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The latest campus cancellation is different

theatlantic.com

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Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#491

Post by helen___keller »

rscoots wrote: post #298
helen___keller wrote: post #199

If it wasn’t Twitter it would be Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, or whatever social network is cool tomorrow. The social media cat is out of the bag. Mob justice is, unfortunately, the purest form of democracy, untempered by government or constitution or other forms of control. The only paths forward are to live with mob justice or to enforce actions against free speech and expression (ie making it illegal to cancel someon…

? Or these highly-paid & pampered university admins could simply grow a spine. And we can call them out on it in the interim which seems to have some impact.

I call this strategy waiting for human nature to change.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#492

Post by helen___keller »

missblit wrote: post #303
helen___keller wrote: post #199

If it wasn’t Twitter it would be Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, or whatever social network is cool tomorrow. The social media cat is out of the bag. Mob justice is, unfortunately, the purest form of democracy, untempered by government or constitution or other forms of control. The only paths forward are to live with mob justice or to enforce actions against free speech and expression (ie making it illegal to cancel someon…

Social Media is not the purest form of democracy because the people using social media, or who have a lot of followers on social media, are not representative

Mob justice is the purest form of democracy (how do the people organize in a land with no laws? They get pitchforks to oust the Bad People)

Social media is a tool that happens to facilitate mob justice particularly effectively. Why? Because you used to have to gather dozens or hundreds of people in the town common before you could yell “Burn the witch!”. Now you just tweet it (or share it, or telegram it, or…)

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#493

Post by silisili »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #436
silisili wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. To quote Dave Chappelle, out of context to avoid further debate... "...they dragged me on Twitter. Well I don't give a fuck because Twitter isn't a real place."

Well, what if Netflix had comments and likes?

IIRC, Netflix used to have voting until Amy Schumer's special was mass downvoted. Comments wouldn't be practical I guess. But I'd imagine his opinion would be the same, really.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#494

Post by DreamScatter »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #117

Is there a way to access the Twitter hate sphere that actually contributed to this? This is the first I’ve heard of it and I’m regularly on Twitter. I’d love to actually sit and witness this sort of behavior myself instead of getting it second-handedly through reporting. It doesn’t help the Twitter interface utterly sucks at collating and quantifying the stuff in a real manner.

Do you seriously want to waste your time like that?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#495

Post by WalterBright »

gruez wrote: post #487
WalterBright wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bankruptcy isn't a joke, either. Besides, my goal is not to destroy the person. It's to make it costly for him to commit crimes against me.

>It's to make it costly for him to commit crimes against me. That only works if he doesn't think the cost is worth it. If you've already gone through the trouble of planning/executing this, I doubt one of the hostages telling you about the potential financial consequences is going to make you change your mind.

> That only works if he doesn't think the cost is worth it.

He'll be finding it out, then.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#496

Post by snek_case »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #444
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…

> Right now, the mob can crush anyone they feel like crushing with no consequences. Not quite. Right now the mob can crush anyone if that "anyone" is at the mercy of an institution that will allow them to be crushed. Imagine this exact same situation, except that MIT tells the Twitter mob to get lost. What would happen? The Twitter mob would howl for a couple of weeks, and then their attention would turn elsewhere. I…

That's true. They might even have a hard time even keeping it up for a couple of weeks if said institution doesn't even bother to respond to the twitter mob, just completely ignores them. Social media has a very short attention span, and if nothing new happens, they'll move on to something else to get outraged about.

It's still problematic that many people will lose their livelihood and have their careers damaged by this. Even if your current employer sides with you, having negative twitter mobs write about you might reduce your chances of landing the next job.

In order to make things better, I think we need to be more vocal and forceful in standing up to cancel culture. To actively reject it as a society. Just hoping that your current and future employers will maybe side with you, maybe that's a start, but it isn't enough.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#497

Post by iammisc »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #330
iammisc wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay that's great, but it doesntm mean we ought to abandom those values out of some made up historical notion that only white people want such things.

Of course not. But that’s what the wave of woke left wing Twitter mobs (and the likes of AOC, etc.) are pushing for. You have authoritarians on the left and authoritarians on the right, and an ever shrinking center. Not sure how we get out of this predicament.

By not listening to the extremists? By deleting social media

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#498

Post by iammisc »

geofft wrote: post #456
iammisc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a conscious belief on behalf of immigrant families like my own that the reason we came to this country is for the free speech, so when we see American institutions that do not seem to care, we wonder if America actually lives up to its promises.

I'm a child of immigrants. I grew up watching my non-white parents adopt white mannerisms and cultural norms, join a white church, live in a white neighborhood, etc. in a very racially diverse town because any other choice would put them at a disadvantage. My complaint is not that this country fails to live up to its promises, my complaint is that the promise itself is twisted. There are many ways you can value "free…

> both of those views seem to me like they are valid approaches to "free speech

Except they're not. One vision is quite literally very controlled speech. It may be appropriately called 'civil speech' or 'appropriate speech' but it is not free speech.

You cannot take a thing, call another thing that thing, and then attempt to claim the first thing is actually the second thing.

The first view you espoused does not preclude the second view from being discussed within its framework, whereas the second one does preclude the first. This very salient difference means that even by your metrics the first is superior.

The 1619 project should be allowed, it should just be mocked for being completely made up, and the newspaper that published it should be relegated to the garbage bin of history for printing something do devoid of reality. That doesn't mean it should be canceled.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#499

Post by SergeAx »

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 hope by blocking everybody they think are in support of other points they will pupate and stay forever in their tight circle, so the problem will solve itself. In the mean time, spend less time on Twitter is also a good idea.
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