See I argue the other way.
Random twitter users mad at me or random other social media users mad at me? That's a lot of birds squawking that vanish quickly enough, it's a flurry and maybe you get a few dribbling in over 2 weeks but by day 2 it's mostly over even if you piss off a big account (who actually tend to wade into such spats).
With articles you get all the people who look up to those platforms then turning to if they are so inclined. It's kinda of amazing just how many sites wrote about James Rolfe and a fair few where the question has to be asked if he's even in the normal wheel house of topic they cover to begin and and question their decision to even cover him just refusing to go see a film.
I will say Leslie Jones likely gets more shit overall on twitter.
But the sparking incidents in each case I'd say Leslie Jones likely saw the number of bullshit tweets she got go up by maybe 100 while James Rofle probably saw his go up by 1,000+. Now you can argue that's because Leslie Jones already got so much bullshit as a base level vs James Rolfe and that would be a fair argument but in terms of variation from the baseline?
Yeh no the James Rofle thing probably hit harder and the articles that were more insulting in the vein of "Brave Bold angry male pissbaby who hates women refuses to go see film in act of courage" those can do some actual reputational damage and put people off working with or sponsoring a person.
A random twitter user throwing a racist insult at Leslie Jones? That won't cost her jobs or have people not wanting to associate with her at all.
Far more than just a "random Twitter user," let's be honest. Even if one pissant went after Jones, add in a hundred or a thousand, and that's a lot of pissants pissing and biting.
In contrast, I never saw any attempt to actually deplatform Rolfe, or make any concious attempt to ruin his career.
I said earlier in the thread that I'm not particuarly interested in ranking who has it worse, but Rolfe, at best, had to deal with nonsense articles. Jones had to deal with a Twitterstorm that was part of a larger Twitterstorm, that was part of a larger culture war spat because the Ghostbusters no longer had dicks. Rolfe got drawn into the storm as well, but, well, Jones got hit with more of the debris, so to speak.
What does this mean?
This one's got off the rails a bit, so let's just zero on this fundamental point of disagreement. What is the line between criticizing a person's ideas and attempting to remove the means of the person to express those ideas,
Fine, let's make this as simple as possible.
Criticizing: "I think TB has bad ideas."
Censoring: "Remove TB from The Escapist because I don't want him expressing those ideas."
and why is it a problem if that line is crossed?
How can it not be?
Every day I get out of bed and I discover that I still don't have a job as a journalist in a national newspaper. I will never work at a national newspaper, mostly because I don't have the particular background, skillset or connections, but also because the environment of British journalism is a weird, insular and hostile place which just wouldn't employ someone like me. Have I been cancelled? Have I lost a platform to which I am inherently entitled? Even if I wanted to work in journalism, would I not then be in the position of being beholden to my audience, forced to say whatever will appeal to them in order to keep my own career going? Is that a problem? Have journalists all been cancelled because they can't express their true opinions without mediation?
That's a nonsensical equivalance - you can't equate professions with simply the ability to speak. I'm not entitled to any career, you're not entitled to any career, and if you did end up in journalism, whether you pander to your audience or not is up to you or your editor.
And absolutely journalists have been censored. Even in the countries we're talking from, that's undoubtedly occurred at some point. But that's really veering into censorship.
Noone can actually take away the means for you to express your ideas. All they can do is to say that they don't want to hear them, and if enough people don't want to hear your ideas then you should probably keep silent or face the consequences. Of course, you don't have to keep silent, you can keep using whatever influence you have to spread your unpopular ideas, but most people are not under the delusion that that is going to be an easy or safe thing to do.
I'm not even sure what point you're making here.
No-one is obliged to listen to anyone else. You're not obliged to listen to me, I'm not obliged to listen to you, we're both still here, for whatever reason.
And I agree, for a lot of people it isn't always safe to express ideas - that's an argument AGAINST cancel culture, not for it.
Your idea of free speech is a children's playpen. It's a place where everyone can say whatever they want, but nothing they say is allowed to have consequences.
Okay, how are you defining consequences? Because you're really not clear.
It's a conservative fantasy of free speech presided over by the sober and right thinking adults who moderate the discussion and tell everyone to stop being naughty. For most people, free speech isn't a low stakes game, it's a power struggle. It's always been a power struggle. It's only conservatives, who never had to struggle, who never had to faced the risks of speaking out, who never faced ridicule or hatred because they have never deviated from the side of power, who pretend otherwise.
Ah yes, because no-one with right wing beliefs could have ever struggled through life. FFS...
(This is how you end up with ideas such as "race collaborators" and "gay traitors," by the way.)
Again, let's say I agree with everything you said. Let's say I agree with the premise that all speech is power struggle, that conservatives are all one big bloc, and have never faced ridicule. Upon that agreement, why then, should you apply that 'power' to people who want to 'struggle' against this bloc? You think I enjoy seeing people on the left engage in circular firing squads?
Because that's what's happening, and what's happening a lot.
The absolute arrogance of believing you have some inherent entitlement or right, not just to speak, but to be heard, to be given whatever help or support you need to be heard. The idea that your ability to be heard should be sacred and inviolable, is ridiculous and offensive. It's ridiculous because somehow you've got through life thinking that's a right everyone has, and it's offensive because it only became a problem to you once people in positions of influence had to live by the same rules everyone else does.
You're all over the place here.
First, do I have a right to speak? Well, I'd say yes, in that I believe I have a right to speak, and you have a right to speak, and that everyone has a right to speak, and that in practice, there's no shortage of people in the world who can't speak, so why apply those measures against people when we live in societies where free speech is in theory, if not always in practice, a right?
Second, where the hell did I say I was entitled to support to be heard? That's insane. Give me an actual quote where I said that.
Third, I don't have a right to be heard per se. Be it on the street, or on this forum, or on social media, people are under no obligation to listen to me, or anyone else. You can stop listening to me, right here, right now, and I'm not about to yell "TB isn't listening to me, my rights are being violated!"
Fourth, where did I say that it's a right everyone has? Of course it's not a right, there's many places in the world where it isn't a right, but most, if not people here live in countries where it's a right in theory, if not in practice.
Fifth, I don't know where you got the idea that it was people in influence I'm worried about, it's people with less influence I'm worried about, because the less influence you have, the less ability you have to fight against it. Most of the people on this thread aren't in positions of (real) influence. Since you keep coming back to her, Lindsay Ellis wasn't in a position of influence, yet the mob came for her. It's utterly bizzare that you think I'm more worried about people with more influence than those without it.
But honestly, this is redundant because we're already assuming that this is actually the definition of "cancel culture" you're applying, and it's clearly not because you're equating someone voluntarily quitting twitter, someone being banned for twitter for advocating violence and someone being fired and blacklisted from their job as if they're all the same thing and as if they all have the same cause. That's why I don't think cancel culture is real, not because noone has ever lost their job or been ostracized from society for spurious reasons (I'm queer, I'm intimately aware of the fact that happens, probably to a degree you never will be) but because you can't even apply the concept consistently.
Yeah, I'd need specific examples there.
Voluntarily quitting Twitter...I mean, okay, it's technically voluntary, but if a mob comes after you, trying to make your life hell, you really think that quitting Twitter is some inocuous thing has no relation to anything else that just happened to precede it?
Advocating violence falls into hate speech in most cases. It's a distinction that can be made. Not always easy to distinguish, I admit, but how many people who've been discussed so far could reasonably be accused of that?
Blacklisted from their job...blacklisted for what? Are you equating speech with action? Again? There are absolutely actions that should blacklist people from working in a certain field, but those are almost always actions.
Frankly, you're the one who's being inconsistent. You've pointed out, correctly, that people have been ostracized and even lost positions for spurious reasons...yet in this same thread, you've DEFENDED people for ostracizing people and firing people for spurious reasons. You're operating under the principle of "I don't care what happens to people, unless they're people like me."
