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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

#391

Post by darioush »

leesalminen wrote: post #284
reidrac wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right. And it really bothers me because sometimes I see something really unfair, and it is hard to not say anything, but it is not real life and you only need a handful of anonymous people with enough time on their hands to make your life hell. Just because you're not anonymous. I almost regret being my real me online. We always had trolls, but this is something else. I almost deleted this comment bef…

I find myself self-censoring more and more here on HN. I never had a problem until someone on here accused me of being a racist because my company consisted of primarily white people. It really messed with my head for a little bit. I mostly try and shy away from any contentious topic online now. I haven’t felt this pressure IRL (yet?) because people that know me know that I’m a very reasonable person who doesn’t hate…

> because people that know me know that I’m a very reasonable person who doesn’t hate anyone or any group

That, and other aspects of reality may not interest the kind of people who would 'cancel' someone.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#392

Post by caddemon »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #334
caddemon wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, IIRC the Medium post that made the situation go viral beyond MIT was written by a student that just compiled other peoples' stories about Stallman, not based on any of her own experiences. Personally I can't imagine initiating calls for someone's head without first hand knowledge, but I don't think she had any hidden incentive to make the post. My guess is she had her own negative experiences with someone else i…

Perhaps you are being too charitable in assuming that the student was calling for Stallman’s head out of past trauma. It could be that the calling for his head was a performative act for her own benefit, boosting her in the eyes of others.

Maybe to the extent that anyone who participates in social justice mobs is being performative, but it definitely did not help her career or result in any material gain. She also had no incentive to take down Stallman specifically, of course she didn't even really know who he was when she made the post. I wouldn't be surprised if she was trying to get a bit of street cred with her in-group, but to me that's just an extremely human, often somewhat subconscious thing. I would be surprised if that was literally the only motivation though - the post comes across as legitimately emotional, not faux outrage.

That doesn't mean she was right to make the post obviously, I just don't think it was any sort of active ploy on her part. I don't even think the anger was fake, from her or most of the initial responders. As it propagated maybe the outrage was more manufactured, but believe me I know people that felt just as heated as she did at the time, only expressed it in private chats. In some cases these were chats with just a handful of friends that had a spectrum of opinions on the issue, so no reason for it to be posturing.

I hate cancel culture, and I understand feeling like some instances are very manufactured. But I feel it is more dangerous when it is organic, because it is very hard to deal with legitimate human emotions. I think usually when the organic mobs misfire it is a "straw breaking the camel's back" type situation: some minor offender becomes the target of pent up rage from a larger issue, and the punishment ends up being way disproportionate for the one, while many others get off scot-free.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#393

Post by stavros »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #317
legitster wrote: post #65

Honestly, the biggest mistake people make is issuing public apologies. So far, we have very few examples of them actually working. On the contrary, any amount of admission seems to show weakness. The "controversy" around Lin-Manuel Miranda seems to have come nearly entirely from his apology to a very small group of disappointed fans. There are even more examples of very publicly terrible people who have skirted worse…

> So far, we have very few examples of them actually working. That's not the purpose of an apology. An apology is something you do to help the victims move forward, not something you do to minimize consequences.

The GP said "public apology", not "apology". You can apologize to the victims in private.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#394

Post by tptacek »

koheripbal wrote: post #383
tptacek wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the only reasonable reading of the situation, and your framing here is pretty inflammatory. We're supposed to get calmer and more careful in our writing as topics get complicated; see the guidelines at the bottom of the page.

This person's career was destroyed because of an online mob. ...and that mob is not psychologically healthy. The online vengeance mob is a toxic and destructive part of our world.

I don't think "online mob" is the only reasonable reading here, and the claim that the people telling the other side of this story must be psychologically unhealthy is also inflammatory, as is talking about its "toxicity" and "destructiveness". This isn't shedding any more light, or rewarding curiosity, which are the goals of the site.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#395

Post by lelanthran »

verifex wrote: post #370
lelanthran wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Actually it is a counterpoint. If someone accuses me of a crime, then refuses to pursue any prosecution of that crime, and then expects me to suffer consequences for that crime, that's a gross injustice. That's why we have a justice system.

The problem is that there is no justice system for things that are not illegal, but are ethically or morally bad. Society in the US and in much of the western world has agreed that the only official punishments due for anything are when laws are broken. No law broken, no punishment. This is actually a weakness of our society when the lawmaking bodies choose to sit on the sidelines when the ethical or moral values of…

> The problem is that there is no justice system for things that are not illegal, but are ethically or morally bad.

That's not a problem, that's a feature!

After all, do you want to be punished for breaking someone else's moral code?

Whether you like it or not, the legal system and the sets of laws is the only moral and ethical yardstick we have gotten society to agree on.

If you want your particular set of morals to have a punishment then work within the guidelines to get it made into a law.

If you can't garner enough support for your moral position to be made into law then maybe it's not as moral as you think.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#396

Post by chmod600 »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #317
legitster wrote: post #65

Honestly, the biggest mistake people make is issuing public apologies. So far, we have very few examples of them actually working. On the contrary, any amount of admission seems to show weakness. The "controversy" around Lin-Manuel Miranda seems to have come nearly entirely from his apology to a very small group of disappointed fans. There are even more examples of very publicly terrible people who have skirted worse…

> So far, we have very few examples of them actually working. That's not the purpose of an apology. An apology is something you do to help the victims move forward, not something you do to minimize consequences.

A private apology is different from a public apology. The former helps victims move on, the latter is for third parties to move on.

In either case, a good apology should show some sincere character development on your part.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#397

Post by defaultname »

koheripbal wrote: post #343
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…

> Citing that no one officially lodged a criminal complaint isn't a counterpoint. Most sexual assault isn't pursued. Your argument here is that he's guilty until proven innocent.

If we're going to use that terminology, note that the common phrase "innocent until proven guilty" applies to the court, and only to the court. That it must treat you as innocent until a guilty judgment is rendered.

It isn't some universal right or something, and has zero bearing on this conversation.

I'm not saying he's guilty or innocent. But if someone says "he did nothing illegal because he hasn't been charged" [which the comment I replied to claimed], eh... By some estimates only 5% of sexual assaults are reported to police, so it's a sensitive topic.

But that's orthogonal anyways. My core point was that if someone was a creep and causing discomfort at trade events while associated with a brand, it doesn't need to be illegal to have negative consequences.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#398

Post by shadeslayer_ »

dylan-m wrote: post #36
shadeslayer_ wrote: post #6

I'm a bit sceptical about this because it talks very little about what happened that caused OP to get "cancelled", and an awful lot about how they came back from it. I do understand, first-hand, the trauma that comes from being cancelled (although I have like 1500 followers on Twitter so you could argue the stakes are less) and there's no doubt that it is a bitch. But there is something to take away from it - or at l…

> I do not see a lot of learning they have done from being cancelled. That's the mob mentality speaking. Just because a bunch of assholes on the internet took something they said out of context, and refused to acknowledge that people other than themselves are not objects and are capable of changing over time, that doesn't mean the person they targeted needs to "learn" anything except that people on the internet are a…

I don't understand. If they are capable of changing over time, surely they are capable of looking back on their past selves and acknowledging what was wrong with them?

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#399

Post by phkahler »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #334
caddemon wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, IIRC the Medium post that made the situation go viral beyond MIT was written by a student that just compiled other peoples' stories about Stallman, not based on any of her own experiences. Personally I can't imagine initiating calls for someone's head without first hand knowledge, but I don't think she had any hidden incentive to make the post. My guess is she had her own negative experiences with someone else i…

Perhaps you are being too charitable in assuming that the student was calling for Stallman’s head out of past trauma. It could be that the calling for his head was a performative act for her own benefit, boosting her in the eyes of others.

>> Perhaps you are being too charitable in assuming that the student was calling for Stallman’s head out of past trauma. It could be that the calling for his head was a performative act for her own benefit, boosting her in the eyes of others.

A lot of people who do the later actually have unresolved trauma issues. It's just harder for people to empathize with them because of their behaviour. The claim in psychology is that narcissistic people are actually using that to protect a deeply fragile ego. But then maybe psychologists just want to say everyone suffers from the same thing. We'd all be peace loving, sharing, commie hippies by default if nobody screwed us up ;-)

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#400

Post by rkk3 »

tptacek wrote: post #381
rkk3 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok since you don't post links I'll assume you are referring to: 'Bradley’s statement came the morning after concept artist Betty Jiang posted accusations on Twitter about a “bald headed crusty assed ‘well known’ artist who went around groping female devs,” saying that she hoped “to never see you and your shitty v-neck shirts at any workshops or conventions.”' He apologized for a lot of things, but I don't see him adm…

As I said: you can see screenshots of threads where he was accused both of "groping" and of taking advantaged of intoxicated women at events, and he responded with a link to the apology. Follow the first footnote from the Wikipedia article, and then click the screenshot on the first message in the Twitter thread. I have no way of judging the veracity of either side of this argument, but it sure looks like the allegat…

So the tweet paraphrased above, here is the link... Which again he didn't directly reply to and didn't say anything about groping anyone in his apology... Is it really that hard to link?

https://twitter.com/BettyDesuJiang/status/127450059571858227...

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