7 ms·

Is this cancel culture?

CodeGlitch 6y ago
I would say cancel culture is usually applied when group A doesn't like the politics of group (or individual) B, and has them de-platformed. In this case politics weren't involved, and the people performing the de-platform were from all ends of the spectrum.
- zelon88 6y ago
  Soooooo, free market capitalism?
darkwizard42 6y ago
No, and I think you know why, but I'll bite. This is a consequence for past actions. If you are involved in the kind of things this employee was involved with then you deserve no right to being employed by a private company and certainly no right to have others ignore that in their interactions or discussion of you.
- daveoc64 6y ago
  > This is a consequence for past actions. If you are involved in the kind of things this employee was involved with then you deserve no right to being employed by a private company and certainly no right to have others ignore that in their interactions or discussion of you. Can't you say that about anything and anyone though? Every instance of someone being "cancelled" is really just the "consequence" of their past actions.
  - darkwizard42 6y ago
    I think I agree with that. "cancel culture" is just the catchy phrase being used today to imply that the past actions weren't so bad and weren't deserving of the subsequent response. In this case...I don't think someone who has definitive links to pedophilia and already been kicked out of two organizations for those links probably shouldn't be employed in a position at Reddit where they are working with youth. Should she never get a job again ever? No! But probably not one with children or youth...
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      I'm very curious who/why at Reddit decided she was a good hire for that position. And the husband too. I think that's a much more interesting question than another to and fro about cancel culture.
- tmotwu 6y ago
  > This is a consequence for past actions This is exactly how people justify cancel culture and/or cancelling others. Before anyone downvotes as they did to OP, I am in no way shape or form defending the person of interest. But unfortunately, this is what cancel culture is; there's no reason to redefine it.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  Well, guilt by association is certainly a trait of cancel culture and, unless I missed it, association is the source of all pedophilic activity in this story rather than anything the subject (Mrs. Challenor) did themself. Yet if you look at Reddit's homepage, you'd think she was the one charged with child rape.
  - darkwizard42 6y ago
    Guilt by association is probably fair game here...in her capacity at reddit she was working on subreddits that involved younger adults/teenagers. Do you think that would be okay? If she was a software engineer or working on marketing, I would not advocate for her to be removed from reddit. Much of the controversy is that this was an admin with control over subreddits which there is clear public information that perhaps they aren't best suited for.
    - hombre_fatal 6y ago
      Well, once again, you're treating her as if she was the one convicted of pedophilia. Do I think someone associated with a pedophile should be treated like a pedophile? No. Our justice system and legal ethics certainly don't believe in a transitivity of guilt like that. We'd consider that extremely unfair. In my eyes, a large component of cancel culture is when we ignore all that because we like the result.
      - darkwizard42 6y ago
        It was her father...who she chose to employ as her campaign manager AFTER it was already known about his crimes. It wasn't just someone in her extended friend circle or a passing acquaintance. I think she shouldn't be treated as a pedophile. I think she should be treated warily in positions that involve youth. That feels like a pretty reasonable concern.
        hombre_fatal 6y ago
        > I think she shouldn't be treated as a pedophile. I think she should be treated warily in positions that involve youth. These statements don't square. Barring them from employment isn't just wariness. Hiring her pedo dad is definitely a bad choice for a political campaign and it looks bad. That's different than: can't be trusted alone in a room with a child or can't be trusted to run a forum.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  >and I think you know why No, I am not being tongue-in-cheek in an attempt to catch somebody out on hypocrisy (though I do believe many people are extremely hypocritical on this topic). Apologies - let me be more clear: I am not implicitly asking, "is this a case of cancel culture producing a good outcome", nor, "is this a case of cancel culture producing a bad outcome". I am not using the term "cancel culture" as a synonym for "unjust social punishment". I am asking: Is this an example of cancel culture, and, if not, what is the distinction? (And don't worry, I'm not stubbornly requiring an objective distinction in the shape of a formal argument, since this is a very subjective topic.) I appreciate your opinion, but you're expressing it very generically - you're just saying she deserved her consequences, which is fine, and I agree, but are you saying you believe that whether or not the consequences are "deserved" or "just" is the primary/only distinction between cancel culture and "normal" social consequences? Edit: As others have pointed out, I picked this topic not just because it's a case of social consequences, but also because it has other, more specific hallmarks of what is typically labeled "cancel culture". That is: The crime leaned more toward morality and social damage vs concrete actions; guilt by association; and a sexual topic.
  - thomasz 6y ago
    There is a galaxy of difference between offensive speech and child rape.
    - daveoc64 6y ago
      Yes, but that's not really the relevant thing. People get "cancelled" when a large enough group of people think someone has done something wrong. It just happens to be the case here that the group is very large, but it's fundamentally no different to other cases where people have been "cancelled".
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Most people I've talked to who are concerned about "cancel culture" are concerned about the dynamic where even a small group of people can get someone fired by being very loud about it. (I do agree with your implicit statement that it's not a very helpful term to use, though - at this point it's been too thoroughly repurposed for weird political battles.)
- PenguinCoder 6y ago
  > This is a consequence for past actions. That's what cancel culture is... Retribution for past actions, not justice for current ones.
  - darkwizard42 6y ago
    "cancel culture" is just the flashy new way for people to try to downplay the offensive past actions and find a way to criticize the reaction as going too far. I think removing this person from employment in a role that involves youth/children given their past actions and associations seems like a reasonable reaction, NOT "cancel culture"
- cgio 6y ago
  I’ll bite too. Do you not deserve or not have said rights? Both qualifications have cultural underpinnings but each reflect different stages of a rights statement lifecycle.
- kragen 6y ago
  The past action in question was that the former Green Party politician in question apparently continued to associate voluntarily with her own father, appointing him her election agent, even though he had been accused (apparently correctly) of torturing and raping children. Is that really the kind of "past action" that should be punished by permanent unemployment? This sounds like the Cultural Revolution.
  - darkwizard42 6y ago
    Not advocating for permanent unemployment but just not one at Reddit in a role where she is working with youth/teens
  - pgalvin 6y ago
    It’s worth noting too - she had only newly turned 18 when she appointed her father as her campaign manager, he hadn’t been convicted, and she was a minor when he was charged. Not defending her other actions re. her husband, but the thing with her father isn’t so bad given her age, given he was still legally innocent (note: he was later convicted), and given how common it is for children to maintain relationships with terrible parents in prison. I’m not going to pick a side overall, really, but I think a lot of people assume she was an adult during all of this.
- Can_Not 6y ago
  > This is a consequence for past actions. Ok, so to be clear, it's "a consequence for past actions" when you know what's going on and agree, but "cancel culture" when you are out of the loop or when you disagree.
djbebs 6y ago
Yes, absolutely, and i think that anyone supporting this should take a long and hard look at themselves and ask how someone is supposed to live in society and support themselves when a worldwide mob is actively lobbying to have them unable to acquire/retain gainful employment. Make no mistake, i have no views on this person, and had never heard of them until this thing showed up. I also vehemently disapprove of the way reddit handled it (censorship? No!) And will always be up to giving reddit a bloody nose over the crap they do. But make no mistake this is cancel culture, and this has wide reaching implications.
- sorenjan 6y ago
  They can work with something else than being an admin on one of the largest social media sites in the world, or a politician influencing public policy, or really anything with power over others. There's plenty of other options available.
  - djbebs 6y ago
    Right, of course. Until the mob notices again, right? Come now lets be honest here...
    - judge2020 6y ago
      There are a lot of industries and businesses where they couldn’t care less about public perception. Nestle, for example.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  I didn’t want the guy fired though. I wanted Reddit to admit that this is the latest in a pattern of site mismanagement. The guy can stay if he likes, doesn’t really bother me. Same story with StackOverflow. Even with their apology, I no longer have faith in their ability to run their site, Monica being employed or not.
  - bavent 6y ago
    She’s not a she. Not a he. Disgusting behavior is pronoun-free though, and she is not a good person apparently regardless of her gender identity.
kbelder 6y ago
I think that's actually a question worth examining. I'm a little uncomfortable that the protests got him fired. The initial problem wasn't that the employee was hired, it was Reddit's heavy-handed filtering, censoring, and autobanning. Firing the employee doesn't fix the actual issue. Between Reddit and the employee, there's stuff we don't know and won't ever know. Did he hide info during the hiring process, and so on. Maybe the firing was justified, maybe it wasn't. He was never charged or convicted of a crime, and the idea of continuously punishing him just because of suspicions or associating isn't right. On the other hand, I think it would have been sensible to Reddit to have avoided hiring him in the first place. We might have to see whether the opprobrium spreads to future employment, social media accounts, and so on. That would definitely be cancellation, and wrong.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  You seemed to go out of your way to use misgendered pronouns in your comment, which isn't cool. You don't have to like a person to refer to her the way everybody sees her. At the very least it avoids confusion.
  - angrais 6y ago
    You're right that the parent comment used the incorrect pronoun. However, how are you to know this was not a mistake and why do you think OP "went out of their way"? Also, isn't "everybody" incorrect given OPs statement?
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      At the time of my comment, theirs was the only comment with the wrong pronouns, and at least five times. This in response to a story that consistently uses a feminine name and feminine pronouns, which are also consistently used in all the other reporting I've seen on the subject at hand. The only places I've seen masculine pronouns used before today have been from commenters expressing negative views of transgender people. Based on that, I think it was fair to say that they seemingly went out of their way to use the wrong pronouns. I did not, however, accuse them of being anti-transgender on that basis alone. Clearly the voting disagrees with my observation, or simply agrees with mis-gendering Ms. Knight.
Uhhrrr 6y ago
I would like to say no, because the admin in question very likely lied about her background, and you'd think that would be enough to get someone fired once it leaks out. In any event, her background would seem to make her unfit for a job as Reddit admin. The fact that Reddit had to have known about her background no later than 3/9, when special protections were put in place, complicates this. It's possible that they were just taking time to get their (legal) ducks in a row before firing her. I've seen that happen, where a coworker who was creeping on younger female coworkers had his desk moved, and was only let go a month later. Or maybe Reddit thought it was a great idea to have her as an employee given her background, and only fired her when it became a big deal. In that case it would be a cancellation.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Why is it very likely she lied? It sounds like they put the same protections in place for other people. Reddit job descriptions promise pseudonymity protection too.[1] [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20210325002519/https://boards.greenhouse.io/reddit/jobs/3005811 http://web.archive.org/web/20210325002519/https://boards.gre...
  - Uhhrrr 6y ago
    I say that because you would think a community site would have some sort of filtering process for predators and their enablers, and the Reddit statement says their vetting failed. But I don't know.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      I think they just mean they didn't Google her. An organization vetted me to work with children. No one asked about my parents or people I hired.

I would say cancel culture is usually applied when group A doesn't like the politics of group (or individual) B, and has them de-platformed. In this case politics weren't involved, and the people performing the de-platform were from all ends of the spectrum.

zelon88 6y ago
Soooooo, free market capitalism?

darkwizard42 6y ago

No, and I think you know why, but I'll bite. This is a consequence for past actions. If you are involved in the kind of things this employee was involved with then you deserve no right to being employed by a private company and certainly no right to have others ignore that in their interactions or discussion of you.

daveoc64 6y ago
> This is a consequence for past actions. If you are involved in the kind of things this employee was involved with then you deserve no right to being employed by a private company and certainly no right to have others ignore that in their interactions or discussion of you. Can't you say that about anything and anyone though? Every instance of someone being "cancelled" is really just the "consequence" of their past actions.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  I think I agree with that. "cancel culture" is just the catchy phrase being used today to imply that the past actions weren't so bad and weren't deserving of the subsequent response. In this case...I don't think someone who has definitive links to pedophilia and already been kicked out of two organizations for those links probably shouldn't be employed in a position at Reddit where they are working with youth. Should she never get a job again ever? No! But probably not one with children or youth...
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    I'm very curious who/why at Reddit decided she was a good hire for that position. And the husband too. I think that's a much more interesting question than another to and fro about cancel culture.
tmotwu 6y ago
> This is a consequence for past actions This is exactly how people justify cancel culture and/or cancelling others. Before anyone downvotes as they did to OP, I am in no way shape or form defending the person of interest. But unfortunately, this is what cancel culture is; there's no reason to redefine it.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
Well, guilt by association is certainly a trait of cancel culture and, unless I missed it, association is the source of all pedophilic activity in this story rather than anything the subject (Mrs. Challenor) did themself. Yet if you look at Reddit's homepage, you'd think she was the one charged with child rape.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  Guilt by association is probably fair game here...in her capacity at reddit she was working on subreddits that involved younger adults/teenagers. Do you think that would be okay? If she was a software engineer or working on marketing, I would not advocate for her to be removed from reddit. Much of the controversy is that this was an admin with control over subreddits which there is clear public information that perhaps they aren't best suited for.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    Well, once again, you're treating her as if she was the one convicted of pedophilia. Do I think someone associated with a pedophile should be treated like a pedophile? No. Our justice system and legal ethics certainly don't believe in a transitivity of guilt like that. We'd consider that extremely unfair. In my eyes, a large component of cancel culture is when we ignore all that because we like the result.
    - darkwizard42 6y ago
      It was her father...who she chose to employ as her campaign manager AFTER it was already known about his crimes. It wasn't just someone in her extended friend circle or a passing acquaintance. I think she shouldn't be treated as a pedophile. I think she should be treated warily in positions that involve youth. That feels like a pretty reasonable concern.
      - hombre_fatal 6y ago
        > I think she shouldn't be treated as a pedophile. I think she should be treated warily in positions that involve youth. These statements don't square. Barring them from employment isn't just wariness. Hiring her pedo dad is definitely a bad choice for a political campaign and it looks bad. That's different than: can't be trusted alone in a room with a child or can't be trusted to run a forum.
happytoexplain 6y ago
>and I think you know why No, I am not being tongue-in-cheek in an attempt to catch somebody out on hypocrisy (though I do believe many people are extremely hypocritical on this topic). Apologies - let me be more clear: I am not implicitly asking, "is this a case of cancel culture producing a good outcome", nor, "is this a case of cancel culture producing a bad outcome". I am not using the term "cancel culture" as a synonym for "unjust social punishment". I am asking: Is this an example of cancel culture, and, if not, what is the distinction? (And don't worry, I'm not stubbornly requiring an objective distinction in the shape of a formal argument, since this is a very subjective topic.) I appreciate your opinion, but you're expressing it very generically - you're just saying she deserved her consequences, which is fine, and I agree, but are you saying you believe that whether or not the consequences are "deserved" or "just" is the primary/only distinction between cancel culture and "normal" social consequences? Edit: As others have pointed out, I picked this topic not just because it's a case of social consequences, but also because it has other, more specific hallmarks of what is typically labeled "cancel culture". That is: The crime leaned more toward morality and social damage vs concrete actions; guilt by association; and a sexual topic.
- thomasz 6y ago
  There is a galaxy of difference between offensive speech and child rape.
  - daveoc64 6y ago
    Yes, but that's not really the relevant thing. People get "cancelled" when a large enough group of people think someone has done something wrong. It just happens to be the case here that the group is very large, but it's fundamentally no different to other cases where people have been "cancelled".
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Most people I've talked to who are concerned about "cancel culture" are concerned about the dynamic where even a small group of people can get someone fired by being very loud about it. (I do agree with your implicit statement that it's not a very helpful term to use, though - at this point it's been too thoroughly repurposed for weird political battles.)
PenguinCoder 6y ago
> This is a consequence for past actions. That's what cancel culture is... Retribution for past actions, not justice for current ones.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  "cancel culture" is just the flashy new way for people to try to downplay the offensive past actions and find a way to criticize the reaction as going too far. I think removing this person from employment in a role that involves youth/children given their past actions and associations seems like a reasonable reaction, NOT "cancel culture"
cgio 6y ago
I’ll bite too. Do you not deserve or not have said rights? Both qualifications have cultural underpinnings but each reflect different stages of a rights statement lifecycle.
kragen 6y ago
The past action in question was that the former Green Party politician in question apparently continued to associate voluntarily with her own father, appointing him her election agent, even though he had been accused (apparently correctly) of torturing and raping children. Is that really the kind of "past action" that should be punished by permanent unemployment? This sounds like the Cultural Revolution.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  Not advocating for permanent unemployment but just not one at Reddit in a role where she is working with youth/teens
- pgalvin 6y ago
  It’s worth noting too - she had only newly turned 18 when she appointed her father as her campaign manager, he hadn’t been convicted, and she was a minor when he was charged. Not defending her other actions re. her husband, but the thing with her father isn’t so bad given her age, given he was still legally innocent (note: he was later convicted), and given how common it is for children to maintain relationships with terrible parents in prison. I’m not going to pick a side overall, really, but I think a lot of people assume she was an adult during all of this.
Can_Not 6y ago
> This is a consequence for past actions. Ok, so to be clear, it's "a consequence for past actions" when you know what's going on and agree, but "cancel culture" when you are out of the loop or when you disagree.

djbebs 6y ago

Yes, absolutely, and i think that anyone supporting this should take a long and hard look at themselves and ask how someone is supposed to live in society and support themselves when a worldwide mob is actively lobbying to have them unable to acquire/retain gainful employment. Make no mistake, i have no views on this person, and had never heard of them until this thing showed up. I also vehemently disapprove of the way reddit handled it (censorship? No!) And will always be up to giving reddit a bloody nose over the crap they do. But make no mistake this is cancel culture, and this has wide reaching implications.

sorenjan 6y ago
They can work with something else than being an admin on one of the largest social media sites in the world, or a politician influencing public policy, or really anything with power over others. There's plenty of other options available.
- djbebs 6y ago
  Right, of course. Until the mob notices again, right? Come now lets be honest here...
  - judge2020 6y ago
    There are a lot of industries and businesses where they couldn’t care less about public perception. Nestle, for example.
jimbob45 6y ago
I didn’t want the guy fired though. I wanted Reddit to admit that this is the latest in a pattern of site mismanagement. The guy can stay if he likes, doesn’t really bother me. Same story with StackOverflow. Even with their apology, I no longer have faith in their ability to run their site, Monica being employed or not.
- bavent 6y ago
  She’s not a she. Not a he. Disgusting behavior is pronoun-free though, and she is not a good person apparently regardless of her gender identity.

kbelder 6y ago

I think that's actually a question worth examining. I'm a little uncomfortable that the protests got him fired. The initial problem wasn't that the employee was hired, it was Reddit's heavy-handed filtering, censoring, and autobanning. Firing the employee doesn't fix the actual issue. Between Reddit and the employee, there's stuff we don't know and won't ever know. Did he hide info during the hiring process, and so on. Maybe the firing was justified, maybe it wasn't. He was never charged or convicted of a crime, and the idea of continuously punishing him just because of suspicions or associating isn't right. On the other hand, I think it would have been sensible to Reddit to have avoided hiring him in the first place. We might have to see whether the opprobrium spreads to future employment, social media accounts, and so on. That would definitely be cancellation, and wrong.

pwinnski 6y ago
You seemed to go out of your way to use misgendered pronouns in your comment, which isn't cool. You don't have to like a person to refer to her the way everybody sees her. At the very least it avoids confusion.
- angrais 6y ago
  You're right that the parent comment used the incorrect pronoun. However, how are you to know this was not a mistake and why do you think OP "went out of their way"? Also, isn't "everybody" incorrect given OPs statement?
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    At the time of my comment, theirs was the only comment with the wrong pronouns, and at least five times. This in response to a story that consistently uses a feminine name and feminine pronouns, which are also consistently used in all the other reporting I've seen on the subject at hand. The only places I've seen masculine pronouns used before today have been from commenters expressing negative views of transgender people. Based on that, I think it was fair to say that they seemingly went out of their way to use the wrong pronouns. I did not, however, accuse them of being anti-transgender on that basis alone. Clearly the voting disagrees with my observation, or simply agrees with mis-gendering Ms. Knight.

Uhhrrr 6y ago

I would like to say no, because the admin in question very likely lied about her background, and you'd think that would be enough to get someone fired once it leaks out. In any event, her background would seem to make her unfit for a job as Reddit admin. The fact that Reddit had to have known about her background no later than 3/9, when special protections were put in place, complicates this. It's possible that they were just taking time to get their (legal) ducks in a row before firing her. I've seen that happen, where a coworker who was creeping on younger female coworkers had his desk moved, and was only let go a month later. Or maybe Reddit thought it was a great idea to have her as an employee given her background, and only fired her when it became a big deal. In that case it would be a cancellation.

pseudalopex 6y ago
Why is it very likely she lied? It sounds like they put the same protections in place for other people. Reddit job descriptions promise pseudonymity protection too.[1] [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20210325002519/https://boards.greenhouse.io/reddit/jobs/3005811 http://web.archive.org/web/20210325002519/https://boards.gre...
- Uhhrrr 6y ago
  I say that because you would think a community site would have some sort of filtering process for predators and their enablers, and the Reddit statement says their vetting failed. But I don't know.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    I think they just mean they didn't Google her. An organization vetted me to work with children. No one asked about my parents or people I hired.