.

The desired solution is of course always to regulate social media so that the nasty mob can no longer reply to opinion columnists and they can go back to splitting their time between writing poorly researched rants and trying to get academics who disagree with them fired.

judging is kind of her job, but did she cancel someone? Not trying to defend her but this is interesting, if she is a professional canceller, then that makes this article more accurate

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