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What it's like to be cancelled

noahbradley.com

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Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#231

Post by Delk »

throwaway34017 wrote: post #56

I recently gave a test lecture about a topic in statistics, where I showed a meme that a statistics professor I follow shared on her Twitter feed [1]. I thought it would be safe to include as it didn't get any negative reactions on Twitter and was already being used by a professor in her university class in the US. After the talk I immediately got called out by the women's representative on the hiring commission, who…

I think that's one of those things where "wrong" becomes rather subjective.

If you've been strongly sensitized to feelings of actual or potential distress due to unwanted sexual attraction, or the sexualization of the (in this case) female body, or whatever the problem might have been, it's probably seen as wrong or at least problematic. The sensitization might have happened due to personal experiences, or due to hearing a lot about such experiences from other people, or, well... *looks around on the Internet*.

If you haven't been strongly sensitized that way, there probably isn't anything particularly wrong with that. Most people would probably have some kind of a middle ground perspective where e.g. physical attraction, and its expression (and humour about it) is part of normal human experience. The same people might see it as lewd or inappropriate in other contexts, or if expressed in other ways, or when it's too much. It might sometimes feel uncomfortable, and the extent to which people tolerate (and want to tolerate) that varies, as does the line where people begin to deem it "not right".

Which part of the spectrum is right or wrong is not an objective question. Right now lots of people (at least in social media) seem to be rather preoccupied with the former, perhaps because legitimate problems have often been overlooked. Some people who are in the former end of the spectrum are being rather aggressive. The anger is often understandable, although that doesn't mean they're objectively right or that you're wrong if you don't follow the same line.

With that said, people who were already sensitive about not causing ill feelings were probably not the actual problem in the first place.

This is just my random view, of course.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#232

Post by Talanes »

firebaze wrote: post #152
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter as in the company/software platform, not the group of people who respond to a particular tweet. Twitter's database could show how many people were shown the tweet. It could guess at how many of their users would react in this way. And you could do some surveys to find out what fraction of our cultural spectrum/Overton window Twitter users occupy.

How can you separate Twitter the company from Twitter the results? Serious question without any snark. I don't get this argument. Oh gal, just leave a message if you downvote. I love to learn when I'm wrong, and I guess others as well.

How do you conflate the institutional knowledge of Twitter the corporation and the crowd knowledge of Twitter the user-base?

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#233

Post by foldr »

lookdangerous wrote: post #207
foldr wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point in this case is pretty simple. A company can't employ this guy and also credibly claim to be concerned about creating a safe environment for women at conferences and other events. There's nothing 'exaggerated' about that. Sometimes actions have long-lasting consequences. Apologies can't magically wash those away.

There is an assumption being used by these companies, and Twitter generally, that I disagree with: "Once someone has behaved in a certain way, they can never be trusted not to behave in that way again".

I think people are judging on a case by case basis. But in general, if you do something very bad, it is very difficult to persuade people that you've genuinely changed. How could it be otherwise?

Try thinking about it with Noah replaced by one of HN’s favorite ‘bad guys’. Facebook periodically puts out statements saying “Oops, sorry, but don’t worry – we totally respect privacy now”. How long would it take for you to believe that Facebook had really changed? How would you feel about a privacy conference accepting sponsorship from Facebook, and justifying this decision by pointing to one of the apologetic statements?

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#235

Post by deft »

noahbradley wrote: post #215
defaultname wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original complaint claimed that he was a groper. That's sexual harassment. It's illegal. It's incredibly toxic and creepy , and people who do it are out of touch cretins who make everything worse. Citing that no one officially lodged a criminal complaint isn't a counterpoint. Most sexual assault isn't pursued. Serial creeps are plying their trade right now. But yeah, if he's associated with a brand and he's going…

I never groped anyone.

Noah you are saying this now but your original apology says the opposite. Which is it?

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#236

Post by judofyr »

muglug wrote: post #187
TX0098812 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. While the entire thread talk about how people can easily accuse others on the internet without evidence, someone posts a link containing accusations and we're supposed to automatically assume it's true. But hey, now some guy on hacker news says his friend witnessed it...

Sure, I will ask my friend if he wants to write a sworn affidavit and have it notarised. But until then you're just going to have to trust that there are hundreds of people who witnessed Spacey's behaviour.

> But until then you're just going to have to trust that there are hundreds of people who witnessed Spacey's behaviour.

Or you can go to Wikipedia to find a list of accusations (sourced with articles written by journalists) and evaluate whether you find the claims credible based on the journalists/newspapers/people/accusations involved.

I think it's perfectly okay to claim that all of these people involved are lying and it's just a big conspiracy, but at least provide some arguments to this specific case instead of vague "oh, but can we actually trust words on the internet???".

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#237

Post by IAmGraydon »

bigbillheck wrote: post #150
IAmGraydon wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care? Also, are you really so dense that you can't recognize that anyone who would have this as a desktop really feels incredibly powerless and is trying to convince themselves that they aren't? If you know people who are really actually powerful, it's hilarious to think they would have something like this on their desktop.

> anyone who would have this as a desktop really feels incredibly powerless and is trying to convince themselves that they aren't? Why would he feel powerless? He was (apparently) a name in the MTG art world and the Noah Bradley of the apology considered his previous self to have been on a 'self-centered hot-shot ego-trip'.

People often create their persona as a defense against childhood trauma. Indeed, many people never really figure out why they are creating the life they are, and never realize that what is propelling them is something that happened long ago. What you become in life can never really fix those internal scars, though.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#238

Post by mdoms »

radmuzom wrote: post #66

Earlier this year when Richard Stallman was re-instated to the Board of the FSF, there were a lot of tweets expressing dismay. To one of them, I replied that I personally don't think he has done anything wrong at all - and linked to a well-known article by a woman who defended him better than me. While I found some support among a few people, the amount of hate I received shook me a bit. People started adding me to l…

> I am not known in any popular online communities, I am not famous and no one really cares who I am - so I could not be cancelled

Be very careful with that outlook. When I think of cancel culture I always come back to Justine Sacco[0]. She was a nobody with 170 twitter followers before the mob destroyed her life.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-t...

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#239

Post by nsxwolf »

moate wrote: post #219
vagrantJin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the difference between having sex and being a sexual predator? Do you just make things up as you go? The frightening thing about "cancel culture" isnt that its new or eye-opening. Its has always existed, sandboxed, in places called school playgrounds . The world have adults has this annoying thing called due process. Filing cases, going to court, giving evidence etc etc. Now that the playground rules are statin…

I mean, "angry mobs" have always existed as you said yourself. They didn't seep into "adult spaces", they've always been there. We don't need to blame Twitter, the Internet as a whole, anonymous communication platforms or anything else for human nature. The fight against cancel culture is a fight against people doing things. It's literally that. "Cancelling" is just a framing device for a myriad of behaviors and reas…

I recently had a mentally ill family member try to work up a mob to get another family member fired from their job over some perceived slight. This person was able to get attention from media figures on Facebook who were interested in writing a story. They attempted to make noise on Twitter using the employer's account.

I don't think anyone had tools like this at their disposal in the 1990s. You could call up someone's employer and lie about an employee saying something bad about immigrants at a birthday party and they'd probably just hang up on you or threaten to call the police for harassment.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#240

Post by blast »

rkk3 wrote: post #193
Animats wrote: post #143

What he's supposed to have done: “I was terrible to women. I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things.” None of which is illegal. It's not even a matter for civil litigation. He was not accused of doing this as a boss in an organization. Or in a workplace context. There were apparently no criminal charges. No EEOC complaints filed.[1] No a…

In his apology he also referred to himself as a "Sexual Predator" and said that he pressured people into sex... These are pretty loaded terms to be throwing around and no surprise people on Twitter took the worst interpretation. He might be worse than Prince Andrew at PR. https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...

Sometimes people say that kind of thing out of shame, for example if they feel humiliated and are trying to make the humiliation stop by agreeing with the person shaming them. Such statements should not be taken as factual confessions. I don't know anything about this situation, but that language sounds like that to me. Also, the first sentence of the current article makes me think that the author is given to overstatement.
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