[arista]

In Owens clip Toby does not speak

[Liam-]

Owen is correct

[Oliver_W]

It's easy to see both sides of the debate. Owen Jones and slimy and creepy which makes automatically taking the opposite view to him pretty easy but it's not clear cut either way.

Do some people lose jobs or platforms because of things they've said or done, possibly decades ago? Yup. Weirdos on Twitter dug up ancient tweets from James Gunn and the guy from the Flash, and they both lost jobs because of it.

It's pretty stupid to:
- go digging in people's twitter history
- punish people for typing words on a screen which aren't calling for violence
- and also to say those things in the first place.

To call it a "culture" is giving it more credit than it deserves, but there's definitely a ... movement? of people trying to remove people from the public eye for no good reason, simply because they have disagreeable views.

Using ScarJo, JK Rowling, and Jimmy Kimmel as examples that it doesn't exist is silly, as they're all immensly rich, popular, and good at what they do. Removing JK's work because of her views, and whatever ScarJo and Kimmel are meant to have done would do more harm than good.

Some rando on twitter taught his dog to raise its paw in the air and his life was ruined because of it. That's not proportionate retribution. An appropriate response would be ... nothing at all.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Using ScarJo, JK Rowling, and Jimmy Kimmel as examples that it doesn't exist is silly, as they're all immensly rich, popular, and good at what they do. .

I agree, using celebrities with loyal, established followings and careers as "proof" that mob justice doesn't ruin lives is one of the dumbest arguments currently circulating Twitter.

[Liam-]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I agree, using celebrities with loyal, established followings and careers as "proof" that mob justice doesn't ruin lives is one of the dumbest arguments currently circulating Twitter.

No it isn’t, because they’re the ones crying the loudest about being ‘cancelled’ or ‘silenced’ using the very publicly huge following they continue to have

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Liam-

No it isn’t, because they’re the ones crying the loudest about being ‘cancelled’ or ‘silenced’ using the very publicly huge following they continue to have

Yes it is, "mob justice didn't ruin this person's life or career, therefore it doesn't ruin lives or careers" is a demonstrably illogical, and thus dumb, argument.

"Lol look at this guy, complaining loudly about getting shot, saying I could have killed him, but Ummmm he's not dead he's right there shouting loudly so obviously he's NOT dead and so shooting people DOESN'T result in them dying, so what is he even on about lmao."

If you can see why the above statement is dumb, then you can understand why the argument that encouraging or engaging in mob justice doesn't end careers because it "didn't in these examples" is also dumb.

I'm going to continue referring to it as mob justice because it is mob justice, "cancel culture" is a shiny new term for something as old as civilisation... and I don't have a huge amount of time for that, either.

As for whether or not "some people deserve it"...? Probably, sure, there are plenty of awful people out there. Some people deserving it doesn't mean that it's a good idea though. That argument also falls apart like wet tissue paper under a little pressure.

I'm inherently uncomfortable with what is or isn't deserved, and what does or doesn't constitute justice, being decided by a small, vocal group of very angry, very unqualified, and often not-very-rational individuals.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

It's easy to see both sides of the debate. Owen Jones and slimy and creepy which makes automatically taking the opposite view to him pretty easy but it's not clear cut either way.

Do some people lose jobs or platforms because of things they've said or done, possibly decades ago? Yup. Weirdos on Twitter dug up ancient tweets from James Gunn and the guy from the Flash, and they both lost jobs because of it.

It's pretty stupid to:
- go digging in people's twitter history
- punish people for typing words on a screen which aren't calling for violence
- and also to say those things in the first place.

To call it a "culture" is giving it more credit than it deserves, but there's definitely a ... movement? of people trying to remove people from the public eye for no good reason, simply because they have disagreeable views.

Using ScarJo, JK Rowling, and Jimmy Kimmel as examples that it doesn't exist is silly, as they're all immensly rich, popular, and good at what they do. Removing JK's work because of her views, and whatever ScarJo and Kimmel are meant to have done would do more harm than good.

Some rando on twitter taught his dog to raise its paw in the air and his life was ruined because of it. That's not proportionate retribution. An appropriate response would be ... nothing at all.

I agree with this in its entirety.

[Tom4784]

There's good and bad sides to it. A lot of people who do get cancelled completely deserve it, if you're harrassing someone for being black and you're recorded on camera then you deserve to face societal backlash. If you make a poor taste joke ten years ago that obviously doesn't reflect who you are now, it's undeserved. Cancellation can be a bitter lesson to those that deserve it but for the latter it discourages personal growth and learning by saying that your past will always dictate your present.

Some people were bigots and they grew to know better so should they always be seen as bigots because that's who they were in the past? No, it's counter-productive as it discourages people to know better if they'll always be judged by their past deeds.

Overall I think cancellation isn't a bad thing, more often then not, it's aimed at the right people. I do tend to think that a lot of people who denounce it completely are part of the same 'PC gone mad' crowd who probably fear being cancelled themselves.

[Liam-]

You can call it dumb all you want, but the fact is, free speech covers everything from people’s right to say offensive stuff, to people being allowed to criticise, ‘mob rule’ has never caused anyone to lose their job, if everyone who said something controversial lost their job, because they caused a public outrage, the unemployment queue would be enormous, people’s careers are effected if the people they work with or for no longer want to work with them, that is down to the person only.

Using the celebrities with the loudest voices saying they’ve been ‘cancelled’ or ‘silenced’ is perfectly reasonable, how can someone be silenced, if they’re spewing their opinions on very public forums and if they’re given slots in the media and on tv to share their opinions, those people benefit from controversy, take Laurence Fox, he’s probably benefited from being ‘cancelled’ the most, he’s talked about now by more people than during his entire career.

The right wing are purposefully highlighting something that isn’t as effective as people are lead to believe, because saying people are going after them because of ‘cancel culture’ is their way of distancing themselves from their controversial opinions and actions, anyone that disagrees with something they say or do, they’re automatically labelled as they loony left’ ‘the snowflakes’ ‘The mob’, it’s a tool to shut down debate and shun accountability, those people are the real deniers of free speech and people are buying into their bull.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Liam-

You can call it dumb all you want, but the fact is, free speech covers everything from people’s right to say offensive stuff, to people being allowed to criticise, ‘mob rule’ has never caused anyone to lose their job, if everyone who said something controversial lost their job, because they caused a public outrage, the unemployment queue would be enormous, people’s careers are effected if the people they work with or for no longer want to work with them, that is down to the person only.

Using the celebrities with the loudest voices saying they’ve been ‘cancelled’ or ‘silenced’ is perfectly reasonable, how can someone be silenced, if they’re spewing their opinions on very public forums and if they’re given slots in the media and on tv to share their opinions, those people benefit from controversy, take Laurence Fox, he’s probably benefited from being ‘cancelled’ the most, he’s talked about now by more people than during his entire career.

The right wing are purposefully highlighting something that isn’t as effective as people are lead to believe, because saying people are going after them because of ‘cancel culture’ is their way of distancing themselves from their controversial opinions and actions, anyone that disagrees with something they say or do, they’re automatically labelled as they loony left’ ‘the snowflakes’ ‘The mob’, it’s a tool to shut down debate and shun accountability, those people are the real deniers of free speech and people are buying into their bull.

I didn't say that the flipside of the coin is good or that people aren't disingenuous or that people don't use these things to their advantage. On the flipside, people absolutely do abuse the right to free speech and veer into hate speech and yes people do make false claims of persecution for their own benefit.

But I'm not going to go down the route of allowing those things to encourage me to ignore that people also use false or exaggerated outrage and crowd-sourced influence the promote and encourage a single-minded group think of "stuff that's correct". I find it frankly creepy as ****. "Oh of course you have a path out of this; convince us that you now think as we think, or if you don't, at least successfully pretend that you do".

It bothers me that 100+ people incapable of formulating a coherent argument of their own can now simply forcibly parrot various dumbed-down mantras against someone they disagree with, and that's supposedly a viable substitute for an intelligent and reasoned debate.

[Braden]

What’s annoying about ‘cancel culture’ is that people define a person by the opinion they disagree with, and this is prevalent online because people don’t have the balls to actually debate. They’re quick to label people and categorise and that’s that. Then it has an annoying knock-on effect that if you stick up for them or agree, you’re cancelled by default as well.

There are people who won’t be happy until everyone is homogenised into thinking the same way, but the ironic thing is that those people go about it the worst way possible and ultimately fuels this us versus them effect that is plaguing modern society more and more.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Braden

What’s annoying about ‘cancel culture’ is that people define a person by the opinion they disagree with, and this is prevalent online because people don’t have the balls to actually debate. They’re quick to label people and categorise and that’s that. Then it has an annoying knock-on effect that if you stick up for them or agree, you’re cancelled by default as well.

There are people who won’t be happy until everyone is homogenised into thinking the same way, but the ironic thing is that those people go about it the worst way possible and ultimately fuels this us versus them effect that is plaguing modern society more and more.

In a nutshell Braden

[Braden]

Originally Posted by Cherie

In a nutshell Braden

I try my best, Cherie

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Braden

I try my best, Cherie

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Braden

What’s annoying about ‘cancel culture’ is that people define a person by the opinion they disagree with, and this is prevalent online because people don’t have the balls to actually debate. They’re quick to label people and categorise and that’s that. Then it has an annoying knock-on effect that if you stick up for them or agree, you’re cancelled by default as well.

There are people who won’t be happy until everyone is homogenised into thinking the same way, but the ironic thing is that those people go about it the worst way possible and ultimately fuels this us versus them effect that is plaguing modern society more and more.

Yeah, it's kind of like in Big Brother when a three dimensional human being does or says something bad (not including actual disgusting stuff like racism etc) 3 weeks in as we all do at times and suddenly it's them "showing their true colours" and they're a horrible person because they had a bad day and snapped at someone. So, no matter what they do or say from that point on people don't like them because they're not perfect, or they said something you don't agree with.

[DouglasS]

Originally Posted by Braden

What’s annoying about ‘cancel culture’ is that people define a person by the opinion they disagree with, and this is prevalent online because people don’t have the balls to actually debate. They’re quick to label people and categorise and that’s that. Then it has an annoying knock-on effect that if you stick up for them or agree, you’re cancelled by default as well.

There are people who won’t be happy until everyone is homogenised into thinking the same way, but the ironic thing is that those people go about it the worst way possible and ultimately fuels this us versus them effect that is plaguing modern society more and more.

So true. I have people on FB and Instagram that post stories saying they will delete anybody with differing political views or any criticism in response to certain topics... it’s ridiculous that people can’t accept differing views now... instead just throw a hissy fit

[Niamh.]

Its also a myth that only right wing or right leaning people think cancel culture exists

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Its also a myth that only right wing or right leaning people think cancel culture exists

There are plenty of people who have openly and proudly weaponised it, or at the very least are attempting to. If "it doesn't work" - they are sorely disappointed that it doesn't - and are going to keep at it in the hopes that it will.

[Elliot]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Its also a myth that only right wing or right leaning people think cancel culture exists

A lot of people on the left agree cancel culture exists, just those people are also sick of the right using it as a tool to deflect and prevent criticism or challenging their bs rhetoric

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Elliot

A lot of people on the left agree cancel culture exists, just those people are also sick of the right using it as a tool to deflect and prevent criticism or challenging their bs rhetoric

That's happening too but really it's a separate issue. "I refuse to call out the people on my side who are being aggressive and threatening because other people are doing bad things toooOOOoooOOoo" sums up one of the biggest problems with the entitity of social media.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Elliot

A lot of people on the left agree cancel culture exists, just those people are also sick of the right using it as a tool to deflect and prevent criticism or challenging their bs rhetoric

I consider myself to be left leaning, I'd also consider TS to be left leaning

[Marsh.]

Yeah, just because it's virtually impossible to financially ruin Rowling's career considering she's a bloody billionaire, doesn't take away from the attempt to completely ruin the reputations of people who offer opinions that go against the extreme activists. What about the people who aren't as financially stable as she is?

Edit - And I'm not referring to rent-a-gobs like Laurence Fox and Katie Hopkins who use hate speech for attention, but people who just dare to have another opinion and have it labelled as hate just because it doesn't align with the activists rules.

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Yeah, just because it's virtually impossible to financially ruin Rowling's career considering she's a bloody billionaire, doesn't take away from the attempt to completely ruin the reputations of people who offer opinions that go against the extreme activists. What about the people who aren't as financially stable as she is?

Edit - And I'm not referring to rent-a-gobs like Laurence Fox and Katie Hopkins who use hate speech for attention, but people who just dare to have another opinion and have it labelled as hate just because it doesn't align with the activists rules.

I still don't know who Laurence Fox is or what he's actually said but he should be allowed to say what he wants, until he calls for violence. If people don't like it, the best thing to do is starve the flame of oxygen and not whinge about some actor mouthing off.

Katie Hopkins is just vile.

I don't follow Posie Parker but to my knowledge she's never actually said anything bad or incendiary but she's been banned from almost all social media platforms. No platform should be forced to host anyone or anything, but there's no real reason for her to have been banned.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

I still don't know who Laurence Fox is or what he's actually said but he should be allowed to say what he wants, until he calls for violence. If people don't like it, the best thing to do is starve the flame of oxygen and not whinge about some actor mouthing off.

Katie Hopkins is just vile.

I don't follow Posie Parker but to my knowledge she's never actually said anything bad or incendiary but she's been banned from almost all social media platforms. No platform should be forced to host anyone or anything, but there's no real reason for her to have been banned.

He's literally just a male Katie Hopkins.

[GoldHeart]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

He's literally just a male Katie Hopkins.

This !