Cancel culture - they are real people

[Pitterpatterpotter]

AIBU to hate ‘cancel culture’.
The people who social media suddenly decides are cancelled are real people with feelings, often victims of fake news or speculation.

A friend of mine has been ‘cancelled’ recently and it’s been heartbreaking reading and hearing abusive and bullshit comments about someone I know. In my opinion it’s bullying and it’s a part of social media that I hate at the moment.

It is bullying. It's deciding people are so wrong that they should be excluded, without trial. It assigns a label to people and treats them as a label

You’re not wrong. It takes someone with real courage to speak out atm.

I agree and it's why the removal of Katie Hopkins from Twitter was worrying. I abhor the woman and hate everything she says. But I'm pretty sure some of her supporters would hate everything I say. And it's only whichever side has the majority at any time which 'wins'. Even views with which we disagree vehemently need airing, not silencing and driven underground, where they fester and grow.
As the (I think Voltaire?) quote goes "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it"

Apparently Jodie Comer has been cancelled today. She’s not the person I know and I’m not even a huge fan of hers but for some reason the spiteful and hateful stuff I read about her really upset me.

It was twitter that affected my friend really negatively because of the amount of bullshit people wrote about them. They became very depressed and the really hateful and untrue comments are not removed.

I agree it's bullying
Agree Katie Hopkins is a nob and she does say awful stuff

I feel like there is to much negativity in life atm.... people tearing each other down all the time and it's awful!! (I'm fully aware there has always been negativity! Just feels like more negative than positive at the mo...)

I don't get how you are supposed to grow and learn if you can't cope with people who challenge your views. It's bad enough in teenagers but pathetic as fuck with grown adults.

Bet all these people were saying be kind a few months ago.
Fucking hypocritical sheep.

I agree op.

It's like being at a virtual Colosseum watching people being ripped apart.

Bullying and small minded, I agree

@Pitterpatterpotter

Apparently Jodie Comer has been cancelled today. She’s not the person I know and I’m not even a huge fan of hers but for some reason the spiteful and hateful stuff I read about her really upset me.

Yes, merely because she's dating a registered Republican.

Apparently women arent allowed to have their own political views now, they inherit those of their sexual partners. Fine world this, here's to progress.

A lot of this seems to fall on the heads of women expressing opinions. The far left don't seem to like that. To be fair, they are also outraged at black Republicans for the same reason - the far left believe that they should own the thoughts and votes of the political minority.

Remember Joe Biden's "if black people dont vote Democrat they're not really black?" That was only about a month ago.

It’s bullying plain and simple. The world would be a better place without twitter.

I am 100% Left-wing in my political views. Card carrying member of a democratic socialist party.

Yet there are so many times in the last decade when I have found myself angry, cringing, despondent at the way certain shoals of the Left wing online choose to behave.

A fingers-in-ear, vindictive, bullying mentality born out of a moral absolutism.

"We are the humane thinkers and we are in the moral high ground. People who have demonstrated opposition to our views, or actively campaigned on Right wing causes, need to be hunted, exposed, and "silenced" by us. It's the only way to protect vulnerable groups from hate".

This seems to be such a prevailing mentality on Twitter etc that I have found myself sometimes fighting the very people who I should be alongside ideologically.

However I can't sit around and watch horrible, targeted bullying of individuals in the name of the Left.

Silencing individuals in my view turns them into martyrs. It also keeps the individuals doing the silencing, as far from real power as is possible.

Just look at the frothing-at-the-mouth Corbyn supporters, so keen to purge the Party of any moderates, to find an ideological purity. in doing so they switched off voters who actually might have considered them if they weren't so hectoring, morally superior, bludgeoning in their ways.

Twitter has turned into the "Hated in the Nation" black mirror parody. Bin it and try parler. It seems much calmer there

Parler? Oh dear.

Cancel culture - definitely lead by the far left. They preach tolerance, the irony being they are absolutely intolerant to anyone who dares to have an opinion that doesn’t align with their own, doesn’t have the intelligence to challenge, so chooses to silence people instead.

It's disgraceful. I don't know who these people think they are taking it upon themselves to 'cancel' someone.

Absolute twats.

It's definitely the doing of far left. We must all comply with The Brave New World or else. The latest Jonathan Pie video is spot on about what's happening at the moment.

I find that the only people who are ok with cancelling others are the ones that think their views are absolutely correct so they'd never have to deal with being cancelled.

It’s bullying perpetuated by those who have no idea how to engage in reasoned debate, respect a viewpoint other than their own or even look into the background of their complaint before launching into an attack, usually from behind a screen. There was an interesting article in today’s Times where one of JK Rowling’s detractors was open about not even reading the blog post that upset them, because they “wouldn’t engage with a bigot”. If you’ve not even read the material yourself how can you possibly have your own opinion? Of course, having your own, nuanced opinion isn’t the name of the game here; it’s just joining in with the pitch-fork wavers.

I’d say I’m fairly left wing and I absolutely loathe ‘cancel culture’ - we cannot have a society where most topics cannot be reasonably debated and different viewpoints explored and respected. Obviously there are some things that are not acceptable, but that’s why we have a legal differentiation between hate speech and free speech.

I automatically assume that anyone who uses ‘cancelling’ is someone who has marked themselves out as an unthinking idiot.

imaginarycat
I agree with all you say apart from one thing
You say that whoever has the ‘majority wins.’
However the majority of the British public have right leaning views and cancel culture for the most part is against people who support the right.
The sort of woke leftists who like to cancel people are far from the majority but they do shout the loudest and apparently have quite a lot of influence.
Read this article for an example of what this kind of things lead to. This man has done more for black lives than the people who would like to cancel them combined.

thecritic.co.uk/charity-boss-fired-after-criticising-black-lives-matter/

GindaddyRedux couldn’t agree more. I am on the opposite side of the political spectrum to you but really respect you for that. It must be really frustrating to see it and see the almost self- destruction going on.

The woke liberals are getting more and more authoritarian than the right wing.

I'm on the left and can't bear it either, think it's nasty and ridiculous. It's also very damaging to left/liberal politics.

The thing that the woke far-left forget is that all their comments, all their bullying is documented and preserved. When there is a backlash from the right (and it is when, not if) they will undoubtedly find themselves on the receiving end instead of dealing out the punishment.

Perhaps when that day comes they might realise that it was their behaviour that led to the loss of diversity, inclusion, and general "wokeness" that will be the inevitable result of their fanaticism. But I doubt even then they will be able to admit their own actions could be faulted in any way.