The latest campus cancellation is different • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#171

Post by farmerstan » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

I think Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan are setting the standard for ignoring cancel culture, and are being rewarded for it. I think most moderate people are sick of cancel culture and will support those that won’t buckle to it.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#172

Post by sour-taste » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

The twitter mob in this case could have a legitimate impact on MIT donations. Quoting a tweet included in the article:

As an alum, I’m asking you to fix this—now. Totally unacceptable and sends a message to any student that isn’t a white man that they don’t matter and that EAPS isn’t serious about (and is actively hostile towards) DEI

Presumably MIT cares what it's alums care about since they are a major source of donations. I express no opinion on anything else in the article, just that alums being mad is a negative outcome for MIT.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#173

Post by snek_case » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

aisengard wrote: post #158

snek_case wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Psychologically this is group bullying without consequences. Very much so. It's mob mentality. The group diffuses the responsibility, shielding everyone, enabling the bullying to be done without consequences. IMO it should be illegal to fire someone based on mob actions. There should be legal repercussions to this. Either against the people who did the firing, or against twitter, for enabling mobs and bullying. The…

[flagged]

I'm not sure which part of my comment makes you think of cancel culture.

My general gist was that we should make it illegal to fire someone, penalize someone or withdraw opportunities because an online or real-life mob told you to. Mob "justice" has been a problem humanity has had to deal with for centuries/millenia, but the internet somehow made people think mobs are OK, because participating is risk-free now.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#174

Post by civilized » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #162

civilized wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The letter you link is quite clear: MIT doesn't want to hold a scientist up as a role model if progressive activists dislike him. This wouldn't have happened at University of Chicago.

Your comment is a partial answer to a question I have: are there any universities with any prestige who still, today, uphold the principles of free expression and academic freedom? I thought MIT might still have some institutional self-respect, and am saddened to find out that it does not. Who’s left (in addition to U. of Chicago)?

Here are some schools that endorse the Chicago Statement on Freedom of Expression: https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-fac...

Not all of these schools have a perfect history of supporting free expression, but this is a big positive indicator.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#175

Post by ramraj07 » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #44

Ultimately I blame Twitter and Twitter mobs for all insanity like this. World would be a much better place without Twitter.

What exactly did Twitter itself do other than create a unique platform that is arguably valuable in its own right? Are they secretly making it more evil to make more ad money?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#176

Post by ramphastidae » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

gbrown wrote: post #97

lugged wrote: post #81

> Why the Latest Campus Cancellation is Different Spoiler: it's not any different at all, the author is just red pilling and decided to tell the world about it.

Having read the article, that seems like a nonsense take. Care to explain?

I think parent is saying that the progressive Twitter mob has been labeling and attacking people who support merit-based admissions policies that ignore race as racists for many years already. This cancellation is not “different” as the author says, they are only now becoming aware of the pervasiveness and wrongness of this type of thinking since it happened to someone they care about and not someone they didn’t.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#177

Post by ResearchCode » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #102

snek_case wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be good to pass laws that make it illegal to fire someone over a twitter mob (or any kind of mob action). Anti-mob or anti-bullying laws. And/or initiate class-action lawsuits against twitter for encouraging this kind of behavior or failing to prevent it, resulting in significant damage to people's careers. It's far from being the first time this happens, so there's definitely a case to be made that twitter…

> llegal to fire someone over a twitter mob [...] Anti-lynching laws Are you really comparing getting fired from your job to a lynching? Because one of them seems a whole lot less serious than the other...

Yes, they are very comparable. One tries to kill you outright, one tries to kill you by starvation or drive you to suicide.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#178

Post by ncann » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #169

Then the campaign to cancel Abbot’s lecture began. On Twitter, some students and professors called on the university to retract its invitation. And, sure enough, MIT buckled, becoming yet another major institution in American life to demonstrate that the commitment to free speech it trumpets on its website evaporates the moment some loud voices on social media call for a speaker’s head. Two tweets does not seem like…

That's exactly the point that the article was trying to make: a loud minority calling for the cancellation, and the institution buckles and does the cancellation despite of common sense.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#179

Post by ResearchCode » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

snek_case wrote: post #96

wepple wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power they have isn’t over us, it’s over institutions and businesses who seem to bend to the will of the mob. I’d like to see some data on whether a Twitter storm in a teacup has any measurable negative consequences for a typical large organization, and whether they need to listen as often as they do.

It would be good to pass laws that make it illegal to fire someone over a twitter mob (or any kind of mob action). Anti-mob or anti-bullying laws. And/or initiate class-action lawsuits against twitter for encouraging this kind of behavior or failing to prevent it, resulting in significant damage to people's careers. It's far from being the first time this happens, so there's definitely a case to be made that twitter…

Yes, it is largely a labor law issue. Twitter mob is not just cause for terminating the employment of someone. Using anti-defamation laws against individual bullies is another possibility.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#180

Post by motohagiography » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #46

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

the problem is that prestigious institutions are run by bureaucrats wearing its skin. For example this article says "MIT buckled", when in reality some campus admin buckled because to them it's not worth risking their comfy job over a speaker. The bureaucrats have no skin in the game, they don't benefit from thinking about long term damage to MIT or society in general. From their perspective it's logical to bow to Tw…

A pervasive lack of backbone among individuals in institutions is key to this. The shunning and shaming tactics used by online mobs are a very particular form of human aggression. Speculating on a correlating factor among the people in these institutions who seem so consistently vulnerable to it may be itself, problematic, but it's as though the organizations are missing anyone with the instinct to challenge or deflect hysterical twitter mobbings, and where we are now is a result of that absence of resistance at all.