yet no-one who was on about death threats and libel brought up criticism, no-one who was on about death threats and libel has claimed criticism is cancel culture.Neither. Since abuse and harassment are not indivisible or integral to what you describe as "cancel culture", its neither deflection nor conflation to defend criticism that also gets described as "cancel culture".
What you're doing is conflation on the other hand. Someone defends criticism, and you accuse them of defending abuse.
The claim it was came up from people in response to said people who kept saying said people who were on about death threats and libel just wanted all criticism banned despite them not saying that at all.
The people defending criticism only seemed to do so in response to people claiming death threats and libel were a way cancel culture operates and before we go down the same damn road again NOT THE ONLY WAY IT OPERATES.