I wonder to what extent the subject here, 'cancel culture', is a side effect of the outrage porn nature of social media (and maybe media in general), in which engagement statistics show higher engagement when it comes to inflammatory subjects/posts. Outrage porn's history goes back forever, but in the modern media context it might have been invented by Jerry Springer.
Basically the model seems to involve identifying a subject for the outrage to focus on, whipping up clicks and views by bumping the subject's statements up the social media engagement ladder - this is a lot of ad revenue, ahem - and then, finally, the ceremonial burning of the sacrificial victim for the appeasement of the flash mob. This is particularly true when the target has no political following or wealth status, certainly no means to push back (like a billionaire's PR team calling all their contacts in the media, crisis managers, social media botnets, etc.).
As far as the political-social use of this exercise, it's the kind of thing authoritarian states are known to do and was parodied by Orwell in 1984 as the "Two Minute Hate" routine. Actual debate of sensitive topics is the last thing anyone involved with this circus wants to see.
In contrast, students were once taught to argue the points of the opposition in a debate, as an exercise in thinking as well as understanding. This kind of debate training seems highly unlikely in today's world, and would probably generate lot of outrage and calls for cancellation of the program.