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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

#531

Post by prepend »

firebaze wrote: post #96
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…

I got triggered by "Twitter knows". It doesn't. It's just a bunch of mostly toxic wannabe-in-group imbeciles. There are lots of exceptions, sure. But still. I lost count by orders of magnitude where the twitter mob-opinion was simply totally wrong (be it "masks are not useful" or whatever you name it). Thanks to the collective Alzheimer's, despite archive.org etc., this somehow doesn't hurt the mob mentality at all.

I meant Twitter the company. Twitter has the data for who was shown a tweet.

Twitter doesn’t have a dislike but they have signals like amount of time spent, skipped over, etc. I wish they would add a frown option.

If I tell a joke to a dinner table and get 6 frowns and 1 laughing person that means the joke isn’t very good. In the Twitter ecosystem, that’s a great joke.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#532

Post by snowflake_ptr »

Let's just call "cancelling" what it is - mob justice - and its executors what they are - mobs and mob justice apologists.

Perhaps a browser extension that replaces "cancel culture" with "mob justice tolerance" would be appropriate. We already have the cloud-to-butt extension...

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#533

Post by snowflake_ptr »

overgard wrote: post #99

I've fortunately never been cancelled (I don't think I even have enough of a footprint or visibility for that to happen). From everything I've observed, the absolute worst thing you can do is apologize to the people attempting to cancel you. It's just pouring gasoline on the fire. These people will never say "oh, you learned from your mistakes, I guess I'll back off" . Most of them don't really care about the truth,…

[dead]

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#534

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

lovecg wrote: post #263
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, yeah that's a pretty awful thing to say. Canada is definitely racist -- and I'd go so far as to say that it's safe to assume that everywhere and everyone is racist to some extent. Supporting the idea that you (individual, organization, country, whatever) are not racist makes it convenient to ignore efforts to combat racism ("why should we combat racism when there isn't any") which should be universally…

If you don’t mind me asking, did you grow up in Canada? When you’re saying that Canada is racist do you have any experiences of living in other countries to compare with? Can you point out specific examples of Canada being a racist country? Nowhere is perfect, but allow me to say that Canada (and even the US for that matter) are vastly less racist compared to many places. I can see someone who grew up with different…

> Can you point out specific examples of Canada being a racist country?

I'm guessing you didn't grow up in Canada. There's a whole Wikipedia article on the topic[0], some of which is covered during the common Canadian education. Other examples are commonplace knowledge. In particular, Aboriginal peoples have generally been treated quite poorly throughout Canada's history. This is further evidenced by the recent headlines, if you don't live under a rock.

I do have experiences in other countries to compare with, but I am not interested in comparisons, and I really don't know what that matters. I don't know any of that has to do with my statements.

> Nowhere is perfect, but allow me to say that Canada (and even the US for that matter) are vastly less racist compared to many places.

Sure, Canada (and the USA) might be "less racist" compared to other places but that doesn't really mean anything. I think very highly of Canada compared to my experiences in the rest of the world, and I'd like to add I did not feel this way until after experiencing other parts of the world. The more I experienced elsewhere, the more I appreciate how good Canadians have it.

But that doesn't mean it's a bastion of equality and its people without prejudices. We can always do better.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Canada

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#535

Post by nazgulnarsil »

mfksksis wrote: post #496
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter polls are anonymous. Anytime you see a toxic thread you can throw in a poll asking bystanders whether they think the thread is going in a helpful direction. It's helpful to remind people that the polls are anonymous.

the sample is still limited to logged in Twitter users sane people dont have Twitter accounts enjoy polling insane people

I'm not speaking theoretically I've seen this improve threads.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#536

Post by rkk3 »

koheripbal wrote: post #499
rkk3 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such statements should not be taken as factual confessions What does this even mean? Don't apologize for coercing people to have sex if you didn't do that.

I think the comment is pretty clear in its meaning. Do you really not understand it?

No I don't understand. The author published a written apology, and has said nothing about it not being sincere, what shouldn't be taken as "factual".

There is a very big difference between not taking his apology as truthful and other people distorting what he said ie; people equating apologizing for "pressuring someone to have sex" as the same thing as apologizing for rape.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#537

Post by lelanthran »

tptacek wrote: post #491
lelanthran wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are free to retain professional connections with this person. Only if they want to also be mobbed. I did say earlier that the mob ensures ostracization via fear. There is nothing redeeming or respectable about being in a mob, but the current cancel culture is attempting to overturn generations of social norms by trying to portray mobbing and witch-hunting as the moral high-ground. Believe me, no matter how m…

I don't think this response is very coherent. As I pointed out, you can face the same "serious" consequence simply for calling someone a bad name. What you're saying would make sense if we were discussing convicting him of a crime, but that's not what we're talking about; instead, his defenders are moving the goalposts, so that we use the standards of evidence of criminal conviction and imprisonment to enforce standa…

> coherent

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

> instead, his defenders are moving the goalposts, so that we use the standards of evidence of criminal conviction and imprisonment to enforce standards of social and commercial behavior.

No goalposts are being moved. The "defenders" as you put it, are simply saying "You are accusing that person of a crime. Where's your evidence?"

We're literally at the point where you appear to be claiming that asking for evidence is "moving the goalposts".

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#538

Post by tptacek »

lelanthran wrote: post #537
tptacek wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this response is very coherent. As I pointed out, you can face the same "serious" consequence simply for calling someone a bad name. What you're saying would make sense if we were discussing convicting him of a crime, but that's not what we're talking about; instead, his defenders are moving the goalposts, so that we use the standards of evidence of criminal conviction and imprisonment to enforce standa…

> coherent You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. > instead, his defenders are moving the goalposts, so that we use the standards of evidence of criminal conviction and imprisonment to enforce standards of social and commercial behavior. No goalposts are being moved. The "defenders" as you put it, are simply saying "You are accusing that person of a crime. Where's your evidence?" W…

Not coherent, in that it doesn't cohere. For instance: your argument accepts implicitly the fact that you can be fired just for being a jerk (as happens every day in every field), or otherwise hard to work with. But if someone commits an actual sexual assault, an organization seeking to terminate them assumes a heightened burden of proof. That doesn't make sense.

The fact is, nobody is required to meet a standard of proof to choose not to associate with this person. You can keep associating with them if you'd like.

An irony here is that the law actually provides this person with a tool, if people have stopped associating with him commercially because of false statements of purported fact ("he groped someone", or "he attempted to have sex with someone too intoxicated to consent" certainly qualifies, per se in fact, as both are crimes): he can sue for defamation.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#539

Post by spoonjim »

kyleee wrote: post #517
tasuki wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia: > Liss said Cuomo called her "sweetheart," touched her on her lower back while they were at a reception, and also once kissed her hand after she stood up from her desk. There are worse accusations too, but surely this is closer to light flirting than to lewd behavior? Compared to this, a certain recent US ex-president should have been cancelled a dozen times over.

The person you've responded to said dozens; so what are the other accusations?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#540

Post by lovecg »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #534
lovecg wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t mind me asking, did you grow up in Canada? When you’re saying that Canada is racist do you have any experiences of living in other countries to compare with? Can you point out specific examples of Canada being a racist country? Nowhere is perfect, but allow me to say that Canada (and even the US for that matter) are vastly less racist compared to many places. I can see someone who grew up with different…

> Can you point out specific examples of Canada being a racist country? I'm guessing you didn't grow up in Canada. There's a whole Wikipedia article on the topic[0], some of which is covered during the common Canadian education. Other examples are commonplace knowledge. In particular, Aboriginal peoples have generally been treated quite poorly throughout Canada's history. This is further evidenced by the recent headl…

Thank you for your response. In some ways I have a reverse experience: I grew up elsewhere and then moved to Canada (I did get to go to school for a few years). I was blown away by how accepting and open the Canadian society was. Trust me, you have a very good thing going. Even with the examples you give, you realize that teaching about racist historical mistakes in school is far from the norm in many other countries.

Let me offer an analogy. You might think that some aspects of the Canadian government are corrupt, while I on the other hand would grant that there might be some issues but would emphatically agree that “Canada is NOT a corrupt country”. Would you still say something like: “Supporting the idea that you (individual, organization, country, whatever) are not corrupt makes it convenient to ignore efforts to combat corruption ("why should we combat corruption when there isn't any") which should be universally supported.”? Would you still agree that it’s right to cancel someone over saying that “Canada is NOT corrupt”?

Because I see very little difference between the two situations.

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