> Now, of course "the mob" can get things wrong. We see it all the time — and it's not a progressive or "cancel culture" thing specifically. It's just a side effect of these very rapid and short-burst communication platforms that many people use these days.
"Getting things wrong" is a symptom of social media and misinformation; cancellation and mobbing, however, are almost unique to progressive mobs. There are conservative mobs. E.g., the campaigns against Sarah Jeong, Kaepernick, and the Dixie Chicks [circa 2005]), but these are far fewer and they punch up (and in the case of Jeong, she really should have been terminated based on NYT's own policies and track record irrespective of a mob).
Misinformation is a problem, and Donald Trump wields it to great effect, and I'll happily talk about that in a pertinent thread.
> Regardless, if you dislike hate-filled mobs reacting to bad information, then you have to admit that some sort of content control has to be applied by social media platforms themselves. Or else it will continue to happen.
I certainly think that social media companies should be held to account for the consequences of their curation policies or else they should not curate at all. I don't think they should be allowed to claim to be "dumb pipes" when it suits them even though they're transparently not "dumb pipes".
> Progressives — even cis white male progressives — have every right to be offended and to express their opinions against something they perceive as harmful. I imagine if you're on the receiving end of this then, yeah, it can feel like a coordinated mob and I have no doubt that it can be downright traumatizing. But that doesn't mean it's wrong or that you've been "cancelled."
You're quite right--anyone who argues that cancellation and criticism are equivalent would indeed be mistaken. Cancellation refers to concerted campaigns to harm someone, usually by having them terminated or defaming them. This is harassment, not criticism, even if it's not prosecuted.
> It is, again, a side effect of how our social media is currently designed and I'll be honest that I don't know what the solution is.
Social media certainly plays a role, but if it were the primary driver, we would expect these mobs to be evenly distributed across the ideological matrix.
> And even low-level racism, sexism, etc which they maybe could get away with in the past will now be scrutinized. But that's a good thing, because we as a culture need to be scrutinizing how certain beliefs cause people real harm.
"Scrutinized" is one thing. The problem is that overwhelmingly there is no evidence to support claims of 'racism' whatsoever, and yet the penalties are harsh. There's simply no evidence at all that could acquit you in the court of Twitter. Kafka couldn't write fiction like this.