I read an article last week by Michael Hobbes, "The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism"—it's centered around this Atlantic article and a similar one from the Economist, using them as its main...
Exemplary
I read an article last week by Michael Hobbes, "The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism"—it's centered around this Atlantic article and a similar one from the Economist, using them as its main examples. It's also quite long, but I thought it was very good and would highly recommend reading it too. I think it does a good job of going through a lot of aspects that come up regularly in media, both around this specific subject and in general.
First of all, one who reads this Hobbes' article should realise that while the Hobbes' piece is free, the Atlantic article is soft-paywalled and the Economist article is hard-paywalled. In his...
Exemplary
First of all, one who reads this Hobbes' article should realise that while the Hobbes' piece is free, the Atlantic article is soft-paywalled and the Economist article is hard-paywalled.
In his article, Hobbes recurs to the question of frivolous lawsuits. I must note that while most of those lawsuits are indeed frivolous, they are always lawsuits between a small plaintiff and a big defendant. I think that frivolous lawsuits between big plaintiffs and small defendants, such as SLAPPs, are much bigger a problem.
In his critique of the Atlantic article, Hobbes informs us that Ian Buruma misused his senior editor powers to approve a self-defence article by his colleague. While I would agree that such an infraction would make Ian Buruma ineligible for any journalism (or even non-journalism) jobs involving administrative powers, I cannot agree that this invalidates him as a journalist or as a writer. The Jonah Lerner example cited there, which involved making up quotes, is irrelevant for this case.
Hobbes mentions that Ian Buruma's action caused staff and public backlash, and it might seem from the blog post that the action was the misuse of his administrative privileges. While this might have been partially true in the staff case, I am almost sure that the public backlash resulted from the content of the piece Ian Buruma had authorised.
…Applebaum recounts the tale of Daniel Elder, a composer whose music was pulled from performances because he criticized Black Lives Matter protesters.
It is clear from Applebaum's article that Daniel Elder criticised arsonists hiding under the BLM logo, with the actual arsonist being white.
JK Rowling received widespread criticism after making series of unpopular and bigoted public statements, but has suffered no meaningful consequences.
While there could be no meaningful financial consequences, there is my anecdotal evidence: the r/HarryPotter Discord server turned to a shadow of its former self. The activity in my house channel dropped from a few hundred posts per week to a few posts per month (before I left some two weeks ago).
“Offensive” is a term almost exclusively associated with the political left. Conservative media has spent years reinforcing the idea that feminists, minorities and college students are too easily offended. When conservative throw tantrums— Dr. Seuss, face masks, Lil Nas X, the “war on Christmas,” we could do this all day — their paroxysms are almost never described using the O-word.
The above is one of the few passages in that blog post I agree.
The American right represents a far greater authoritarian threat than the American left.
I agree entirely. However, every cancelled individual can eventually join the AltRight camp. Imagine a journalist cancelled due to a sleazy remark made 30+ years ago (hey, have you ever heard of the statute of limitations?). That person may learn to code, but what would be the decision if there is an offer from Breitbart?
If a journalist were to get canceled for a sleazy remark made thirty years ago, to get an offer from Breitbart, and go on to either accept it or to "just" give it serious consideration, then I'd...
Exemplary
I agree entirely. However, every cancelled individual can eventually join the AltRight camp. Imagine a journalist cancelled due to a sleazy remark made 30+ years ago (hey, have you ever heard of the statute of limitations?). That person may learn to code, but what would be the decision if there is an offer from Breitbart?
If a journalist were to get canceled for a sleazy remark made thirty years ago, to get an offer from Breitbart, and go on to either accept it or to "just" give it serious consideration, then I'd expect
for them to have made a remark that is not merely "sleazy", but flat-out offensive, even for the standards of that time - I doubt "so-and-so made an inappropriate comment in 1990!" would get much traction, especially if those kind of comments were common at the time - and/or;
for them to not have tried to make amends for said remark - or to have changed, at all, away from the kind of person who would make said remark - in the intervening thirty years - because if they did, any attempts at canceling would be seriously hampered by that fact - and/or;
for them to have handled said canceling in a ridiculously poor manner, and;
for them to have written work that would make Breitbart interested - one off-color remark wouldn't cut it - and;
for them to be so morally destitute that, after said canceling, they'd go on to work for Breitbart or similar alt-right outlets, which would require them to either
be already ideologically aligned with the far-right, or
be the kind of person who would ideologically align themselves with the far-right - with misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, assorted kinds of xenophobia, climate change denial, and assorted other such unsavoury positions - out of spite.
I think the point was that it wasn't out of spite, but out of the need for money, hence the reference to learning to code.
be the kind of person who would ideologically align themselves with the far-right - with misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, assorted kinds of xenophobia, climate change denial, and assorted other such unsavoury positions - out of spite.
I think the point was that it wasn't out of spite, but out of the need for money, hence the reference to learning to code.
Then, I don't think the point was well-made. Cancelled or not, one's world and one's possible choices do not narrow down to "learn to code [AKA, go into a completely different field] or join the...
Then, I don't think the point was well-made. Cancelled or not, one's world and one's possible choices do not narrow down to "learn to code [AKA, go into a completely different field] or join the alt-right".
I can conceive of some person feeling like they do, but I still cannot conceive of a person getting to the point of thinking that without 5.1 or 5.2 being in effect. Just it being an option for them in the first place - AKA, 4, them being offered a position at${ALT-RIGHT_OUTLET:-Breitbart}, or being reasonably sure of being able to get one - doesn't say many good things about their character.
You are right, there are choices in between. However, a cancelled person joining something like RT dot com can have an impact that is even more detrimental than that of a person joining Breitbart....
You are right, there are choices in between. However, a cancelled person joining something like RT dot com can have an impact that is even more detrimental than that of a person joining Breitbart. And, indeed, @Grzmot is right that the reason for such problematic decisions might be simply the need for money—whether the money to survive or the money to support the lifestyle the person in question has been used to.
There's not too much in the article I directly disagree with, and it seems a bit more even-tempered than most about cancel culture*, but I'm always a bit unsure what I'm intended to take away from...
There's not too much in the article I directly disagree with, and it seems a bit more even-tempered than most about cancel culture*, but I'm always a bit unsure what I'm intended to take away from this kind of article. Presumably the point is that nuance gets lost when these cases blow up, and that overall people should consider more nuance and double-check their understanding of the situation before choosing to disassociate from someone based on something that might not be fully correct. But ... the sites that I see often recommend articles like this on cancel culture often end up being the same ones that downplay even very un-nuanced and straight-forward cases of bigotry or harassment. It seems like a big warning sign that the kind of article is pushing something else, intentionally or not.
These articles always reinforce the idea of "cancel culture" as a uniquely left-wing phenomenon. I've been casually keeping a page of notes I've labeled "Conservatives do cancel culture too" where I put links to situations about conservatives doing or pushing behavior like what they criticize as "cancel culture" when liberals do it, and it's up to a few dozen now. I peeked at it just now, and coincidentally the second item in it is about Yascha Mounk, who wrote an anti-cancel-culture article that's linked as a related article inside of this one.
Another item in my notes is about a children's poetry book about LGBT being banned in some schools. Then there's GOP support for banning student athletes who do protests (presumably rooted in left-wing beliefs). There's a few about people getting fired for pro-Palestine positions. An item about a trans person cancelling events after death threats. There's one about the case of "free speech" conservatives whipping themselves into such a frenzy about "critical race theory" that they supported Trump's desire to ban that subject from schools and get only approved lesson plans downplaying slavery. There's one about Netflix firing some trans employees who tweeted about Dave Chapelle's special being transphobic. Another item contains statistics about workplaces illegally firing people for unionizing or being involved with union activities. "Illegal firings occur in 20-30% of union elections". How is there time in the news cycle to get everyone worked up about firings over ambiguous racism repeatedly when all that's happening? The idea being pushed in every discussion of "cancel culture" that left-wingers or people against bigotry are uniquely responsible for people they disagree with losing jobs is so unfounded.
The term "cancel culture" is crafted to refer to a genre of actions specifically when they're done by people who dislike bigotry. It's like if a country started getting ... red-haired immigrants, and people against immigration kicked up a big scare about "red-theft", which specifically refers to theft that's committed by red-haired immigrants. They'd be able to point to stats about how red-theft has been growing out of control ever since red-haired immigrants started coming in. People would internalize the idea that the red-haired immigrants are worse than non-immigrants because they're the ones who do the much-discussed red-theft. People who argued against the framing would be painted as arguing that red-theft doesn't actually happen. The intense focus on red-theft would naturally draw attention toward the solution of preventing red-theft from happening to begin with by preventing red-haired immigration. The intense focus on cancel culture draws attention toward the solution of agitating about bigotry less.
I think it's possible for an article to talk about the general form of "cancel culture" without falling into that, but it has to acknowledge and address the partisan conception of the issue, and it has to suggest a solution other than the popularly suggested solution of pushing against bigotry less. And it has to admit that when information is accurate, then generally it's actually good for bigots to be fired from positions of control over others.
* Midway through writing this post, I read the excellent response article "The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism" linked elsewhere in this thread, and I have to take back the compliment I paid this article at the start. Among other things, the article does a disservice in the way it misleadingly paints each of the very few(!) cases it actually focuses on.
Thanks for collecting these links. I feel that "cancel culture" is an instance of the right developing/weaponising a successful unit of rhetoric, much like "virtue signalling". A culture is quite...
Thanks for collecting these links. I feel that "cancel culture" is an instance of the right developing/weaponising a successful unit of rhetoric, much like "virtue signalling". A culture is quite a complex thing and I think referring to the tactic of campaigning against an entity, disrupting events and spreading information about their wrongdoings, doesn't really qualify as a culture, but the term is a powerful rhetorical label used by the right to make the left look authoritarian. Virtue signalling is the same: isn't flying a flag on your property also a form of this?
I feel like the left has consistently weak game in the arena of public rhetoric, and usually end up responding to the rhetoric set by the right, instead of managing to actually control the narrative. A typical play goes like this:
Right winger spreads some disinfo, usually inflammatory -- pretty low effort to make this kind of content
Left wingers work to disprove the disinfo and counter it -- immediately on the defensive, responding, takes lots of effort to construct a coherent takedown of the disinfo
Right winger accuses left wingers of piling on and "cancelling" them -- again this is low effort, creates reasonable doubt and confuses the onlookers, which is probably what this player wanted all along
I think we need to start cataloguing these different kinds of 'plays' in the arena of public discourse and looking for patterns, like any game strategist would. Why does the left consistently fail to develop engaging rhetoric? What is their best strategy against disinfo or other common right wing plays? etc.
Innuendo Studios has a series called The Alt-Right playbook which very much does the part of catalguing rhetorical strategies used by the online right.
I think we need to start cataloguing these different kinds of 'plays' in the arena of public discourse and looking for patterns, like any game strategist would. Why does the left consistently fail to develop engaging rhetoric? What is their best strategy against disinfo or other common right wing plays? etc.
Innuendo Studios has a series called The Alt-Right playbook which very much does the part of catalguing rhetorical strategies used by the online right.
The article kinda touched on a part of this issue that I've been thinking about recently; about how this can be used as a weapon with little effort. You don't need to have done anything wrong, yet...
The article kinda touched on a part of this issue that I've been thinking about recently; about how this can be used as a weapon with little effort. You don't need to have done anything wrong, yet seemingly overnight a faceless mob of users is born and they are bombarding you with accusations and they will not listen to you.
Several gaming Youtubers and streamers that I follow have been the victims of this type of attack in the past couple of years. In all cases (that I know of) the trigger seemed to have been a person or a small group of people who hold some grudge against the creator/entertainer, and decide to manufacture a controversy. The attackers know exactly what it takes rile up a group of justice-hungry internet-goers. In some cases they take something from their past that they've said, and adorn it with just the right offenses that push just the right buttons for whichever mob they wish to sic on the victim. In other cases they make up lies on the spot. And, as the article points out, "Twitter[...]doesn’t check facts or provide context", all they need to see is a highly upvoted/liked comment and they'll take that as gospel, because it oh-so-satisfyingly confirms their biases and lets them join a group of similarly-minded individuals.
A common thread between these incidents are few downvoted/ratioed comments saying "hold on, let's not let an anonymous claim colour our opinion before actual evidence of wrongdoing comes out." I've been trying to learn to automatically switch into a skeptic mindset when I see headlines like "X said Y about Z". I know that brings up a question of "when believe an accuser" to which I don't know the answer to.
I'm just glad I don't have public online presence.
I'm not convinced it is that simple. We have a long history of not believing and also blaming victims of sexual assualt and rape. While the presumtion of innocence is important it becomes...
I'm not convinced it is that simple. We have a long history of not believing and also blaming victims of sexual assualt and rape. While the presumtion of innocence is important it becomes problematic when it is a case of word against word. Who do we as a society choose to believe when someone comes and forward and acuses their supposed assailant if there is no physical evidence left? It becomes even more difficult when the same situation is remembered differently by different people and when they have different perspective on it. Persuming innocence in a lot of these situation allows assailants to go free... The article and grand-parent comment I realize now is more about milder infractions than sexual assault so there could be a categorical difference?
That's not a bug, it's a feature. Word against word can not be trusted when big consequences are on the line. People will, and do, say anything to: win, get what they want, avoid the consequences...
While the presumption of innocence is important it becomes problematic when it is a case of word against word.
That's not a bug, it's a feature. Word against word can not be trusted when big consequences are on the line. People will, and do, say anything to: win, get what they want, avoid the consequences of their actions.
Who do we as a society choose to believe when someone comes and forward and accuses their supposed assailant if there is no physical evidence left?
It feels like there's a hidden kernel of assumption that some action needs to be taken in the above situation. Something bad has happened to an individual and they're seeking recourse; (which they should be able to do) but with no way for us to tell who the perpetrator is, or if the accused even did it we're shooting in the dark. Does the potential condemning of an innocent person to pay for a crime they didn't commit outweigh punishing the offender? Some will say yes, others will not. I fall into the former category but can certainly understand the opposite position.
It comes down to what we find easier to stomach: punishing innocent people, or not punishing guilty people. It's easy to say that someone who has committed a crime should be punished for it, but when there is no clear answer to if someone has committed a crime or not, should anyone be punished? And how? Without enough evidence, how do you decide who to punish? Our legal system was built on the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" for minimizing suffering of the innocent. (I'd like to not get into the real world execution of the theory, obviously that's lacking, but that's aside the point of this comment.)
Take a contrived example: Person A claims Person B stole their Crockpot, which in this imaginary society, comes with punishment of 6 months prison time. A did not bring enough evidence forth to make a solid case against B, and as such nobody is sure if B actually committed the crime or not. Meanwhile, B claims that the Crockpot is actually theirs! They lent it to A 2 years ago, and A never returned it, meaning that A is the one who "stole" the Crockpot. Again, not enough evidence to support the claim is available, meaning nobody is sure who's telling the truth. Should the court serve punishment to either of them? There's 3 paths forward from here:
They punish the correct person, by chance.(50/50) A actually did borrow the Crockpot 2 years ago and never returned it. B's been leaving the trash cans a little too close to A's driveway and A has had enough. A knew if B got the chance, they would take their Crockpot back, but then could be blamed for theft meaning no more trashcans in the driveway! A goes to jail, B gets their Crockpot back, and everyone lives happily ever after. Roll credits.
They punish the incorrect person, by chance. (50/50). B, having done nothing wrong, goes to jail for 6 months, while the actual perpetrator, A, kicks their feet back, cooks with a Crockpot that isn't theirs, and enjoys a trashcan free driveway for 6 months. Bad ending. Everything goes wrong here for the right people, and right for the wrong people.
Nobody is punished. B doesn't get their Crockpot back, A doesn't get a trashcan free driveway, nobody goes to jail for 6 months. A doesn't get punished, sure, but neither does B. B has to buy a new Crockpot now, but A still has to deal with a driveway with trashcans in it. Nobody is happy with the outcome but also, nobody has been unduly punished either.
Yes, letting people get away with doing bad things is, well, bad, but I would argue punishing people for doing nothing wrong in the first place is worse.
There are really many things to quote from this article. In order not to exceed fair use, I have chosen part of the last two paragraphs. By “[t]he alternative,” the article author means what would...
There are really many things to quote from this article. In order not to exceed fair use, I have chosen part of the last two paragraphs.
The alternative, for our cultural institutions and for democratic discourse, is grim. Foundations will do secret background checks on their potential grantees, to make sure they haven’t committed crimes-that-are-not-crimes that could be embarrassing in the future. Anonymous reports and Twitter mobs, not the reasoned judgments of peers, will shape the fate of individuals. Writers and journalists will fear publication. Universities will no longer be dedicated to the creation and dissemination of knowledge but to the promotion of student comfort and the avoidance of social-media attacks.
Worse, if we drive all of the difficult people, the demanding people, and the eccentric people away from the creative professions where they used to thrive, we will become a flatter, duller, less interesting society, a place where manuscripts sit in drawers for fear of arbitrary judgments. The arts, the humanities, and the media will become stiff, predictable, and mediocre.
By “[t]he alternative,” the article author means what would happen if the current trend is not stopped nor, at least partially, reversed.
However, there is an even grimmer alternative. Namely, the individuals who get cancelled—and it is clear from the article that many of those have nothing to do with any kind of bigotry—will join really problematic groups, i.e., groups that were founded, and are run, by people who are really problematic.
That's definitely one part of it. The other thing to keep in mind is that usually this sort of thing seems to primarily befall people who work in specific fields (media and academia largely). What...
However, there is an even grimmer alternative. Namely, the individuals who get cancelled—and it is clear from the article that many of those have nothing to do with any kind of bigotry—will join really problematic groups, i.e., groups that were founded, and are run, by people who are really problematic.
That's definitely one part of it. The other thing to keep in mind is that usually this sort of thing seems to primarily befall people who work in specific fields (media and academia largely). What I think this will mean in the future is that the balance of power between these workers and the organizations that hire them (e.g. publishers, universities, movie studios, and 'hosting' services which may not hire them directly but basically hold the keys to their livelihoods) will shift with less power in the hands of the already underpowered workers and more power in the hands of the firm itself. They'll hire people, get their money's worth out of them, and then cast them aside as soon as a controversy pops up. Creative fields are already basically a meat grinder like this, but somewhat higher level entertainers or tenured faculty could still develop some amount of clout to push back against the suits and administrators. I see that going away.
I read an article last week by Michael Hobbes, "The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism"—it's centered around this Atlantic article and a similar one from the Economist, using them as its main examples. It's also quite long, but I thought it was very good and would highly recommend reading it too. I think it does a good job of going through a lot of aspects that come up regularly in media, both around this specific subject and in general.
First of all, one who reads this Hobbes' article should realise that while the Hobbes' piece is free, the Atlantic article is soft-paywalled and the Economist article is hard-paywalled.
In his article, Hobbes recurs to the question of frivolous lawsuits. I must note that while most of those lawsuits are indeed frivolous, they are always lawsuits between a small plaintiff and a big defendant. I think that frivolous lawsuits between big plaintiffs and small defendants, such as SLAPPs, are much bigger a problem.
In his critique of the Atlantic article, Hobbes informs us that Ian Buruma misused his senior editor powers to approve a self-defence article by his colleague. While I would agree that such an infraction would make Ian Buruma ineligible for any journalism (or even non-journalism) jobs involving administrative powers, I cannot agree that this invalidates him as a journalist or as a writer. The Jonah Lerner example cited there, which involved making up quotes, is irrelevant for this case.
Hobbes mentions that Ian Buruma's action caused staff and public backlash, and it might seem from the blog post that the action was the misuse of his administrative privileges. While this might have been partially true in the staff case, I am almost sure that the public backlash resulted from the content of the piece Ian Buruma had authorised.
It is clear from Applebaum's article that Daniel Elder criticised arsonists hiding under the BLM logo, with the actual arsonist being white.
While there could be no meaningful financial consequences, there is my anecdotal evidence: the
r/HarryPotterDiscord server turned to a shadow of its former self. The activity in my house channel dropped from a few hundred posts per week to a few posts per month (before I left some two weeks ago).The above is one of the few passages in that blog post I agree.
I agree entirely. However, every cancelled individual can eventually join the AltRight camp. Imagine a journalist cancelled due to a sleazy remark made 30+ years ago (hey, have you ever heard of the statute of limitations?). That person may
learn to code, but what would be the decision if there is an offer from Breitbart?If a journalist were to get canceled for a sleazy remark made thirty years ago, to get an offer from Breitbart, and go on to either accept it or to "just" give it serious consideration, then I'd expect
I think the point was that it wasn't out of spite, but out of the need for money, hence the reference to learning to code.
Then, I don't think the point was well-made. Cancelled or not, one's world and one's possible choices do not narrow down to "learn to code [AKA, go into a completely different field] or join the alt-right".
I can conceive of some person feeling like they do, but I still cannot conceive of a person getting to the point of thinking that without 5.1 or 5.2 being in effect. Just it being an option for them in the first place - AKA, 4, them being offered a position at
${ALT-RIGHT_OUTLET:-Breitbart}, or being reasonably sure of being able to get one - doesn't say many good things about their character.You are right, there are choices in between. However, a cancelled person joining something like
RT dot comcan have an impact that is even more detrimental than that of a person joining Breitbart. And, indeed, @Grzmot is right that the reason for such problematic decisions might be simply the need for money—whether the money to survive or the money to support the lifestyle the person in question has been used to.There's not too much in the article I directly disagree with, and it seems a bit more even-tempered than most about cancel culture*, but I'm always a bit unsure what I'm intended to take away from this kind of article. Presumably the point is that nuance gets lost when these cases blow up, and that overall people should consider more nuance and double-check their understanding of the situation before choosing to disassociate from someone based on something that might not be fully correct. But ... the sites that I see often recommend articles like this on cancel culture often end up being the same ones that downplay even very un-nuanced and straight-forward cases of bigotry or harassment. It seems like a big warning sign that the kind of article is pushing something else, intentionally or not.
These articles always reinforce the idea of "cancel culture" as a uniquely left-wing phenomenon. I've been casually keeping a page of notes I've labeled "Conservatives do cancel culture too" where I put links to situations about conservatives doing or pushing behavior like what they criticize as "cancel culture" when liberals do it, and it's up to a few dozen now. I peeked at it just now, and coincidentally the second item in it is about Yascha Mounk, who wrote an anti-cancel-culture article that's linked as a related article inside of this one.
Another item in my notes is about a children's poetry book about LGBT being banned in some schools. Then there's GOP support for banning student athletes who do protests (presumably rooted in left-wing beliefs). There's a few about people getting fired for pro-Palestine positions. An item about a trans person cancelling events after death threats. There's one about the case of "free speech" conservatives whipping themselves into such a frenzy about "critical race theory" that they supported Trump's desire to ban that subject from schools and get only approved lesson plans downplaying slavery. There's one about Netflix firing some trans employees who tweeted about Dave Chapelle's special being transphobic. Another item contains statistics about workplaces illegally firing people for unionizing or being involved with union activities. "Illegal firings occur in 20-30% of union elections". How is there time in the news cycle to get everyone worked up about firings over ambiguous racism repeatedly when all that's happening? The idea being pushed in every discussion of "cancel culture" that left-wingers or people against bigotry are uniquely responsible for people they disagree with losing jobs is so unfounded.
The term "cancel culture" is crafted to refer to a genre of actions specifically when they're done by people who dislike bigotry. It's like if a country started getting ... red-haired immigrants, and people against immigration kicked up a big scare about "red-theft", which specifically refers to theft that's committed by red-haired immigrants. They'd be able to point to stats about how red-theft has been growing out of control ever since red-haired immigrants started coming in. People would internalize the idea that the red-haired immigrants are worse than non-immigrants because they're the ones who do the much-discussed red-theft. People who argued against the framing would be painted as arguing that red-theft doesn't actually happen. The intense focus on red-theft would naturally draw attention toward the solution of preventing red-theft from happening to begin with by preventing red-haired immigration. The intense focus on cancel culture draws attention toward the solution of agitating about bigotry less.
I think it's possible for an article to talk about the general form of "cancel culture" without falling into that, but it has to acknowledge and address the partisan conception of the issue, and it has to suggest a solution other than the popularly suggested solution of pushing against bigotry less. And it has to admit that when information is accurate, then generally it's actually good for bigots to be fired from positions of control over others.
* Midway through writing this post, I read the excellent response article "The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism" linked elsewhere in this thread, and I have to take back the compliment I paid this article at the start. Among other things, the article does a disservice in the way it misleadingly paints each of the very few(!) cases it actually focuses on.
Thanks for collecting these links. I feel that "cancel culture" is an instance of the right developing/weaponising a successful unit of rhetoric, much like "virtue signalling". A culture is quite a complex thing and I think referring to the tactic of campaigning against an entity, disrupting events and spreading information about their wrongdoings, doesn't really qualify as a culture, but the term is a powerful rhetorical label used by the right to make the left look authoritarian. Virtue signalling is the same: isn't flying a flag on your property also a form of this?
I feel like the left has consistently weak game in the arena of public rhetoric, and usually end up responding to the rhetoric set by the right, instead of managing to actually control the narrative. A typical play goes like this:
I think we need to start cataloguing these different kinds of 'plays' in the arena of public discourse and looking for patterns, like any game strategist would. Why does the left consistently fail to develop engaging rhetoric? What is their best strategy against disinfo or other common right wing plays? etc.
Innuendo Studios has a series called The Alt-Right playbook which very much does the part of catalguing rhetorical strategies used by the online right.
The article kinda touched on a part of this issue that I've been thinking about recently; about how this can be used as a weapon with little effort. You don't need to have done anything wrong, yet seemingly overnight a faceless mob of users is born and they are bombarding you with accusations and they will not listen to you.
Several gaming Youtubers and streamers that I follow have been the victims of this type of attack in the past couple of years. In all cases (that I know of) the trigger seemed to have been a person or a small group of people who hold some grudge against the creator/entertainer, and decide to manufacture a controversy. The attackers know exactly what it takes rile up a group of justice-hungry internet-goers. In some cases they take something from their past that they've said, and adorn it with just the right offenses that push just the right buttons for whichever mob they wish to sic on the victim. In other cases they make up lies on the spot. And, as the article points out, "Twitter[...]doesn’t check facts or provide context", all they need to see is a highly upvoted/liked comment and they'll take that as gospel, because it oh-so-satisfyingly confirms their biases and lets them join a group of similarly-minded individuals.
A common thread between these incidents are few downvoted/ratioed comments saying "hold on, let's not let an anonymous claim colour our opinion before actual evidence of wrongdoing comes out." I've been trying to learn to automatically switch into a skeptic mindset when I see headlines like "X said Y about Z". I know that brings up a question of "when believe an accuser" to which I don't know the answer to.
I'm just glad I don't have public online presence.
For me, the answer is well-known. It is called presumption of innocence.
I'm not convinced it is that simple. We have a long history of not believing and also blaming victims of sexual assualt and rape. While the presumtion of innocence is important it becomes problematic when it is a case of word against word. Who do we as a society choose to believe when someone comes and forward and acuses their supposed assailant if there is no physical evidence left? It becomes even more difficult when the same situation is remembered differently by different people and when they have different perspective on it. Persuming innocence in a lot of these situation allows assailants to go free... The article and grand-parent comment I realize now is more about milder infractions than sexual assault so there could be a categorical difference?
I think it's important to note that these are not one and the same. It is possible presume innocence without blaming the accuser.
That's not a bug, it's a feature. Word against word can not be trusted when big consequences are on the line. People will, and do, say anything to: win, get what they want, avoid the consequences of their actions.
It feels like there's a hidden kernel of assumption that some action needs to be taken in the above situation. Something bad has happened to an individual and they're seeking recourse; (which they should be able to do) but with no way for us to tell who the perpetrator is, or if the accused even did it we're shooting in the dark. Does the potential condemning of an innocent person to pay for a crime they didn't commit outweigh punishing the offender? Some will say yes, others will not. I fall into the former category but can certainly understand the opposite position.
It comes down to what we find easier to stomach: punishing innocent people, or not punishing guilty people. It's easy to say that someone who has committed a crime should be punished for it, but when there is no clear answer to if someone has committed a crime or not, should anyone be punished? And how? Without enough evidence, how do you decide who to punish? Our legal system was built on the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" for minimizing suffering of the innocent. (I'd like to not get into the real world execution of the theory, obviously that's lacking, but that's aside the point of this comment.)
Take a contrived example: Person A claims Person B stole their Crockpot, which in this imaginary society, comes with punishment of 6 months prison time. A did not bring enough evidence forth to make a solid case against B, and as such nobody is sure if B actually committed the crime or not. Meanwhile, B claims that the Crockpot is actually theirs! They lent it to A 2 years ago, and A never returned it, meaning that A is the one who "stole" the Crockpot. Again, not enough evidence to support the claim is available, meaning nobody is sure who's telling the truth. Should the court serve punishment to either of them? There's 3 paths forward from here:
They punish the correct person, by chance.(50/50) A actually did borrow the Crockpot 2 years ago and never returned it. B's been leaving the trash cans a little too close to A's driveway and A has had enough. A knew if B got the chance, they would take their Crockpot back, but then could be blamed for theft meaning no more trashcans in the driveway! A goes to jail, B gets their Crockpot back, and everyone lives happily ever after. Roll credits.
They punish the incorrect person, by chance. (50/50). B, having done nothing wrong, goes to jail for 6 months, while the actual perpetrator, A, kicks their feet back, cooks with a Crockpot that isn't theirs, and enjoys a trashcan free driveway for 6 months. Bad ending. Everything goes wrong here for the right people, and right for the wrong people.
Nobody is punished. B doesn't get their Crockpot back, A doesn't get a trashcan free driveway, nobody goes to jail for 6 months. A doesn't get punished, sure, but neither does B. B has to buy a new Crockpot now, but A still has to deal with a driveway with trashcans in it. Nobody is happy with the outcome but also, nobody has been unduly punished either.
Yes, letting people get away with doing bad things is, well, bad, but I would argue punishing people for doing nothing wrong in the first place is worse.
There are really many things to quote from this article. In order not to exceed fair use, I have chosen part of the last two paragraphs.
By “[t]he alternative,” the article author means what would happen if the current trend is not stopped nor, at least partially, reversed.
However, there is an even grimmer alternative. Namely, the individuals who get cancelled—and it is clear from the article that many of those have nothing to do with any kind of bigotry—will join really problematic groups, i.e., groups that were founded, and are run, by people who are really problematic.
That's definitely one part of it. The other thing to keep in mind is that usually this sort of thing seems to primarily befall people who work in specific fields (media and academia largely). What I think this will mean in the future is that the balance of power between these workers and the organizations that hire them (e.g. publishers, universities, movie studios, and 'hosting' services which may not hire them directly but basically hold the keys to their livelihoods) will shift with less power in the hands of the already underpowered workers and more power in the hands of the firm itself. They'll hire people, get their money's worth out of them, and then cast them aside as soon as a controversy pops up. Creative fields are already basically a meat grinder like this, but somewhat higher level entertainers or tenured faculty could still develop some amount of clout to push back against the suits and administrators. I see that going away.