Cancel Culture

[scottagibson]

@Houngan

But you said this. You can see how this dovetails into the conversation around social media,

Yes, that was inartful, sorry. I stipulate that BBC thought Dershowitz would talk about the trial and verdict. Now, is this social media reaction cancel culture.

[Houngan]

Not at all, thanks for discussing it. To your question, cancel culture would be what the current screaming void is saying. Are they calling for the BBC booker to be fired? Demanding the BBC never brings on Dershowitz again? That would suggest to me the errant next step.

[draxen]

@scottagibson

Maybe it is. Should people not hound and dogpile BBC News — and their social media staff — for bringing on Alan Dershowitz and letting him attack Giuffre and defend himself, in the guise of providing expertise about the verdict? Is that sort of thing ‘cancel culture’? That’s the question I’m asking.

You are comparing apples and oranges and calling them the same. The BBC’s impartiality is enshrined in law and they follow strict editorial guidelines. There is due process in place to deal with complaints, even a neutral third party Ofcom that performs investigations and can impose sanctions. The BBC are unlike commercial broadcasters and do not have to react immediately to public opinion.

So that would be my distinction. With Cancel Culture there is no due process, no impartial judgement. There is only the baying of the mob.

[scottagibson]

@draxen

You are comparing apples and oranges and calling them the same. The BBC’s impartiality is enshrined in law and they follow strict editorial guidelines.

I don’t see any bearing this has on the question is it a good thing that ordinary people on Twitter can try to hold BBC accountable.

@Houngan

To your question, cancel culture would be what the current screaming void is saying. Are they calling for the BBC booker to be fired? Demanding the BBC never brings on Dershowitz again? That would suggest to me the errant next step.

I mean, I think you get the point of the question. If we are going to craft a rule that prevents a Twitter mob from piling on someone, how do we craft it so that it still permits this kind of feedback mechanism? Do we want to permit this kind of feedback mechanism?

[Thrag]

How do we differentiate cancel culture from regular sparkling consequences?

[scottagibson]

@Thrag

How do we differentiate cancel culture from regular sparkling consequences?

You are more succinct than I. Kudos!

[draxen]

@scottagibson

I don’t see any bearing this has on the question is it a good thing that ordinary people on Twitter can try to hold BBC accountable .

It’s a good thing that ordinary people can raise complaints but it’s vital that any outcome is governed by a neutral third party. Otherwise you can kiss any semblance of impartiality goodbye.

This is a good first step towards combatting Cancel Culture. If you are to be disciplined by your employer for a social media misstep then you should have legal recourse to fight any judgement. Employers should be punished for just throwing people to the wolves without due process.

[scottagibson]

@draxen

This is a good first step towards combatting Cancel Culture. If you are to be disciplined by your employer for a social media misstep then you should have legal recourse to fight any judgement. Employers should be punished for just throwing people to the wolves without due process.

I generally agree, but this is basically a non-starter as things stand in the US, where in most jurisdictions an employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all.

And in any event, I imagine embarrassing your employer and bringing the company into disrepute is grounds for discipline or termination many places outside the US, too. Or, as in this case, violating standard editorial practices, if that turns out to be the case.

[Houngan]

I think that was well stated, and . . . I dunno. The idea of a rule, by which we pretty much mean a law, I don’t see a way to craft it well or fairly. We can, however, mitigate our behavior such that the behavior we’re trying to prevent becomes less socially acceptable.

[Andy_Bates]

@scottagibson

I don’t see any bearing this has on the question is it a good thing that ordinary people on Twitter can try to hold BBC accountable .

Addressing a corporation is very different from attacking an individual.
Asking for an investigation is very different from immediately assessing guilt.
Holding a company accountable for violating established rules is very different from attacking someone for defending themselves.

I feel like those are significant ways to distinguish cancel culture from a request for investigation.

@scottagibson

I generally agree, but this is basically a non-starter as things stand in the US, where in most jurisdictions an employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all.

Except there are plenty of cases where the employer is addressed directly and they don’t end up firing the employee in question.

[Thrag]

@Andy_Bates

Except there are plenty of cases where the employer is addressed directly and they don’t end up firing the employee in question.

So you’re telling me, that when people or even mobs on the internet criticize someone and point out their behavior to their employer, the employer makes their own decision on whether to take action or not? That employers sometimes have some sort of process to determine if the twitter outrage merits dismissal or not, rather than outright firing the subject of this Cancel Culture?

[Thrag]

So…

Sparkling consequences:

Last night’s interview with Alan Dershowitz after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict did not meet the BBC’s editorial standards, as Mr. Dershowitz was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst, and we did not make the relevant background clear to our audience. We will look into how this happened.”

Cancel Culture:

Last night’s interview with Alan Dershowitz after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict did not meet the BBC’s editorial standards, as Mr. Dershowitz was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst, and we did not make the relevant background clear to our audience. The people responsible have been sacked”

That it?

[Andy_Bates]

@Thrag

So you’re telling me, that when people or even mobs on the internet criticize someone and point out their behavior to their employer, the employer makes their own decision on whether to take action or not? That employers sometimes have some sort of process to determine if the twitter outrage merits dismissal or not, rather than outright firing the subject of this Cancel Culture?

Sometimes the employer investigates the case and makes their own decision. Sometimes the employer just outright fires the person because of the bad publicity.

@Shuma

But this was the internet, so it wasn’t a “request for investigation.” It was a standard internet reaction to an occurrence, which is to say an overreaction. There were calls for boycott, dismissals, etc. Everything you expect from cancel culture.

And yet it wasn’t directed at a single person who was constantly harassed and hounded without the ability to defend him- or herself. That’s the difference.

@Thrag

That it?

No. I don’t believe that either of those are cancel culture.

[scottagibson]

Is Andy actually proposing a solution yet? I put him back on ignore, so if he does, please someone let me know, so I can read it. I look forward to it.

[Andy_Bates]

@scottagibson

Is Andy actually proposing a solution yet? I put him back on ignore, so if he does, please someone let me know, so I can read it. I look forward to it.

Is this a post by scottagibson? You didn’t reiterate that “cancel culture is nothing new”, so I was confused for a minute there.

@Shuma

Is JK Rowling cancel culure?

Sentence does not parse.

[Houngan]

But yeah, see, that’s why you come off poorly. You’re not engaging on the conversation but still taking shots. That’s literally what’s wrong with cancel culture and social media, you’ve made yourself a no-consequence bully. If you want to remove yourself from a conversation or an argument that you feel is pointless, then just do so, don’t lob bombs.

[CraigM]

Thats because, as I’ve suggested before, any proposed solution is fraught with legal and unintended consequences. Bottom line? Any effort to legally restrict the ability of abusers, trolls, harassers, and assholes to inflict pain on others via social media is going to have much more massive knock on effects to restrict already marginalized people from some of the only outlets they have against the powerful.

Without social media Ahmed Aubury’s killers go free, and the DA who helped cover it up initially faces no consequences. How do you preserve the ability too create that kind of pressure campaign while shutting down bad actors?

Legally speaking I don’t think you can write a law that does.

[Andy_Bates]

@CraigM

Thats because, as I’ve suggested before, any proposed solution is fraught with legal and unintended consequences. Bottom line? Any effort to legally restrict the ability of abusers, trolls, harassers, and assholes to inflict pain on others via social media is going to have much more massive knock on effects to restrict already marginalized people from some of the only outlets they have against the powerful.

Without social media Ahmed Aubury’s killers go free, and the DA who helped cover it up initially faces no consequences. How do you preserve the ability too create that kind of pressure campaign while shutting down bad actors?

Legally speaking I don’t think you can write a law that does.

I don’t think that reducing bullying and harassment means that people can’t post about real-world problems that need to be addressed. And I also disagree that restricting bullying means that you have to write new laws. One possible solution is restricting who can respond to your tweets or posts, as some people do already. If you want to be able to express yourself publicly and avoid seeing any backlash, that’s how you do it. Add more robust blocking functionality, or allow crowdsourced blocking of bad actors, and you have a lot of the benefit of social media without the bad parts.

@Shuma

People said mean things to JK Rowling on the Twitters and internet in general, including all the internet awesomeness, death threats, boycott declarations, etc., over her views on transgendered folks. Is what happened to her cancel culture, or is it “different”?

Her movies play in a marathon on cable practically every weekend, and she has a new movie coming out in 2022, so I don’t think she has been “canceled” in any significant respect.

[Alstein]

When you make the comments JKR made, things like boycotts, deplatforming and dunking she’s fair game for. Actual violence and threats of violence (implicit or explicit) aren’t.

How else is society supposed to get the hint the filth she was supporting is not ok? Media won’t do it, and in the BBC’s case, they’ll even platform the folks who put the venom into her.

Yes, these things can do in the other direction, and have. It’s the job of the platform itself to police the worst offenders, while not generating a bothsides approach which can be abused by folks punching down/doing bad things.

If a platform fails, then it’s on folks to abandon the platform. That’s where the problem is- we have no real power to force big social media to be better. The only tool that might work is going after advertisers, which requires similar tactics to “canceling”

HB2 was reversed and Roy Cooper was elected in NC in 2016 due to a mass, widespread cancellation of North Carolina that caused the ACC and NCAA to take action. It doesn’t give the perfect solution, but things are better in this state now.

[Andy_Bates]

@Shuma

I only brought it up because Andy said scott’s tactics meant he couldn’t talk about what he wanted to talk about, which was solutions:

Technically I said that Scott’s repeatedly saying “Cancel culture is nothing new” was dismissing it as a problem, despite his claim of “I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about it.”

@Shuma

For the record, I agree with you, but she is used as an example of someone who has been “cancelled” constantly. People use that term to describe what happened to her regularly.

You asked me for my opinion on what qualifies as “cancel culture”, and I gave it to you. I’m not defending all uses of the term.

@Shuma

Those are great examples of how cancel culture can be a force for positive change. Too often it’s shown here in a bothsiderist light to decry how awful the Twitter left is.

What happened to James Gunn was from the alt-right, not the left. It seems like you’re opposed to the “cancel culture” term because you think it’s being used to attack the left. I’m just trying to address the situations where it is actually cancel culture. Ferreting out racists who murdered someone is not “cancel culture”. Repeatedly harassing someone for a random internet comment until they are depressed and suicidal is.