What it's like to be cancelled • Hacker News Board

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#161

Post by systemvoltage » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

There are real humans behind this outrage and cancel culture is much deeper than Twitter. It might be a tool to organize but I’ve seen cancel culture outside of the context of Twitter. At workplaces, friend circles, organizations and even within families.

Cancel culture is a fight by one group to gain moral superiority over others. When you do that, there is no way anyone can defend including the author. Instead of criticizing the argument, they doubt people’s souls, intent, and motivation, their core values - without a second thought. That’s toxic. Our culture and heritage is built upon trust and respect.

For some reason, cancel culture is dominated by Progressives which is profoundly hypocritical: Progressive causes are about acceptance, forgiveness, inclusion and equality.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#162

Post by sho_hn » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

A similar story told by a media critic and novelist, Lindsey Ellis, who got in trouble with a tweet that was considered insensitive: https://youtu.be/C7aWz8q_IM4

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#163

Post by hindsightbias » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

PaulKeeble wrote: post #48

prepend wrote: post #11

I think the biggest problem with Twitter is that we can’t determine a denominator. Twitter knows, but we don’t know. 100 people tweeting about how this guy is bad might be indicative of a general consensus or might just be 100 people out of a billion Twitter users. People then interpret it as general consensus and pile on. We know the numerator but since we don’t know the denominator of people who didn’t comment, or…

All that happens if you voice your opinion in the opposite direction of an internet mob is you get piled on too. Anyone who has been on the internet must have experienced this more than once. Introducing some facts or measure (which is hard with twitters very tiny character limit that squashes nuance and debate) in a response is just the same thing. The internet mob is a mob and acts like a mob and its best to get ou…

An internet mob is the perfect model for what a Direct Democracy would look like.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#164

Post by nsxwolf » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

qbasic_forever wrote: post #69

yummybear wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you suggest you do when you have been behaving incorrectly? You can’t change the past.

That's an odd strawman. I... wouldn't behave incorrectly in the first place. It's not a difficult concept to understand for most people I hope, especially with sexual harassment.

I hear this said a lot today by people I grew up with. No dude, I was there. I remember how much you loved to tell racist jokes. Not one example, dozens.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#165

Post by scottlamb » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

laurent123456 wrote: post #100

It seems it's better to stay away entirely from certain sensitive topics. No matter your intentions, no matter what you actually think, it just takes a bit of misunderstanding or bad faith and the whole thing explode.

You're not wrong, but it's pretty sad. When moderates are afraid to speak because of what extremists will say, we have a vicious cycle.

[edit: btw I'm just making a general comment. I'm not saying anything in particular about RMS's or Noah Bradley's cancellation/re-emergence, and not just because of your advice. I haven't been following these events and don't know who said what or what actually happened. I don't want to be one of those uninformed voices in any direction.]

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#166

Post by qbasic_forever » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

EvilEy3 wrote: post #97

qbasic_forever wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, don't be a sexual predator that assumes it will never lead to any consequences later in life.

Alternatively, stop labeling everything and everyone sexual predator.

Noah explicitly admits in his original post last year, "I was a sexual predator" https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#167

Post by specialp » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

laurent123456 wrote: post #100

It seems it's better to stay away entirely from certain sensitive topics. No matter your intentions, no matter what you actually think, it just takes a bit of misunderstanding or bad faith and the whole thing explode.

This is probably good advice but that is exactly what is wrong with this. There's a negative gain to questioning if the person indeed even did something wrong or opening it to debate. There's positive gain for those piling on to the outrage as they are seen to be of good virtue.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#168

Post by Nextgrid » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

theossuary wrote: post #4

Twitter is vile. I thought that the day the company started, and never created an account; nothing good can come from a platform like Twitter. It's a failure of our laws that there's no recourse to this kind of libel, either against Twitter for basing their business model on it, or the individuals responsible for spreading it. Lives are consistently destroyed and everyone just shrugs their shoulders and goes "aw-shuc…

To be fair, the problem is less about the platform or the medium and the simple concept of optimizing for engagement. Regulate advertising to the point where it's less profitable than letting customers pay for services and suddenly the incentives to promote toxicity for engagement's sake disappears.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#169

Post by TX0098812 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

muglug wrote: post #159

TX0098812 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...according to someone.

According to a good friend of mine who witnessed it first-hand.

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...

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#170

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

auslegung wrote: post #37

xwdv wrote: post #12

If you find yourself the target of a cancellation attempt, never give in. Never apologize. If you do, the problem isn’t going to go away, it will get worse. No apology is ever enough. No punishment is ever enough. There is no way to redeem yourself in the eyes of the public. Apologizing is making yourself humbled and vulnerable to a mob that does not deserve it. You will roll over to expose your belly in submission a…

Donald?

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