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

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#41

Post by spikels » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

thebooktocome wrote: post #16

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…

I didn't see any libel mentioned in the article. The author seems not to dispute the claims made against him.

C’mon. It’s in the 2nd paragraph!

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#42

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:38 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…

Even for as creepy as Kevin Spacey is/was, all accounts of his cancelling are tossed out in court for lack of evidence, or pending his own lawsuits against these people. Netflix really did him dirty throwing him under the bus like they did as have many companies/schools/organizations simply on hearsay alone. It reminds me a lot of the movie Jagten with Mads Mickelson. A whole community despises you and vehemently wants nothing to do with you all based on rumor and speculation. Without even a legitimate means to protect yourself.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#43

Post by daenz » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

I just assume at some point in my life, if I achieve my dreams, I'm going to get cancelled. If you have big aspirations, you should assume this too. Start preparing mentally for it.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#44

Post by noahbradley » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

GPerson wrote: post #39

Damn. Sorry Noah. I don’t know if you’re reading this page but if you are I just want to thank you for the resources you’ve put out.

Thanks! I appreciate that. It sucks, but I'm glad to still be alive and still able to make stuff.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#45

Post by chickenpotpie » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #5

Be anonymous. Be obscure. Stop talking to people on the internet.

I don’t understand your comment. He was cancelled over actions IRL. Whether he had a Twitter or not, other people do and they know his name and where he works.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#46

Post by jhrmnn » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

doggodaddo78 wrote: post #22

I still don't understand "cancel culture." It seems the equivalent of a random person saying "I put a voodoo curse on you." What non-mythological power does it invoke? Does it ever lead to mainstream, widespread shunning? The next part I don't understand is the weak culture of profuse and repeated apologizing and contrition for a "microaggression." This is something Bill Maher harps about from time-to-time. Finally,…

Cancel culture is just a modern form of ostracism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#47

Post by long_time_gone » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #13

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 really wish there was a bit more introspection into how you see your past behaviour in the light of being cancelled. I don't get this comment. The author says explicitly that he was an asshole in the past, that he changed who he was, and that he apologized privately to the people he had hurt. What more do you want?

He has also admitted to “pressuring women into sex” in other posts. Does apologizing just wipe all that away? How would he know if he apologized to every person he hurt?

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#48

Post by PaulKeeble » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

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 out of the way. Alas we don't have any riot police so they get to just rip up peoples lives however they want.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#49

Post by qbasic_forever » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

eurasiantiger wrote: post #27

commandlinefan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is - stop using the internet as the disruptive communications network it way designed to be.

Originally, the Internet (including, but not limited to, the World Wide Web) was a place where nobody was interested in who you were as a person. It was and is geared towards structuring and disseminating knowledge. In that sense, the entire somesphere is a tumor to the Internet.

That's a very tunnel vision view of the early web. You're ignoring BBS's, AOL, usenet, IRC, etc. which were all created with the explicit purpose of people connecting and talking to other people. You can go even further back to things like Community Memory and the Homebrew Computer Club--computing has firmly been embracing people connecting to other people since the early days.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#50

Post by lovecg » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

ThaDood wrote: post #10

I guess the simple rule of not being a dick still holds a little truth.

On the other hand the rule of “if you’ve ever been a dick in the past, your life and career should be destroyed proportionality be damned” seems like a societal failure.