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What it's like to be cancelled

• croes 5y ago
  History does not repeat itself but it rhymes. Rhymes with witch hunt and lynch mob.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• rvz 5y ago
  Great blog-post. I find it pointless for this 'cancelling-cult' to even be a thing. It achieves nothing but destruction and it is beyond medieval standards. It's like the mob wants to find a new villain every week, because of a somewhat past 'crime' on Twitter or a mistake that we disavowed our younger-self online and they still force us to apologise for it. Even when we begin to apologise, it is never enough and they go to great lengths to cancel anyone who either doesn't agree with them or basically just want to be part of pushing 'this game' too far. No point in apologising or reasoning with them if they aren't go to accept the apology. They'll just continue the witch-hunt and move on to the next villain to be thrown into the lost and banned. This cancelling-cult has got to stop. It has gotten out of control.
  • jfengel 5y ago
    I know, right? It's gotten to the point where even men who do nothing more than admit to harassing women and pressuring them into sex has resulted in actual consequences!
• theossuary 5y ago
  Twitter is vile. I thought that the day the company started, and never created an account; nothing good can come from a platform like Twitter. It's a failure of our laws that there's no recourse to this kind of libel, either against Twitter for basing their business model on it, or the individuals responsible for spreading it. Lives are consistently destroyed and everyone just shrugs their shoulders and goes "aw-shucks." Natalie Wynn talks about this on Contrapoints, worth watching as well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8
  • thebooktocome 5y ago
    I didn't see any libel mentioned in the article. The author seems not to dispute the claims made against him.
    • johnzim 5y ago
      He absolutely disputes the allegations of, rape which are at the crux of the his larger cancellation. > So I wrote up a statement saying I had slept with women at events and sometimes I was a dick. The statement was heavily (and perhaps hastily) worded in an effort to convey my understanding of the gravity of hurting people and my desire to set a good example. The internet, though, misinterpreted some of what I had said and began accusing me of rape. No one has ever accused me of raping them. But twitter latched onto that narrative and couldn’t let it go.
      • MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        As much as I love anonymity online, the lack of accountability for people doing this stuff is almost a worse evil now that people can hold clout. This sort of stuff should hold people criminally negligent of the use of their personal influence.
    • AlexandrB 5y ago
      I think this fits: > My womanizing at events predates ever meeting my wife. But people went so far as to call her a rapist, a sex trafficker, or at best a rape apologist.
    • spikels 5y ago
      C’mon. It’s in the 2nd paragraph!
    • volkk 5y ago
      have you actually READ the article?
      • njharman 5y ago
• nsxwolf 5y ago
  Be anonymous. Be obscure. Stop talking to people on the internet.
  • commandlinefan 5y ago
    That is - stop using the internet as the disruptive communications network it way designed to be.
    • eurasiantiger 5y ago
      Originally, the Internet (including, but not limited to, the World Wide Web) was a place where nobody was interested in who you were as a person. It was and is geared towards structuring and disseminating knowledge. In that sense, the entire somesphere is a tumor to the Internet.
      • qbasic_forever 5y ago
        That's a very tunnel vision view of the early web. You're ignoring BBS's, AOL, usenet, IRC, etc. which were all created with the explicit purpose of people connecting and talking to other people. You can go even further back to things like Community Memory and the Homebrew Computer Club--computing has firmly been embracing people connecting to other people since the early days.
        • FeepingCreature 5y ago
          None of those need, or benefit from, your real name.
        • nsxwolf 5y ago
          I was huge into the BBS scene for years. I had a handle. Only a few close personal friends knew my name. I think most of us here are anonymous.
        • eurasiantiger 5y ago
          Sure you could connect with people, but you wouldn’t connect with Firstname Lastname, you would connect with some nickname that you were associating with some cool stuff they had written about. It was not inherently about people, it was about what those people managed to bring into virtual existence that was interesting, and it was that you wanted to connect with.
• shadeslayer_ 5y ago
  I'm a bit sceptical about this because it talks very little about what happened that caused OP to get "cancelled", and an awful lot about how they came back from it. I do understand, first-hand, the trauma that comes from being cancelled (although I have like 1500 followers on Twitter so you could argue the stakes are less) and there's no doubt that it is a bitch. But there is something to take away from it - or at least there was in my case - which was that I, in fact, was an asshole. That does not seem to be the overarching narrative of this post, and I do not see a lot of learning they have done from being cancelled. In conclusion, kudos to the way you bounced back but I really wish there was a bit more introspection into how you see your past behaviour in the light of being cancelled.
  • mrkurt 5y ago
    There's a little more context here: https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admits-to-being-a-sexual-predator-at-art-industry-events/ https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...
    • kstrauser 5y ago
      > “I was terrible to women,” Bradley wrote. “I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about.” This is literally the first I've heard of Bradley, and I have no knowledge of him outside of this HN post. That's a pretty self-damning quote, though.
      • noahbradley 5y ago
        Yep, it is. I was trying to take full ownership of what I was like and overplayed what I had done in an effort to not seem like I was downplaying it. It's dumb in hindsight but there it is.
        • jrochkind1 5y ago
          I don't know if you overplayed it, or if if you were dumb. You had in the past done some terrible things, you agree. The internet these days tries to utterly destroy people for having in the past done terrible things, with no way out. This does not in fact make it less likely for people to do terrible things; it does make it less likely for them to admit to them (even to themselves), to apologize to those who have hurt, or to do what those they have hurt need for repair and redress. So, that's not great, all around, it's true. It's a problem. This response does not actually reduce harm, it just further treats people as disposable. But if, say, the people you had hurt needed/wanted to hear you say it like that publicly? Then you did the right thing, you didn't do a dumb thing. You owed it to them regardless of consequences, because of the harm you caused. And I respect it. And I think you can feel good about owning up to the terrible things you did, instead of feeling dumb about it, it's the right thing to have done -- which doesn't mean you have to think "the internets" (or your friends :( ) response to you was appropriate. I'm glad you are figuring out a way out of the hole, and I'm glad you have figured out how to stop treating people like you did in your youth. I respect the way you tell the story without trying to excuse or escape the harm you caused in your youth.
• foldr 5y ago
  I looked into this briefly (against my better judgment). He stated in his apology that he was a 'sexual predator' and that he 'pressured women into sex'. So yeah, a lot of organisations now don't want to associate with him. It's nice that he's sorry for what he did, but actions have consequences. And the line between pressuring people into sex and raping them is very, very fine.
  • deft 5y ago
    My impression is he made himself sound worse than he really was.
    • foldr 5y ago
      Well, that's what he says now. We only have his word for it. If you put out a statement saying that one of your past statements was inaccurate, then that's hardly likely to increase confidence in the accuracy of your current statement. Ultimately, people criticised him for doing things that he himself admitted to doing. As those things were pretty awful, I don't see that he really has anything to complain about.
• ThaDood 5y ago
  I guess the simple rule of not being a dick still holds a little truth.
  • lovecg 5y ago
    On the other hand the rule of “if you’ve ever been a dick in the past, your life and career should be destroyed proportionality be damned” seems like a societal failure.
    • ThaDood 5y ago
      I agree, I'm not saying you should have your entire life uprooted because you said something stupid on Twitter when you were like 13. The situation in this case is a little different. Again, don't be a dick or try to avoid it when possible and I don't think you will have to worry about being canceled.
      • lovecg 5y ago
        What do you think about cases like this one? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/mount-allison-suspension-professor-1.6016047 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/mount-allison-s... An immigrant _tenured_ professor in Canada got suspended for saying that Canada is not racist on her blog. Was she being a dick? Does she deserve the “consequences”? At what point do we stop saying “oh these are isolated incidents and not a trend”?
        • xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
          As a Canadian, yeah that's a pretty awful thing to say. Canada is definitely racist -- and I'd go so far as to say that it's safe to assume that everywhere and everyone is racist to some extent. Supporting the idea that you (individual, organization, country, whatever) are not racist makes it convenient to ignore efforts to combat racism ("why should we combat racism when there isn't any") which should be universally supported. So yeah she was being a dick. As a representative of Mount Allison, they decided her behaviour was problematic, which they are in the right to do. Just because you're a powerful person with a fancy title doesn't make you immune from consequences of shitty behaviour.
• prepend 5y ago
  I think the biggest problem with Twitter is that we can’t determine a denominator. Twitter knows, but we don’t know. 100 people tweeting about how this guy is bad might be indicative of a general consensus or might just be 100 people out of a billion Twitter users. People then interpret it as general consensus and pile on. We know the numerator but since we don’t know the denominator of people who didn’t comment, or disagree, or never saw, or don’t care. So we can’t figure out a ratio and many people assume the denominator is the numerator and the ratio is 1. “The world won’t do business with this guy, I better fire him” doesn’t make sense if it’s just a very small ratio as who cares if 100 people are upset and 1,000,000 customers don’t care. I wish Twitter had some ratio of who viewed vs who acted. Or had downvotes or something. Currently, people assuming that a few commenters is everyone is doing bad things. This coupled with there’s always someone or a small group who holds an opinion so putting too much weight into a few commenters is not smart. Yet frequently done.
  • threeboy 5y ago
    "Three men make a tiger"
    • inglor_cz 5y ago
      Especially if you can make a tiger by simply clicking a share button. It would be much harder to build a critical mass using more traditional methods of communication, even e-mail. As a result, people would spare their energy for serious incidents only. But we have a variant of the tragedy of commons here: societal ostracism, an important but dangerous tool, is no longer used rationally, but milked to exhaustion. It has become too easy to get the ball of outrage rolling. Too many people are treated as if they commanded a genocidal death squad, when their transgression is often verbal only (not the case of this particular artist, I know). As a result, we have a virtual Salem trial every day. I wonder when the inevitable reaction happens and people start ignoring the social networks altogether. This is not a stable, persistent state of things. Too unhinged.
    • robocat 5y ago
      “””Another great Chinese expression is "calling a deer a horse" (指鹿為馬; zhǐlù-wéimǎ) which is based on the story of Zhao Gao which goes as follows: Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The Second Emperor laughed and said, "Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?" Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law and had them executed instantly.””” Seems even more appropriate - quoted from https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/e1diq2/three_men_make_a_tiger_chinese_三人成虎_pinyin_sān/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/e1diq2/three_men...
• xwdv 5y ago
  If you find yourself the target of a cancellation attempt, never give in. Never apologize. If you do, the problem isn’t going to go away, it will get worse. No apology is ever enough. No punishment is ever enough. There is no way to redeem yourself in the eyes of the public. Apologizing is making yourself humbled and vulnerable to a mob that does not deserve it. You will roll over to expose your belly in submission asking for mercy and instead get your guts torn out and burned. Instead you must harden. Deny everything. Gaslight. You will know you have won when the mob grows tired and cynical from their inability to destroy you. When the dust has settled, all that will matter is that no one came forward with hard evidence, only he-said-she-said bullshit. You can downvote me all you want, it does not change the truth.
  • auslegung 5y ago
    Donald?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • meinfuhrer 5y ago
    You're totally right...the mob does not accept apologies so there's no point. It's better to double down, and maintain your dignity.
  • rvz 5y ago
    Yes. The first step is to NEVER EVER apologise. With the mob, they will create libellous accusations and label you everything under the sun until they eventually spin your character into 'a Nazi'. Perhaps they were playing too much Wolfenstein VR and they see Nazis in everything. As you can see with the OP and the comments in this thread, it seems there is little to no redemption anyway. So apology is not an option. Especially on your own Twitter account.
    • xwdv 5y ago
      Plus if you apologize they just take it as evidence of wrong doing and that’s the worst you could do.
• cratermoon 5y ago
  https://articles.starcitygames.com/news/mtg-artist-noah-bradley-apologizes-for-having-preyed-on-women/ https://articles.starcitygames.com/news/mtg-artist-noah-brad...
• kleiba 5y ago
  I don't know the guy, and I don't know what happened. That's why I certainly don't want to side with anyone in this specific case. But boy, cancel culture and this whole social justice warrior crap makes me so glad that I moved away from the U.S. many years ago to saner parts of the world. Obviously that is going to get me downvoted to oblivion here on HN. But hey.
  • misiti3780 5y ago
    Why do you feel impervious to it because you do not live in the US? Cancel cultural is an internet phenomenon.
    • kleiba 5y ago
      But it's mostly a American internet phenomenon.
    • infamouscow 5y ago
      Maybe the part of the Internet that's in English. I don't see it elsewhere.
    • PeterisP 5y ago
      Getting a large shitstorm on the internet out of something is a global phenomenon, however, getting fired and blacklisted from future jobs because of an internet shitstorm (which to me is the key part that distinguishes 'cancel culture' from perfectly reasonable outrage or criticism) is not universal, companies reacting like that is much more pronounced in USA than elsewhere. In many parts of the world the exact same actions of an artist and internet reactions to them would not result in anywhere close to the consequences described in this article.
  • long_time_gone 5y ago
    This post is a great example of how to attack something (cancel culture) while also acting like a victim (downvote me). This is a powerful technique that seems to be getting more and more common in society.
• doggodaddo78 5y ago
  I still don't understand "cancel culture." It seems the equivalent of a random person saying "I put a voodoo curse on you." What non-mythological power does it invoke? Does it ever lead to mainstream, widespread shunning? The next part I don't understand is the weak culture of profuse and repeated apologizing and contrition for a "microaggression." This is something Bill Maher harps about from time-to-time. Finally, the culture of competitive, and sometimes crybully, victimhood is tedious and nauseating. Why does everyone have to outdo themselves to be the biggest victim? Are you "The Man" to be collectively punished and assaulted if you don't have enough victomology points?
  • jhrmnn 5y ago
    Cancel culture is just a modern form of ostracism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism
  • fossuser 5y ago
    > "Does it ever lead to mainstream, widespread shunning?" It seems like the answer to this is yes? or at least enough to have serious life consequences for those that find themselves on the wrong side of it. Losing your job, losing your spouse, losing your reputation, it's basically a form of ex-communication that can have serious consequences. Mob justice is not a great thing independent of specific instances, there's a reason we moved as a society to courts - they're not perfect, but they're better. Cancelling also conflates two things often, but the mob response is similar. There are people 'cancelled' because they discuss ideas that others disagree with. I think this is the most objectionable. Then there are people cancelled for (often, but not always sexual) behavior - this is more nuanced in the sense that the action may be (but is not always) wrong, but the mob justice is wrong too. There is also a wide spectrum of behavior here that ranges from mild to actual crime, and in the public 'mob justice' sphere (rather than a court) often nuance is lost and the truth is lost too. We have a criminal system, courts, and the presumption of innocence for a reason.
• AlexandrB 5y ago
  The "You're Wrong About" podcast recently had a very good episode on the topic of Cancel Culture[1]. For me, one big takeaway was how the modern form of this phenomenon is largely localized to a small group of people - primarily on Twitter. Thus I was not surprised to see Twitter be ground zero here as well. [1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cancel-culture/id1380008439?i=1000524480233 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cancel-culture/id13800...
• draw_down 5y ago
  > I had apologized privately for everything, but I hoped it might show my sincerity and commitment to being better to address it publicly. So I wrote up a statement First mistake. You can’t give in to this stuff. It does not make it better. It makes it worse.
• GPerson 5y ago
  Damn. Sorry Noah. I don’t know if you’re reading this page but if you are I just want to thank you for the resources you’ve put out.
  • noahbradley 5y ago
    Thanks! I appreciate that. It sucks, but I'm glad to still be alive and still able to make stuff.
• daenz 5y ago
  I just assume at some point in my life, if I achieve my dreams, I'm going to get cancelled. If you have big aspirations, you should assume this too. Start preparing mentally for it.
  • shadowgovt 5y ago
    The best approach I can suggest is "If you're going to get cancelled, get cancelled for something you really believe in, not some shitty thing you tripped and fell into." In short, don't have the crowd be the first thing that tells you you're someone you don't want to be.
  • Filligree 5y ago
    Why bother? It’s much easier not trying for anything like that. You can live a comfortable life without ever trying to make waves. Leave politics to the psychopaths.
    • daenz 5y ago
      You don't have to go into politics to be cancelled. You just need any kind of notoriety.
      • Filligree 5y ago
        That’s very true. I suppose I misspoke.
• bigbillheck 5y ago
  The author is the one who groped all those women at conventions, but is acting like he's the victim here.
  • noahbradley 5y ago
    I didn't grope anyone and I'm not sure where you've heard that, but it's 100% false.
    • lalaland1125 5y ago
      It's probably from https://twitter.com/BettyDesuJiang/status/1274500595718582273 https://twitter.com/BettyDesuJiang/status/127450059571858227... No clue whether or not that claim is true, just pointing out the source
    • bigbillheck 5y ago
      I heard it from the original claim: "Remember the bald headed crusty assed "well known" artist who went around groping female devs, and ended up having his face bit after trying to pour drinks down the throat of a girl whose already very intoxicated at the Massive Black workshop after party ?" (https://twitter.com/BettyDesuJiang/status/1274500595718582273 https://twitter.com/BettyDesuJiang/status/127450059571858227...)
      • noahbradley 5y ago
        Nope, not true and a gross distortion of what happened that night.
        • bigbillheck 5y ago
          Does what happened fall into any of the categories of 'preying on women', 'ceaselessly hitting on women', or 'pressuring women into sex'?
        • dshpala 5y ago
          Noah, why are you even replying to this guy? He is obviously a troll, and you won't be able to "explain" anything to him. Personally, I enjoy ignoring his types in online debates. Bait them, and ignore them - priceless.
• throwaway34017 5y ago
  I recently gave a test lecture about a topic in statistics, where I showed a meme that a statistics professor I follow shared on her Twitter feed [1]. I thought it would be safe to include as it didn't get any negative reactions on Twitter and was already being used by a professor in her university class in the US. After the talk I immediately got called out by the women's representative on the hiring commission, who asked me how I would think students would react to such a meme. I then explained how it makes fun of the statistical property of the mean being easily "attracted" by outlier data points, as opposed to the median which is usually not as sensitive. She did not explain what she saw as problematic. Maybe that a couple in a relationship situation was shown or that an attractive woman was in the foreground, or that the man openly expressed his attraction towards the other woman. I apologized profusley and tried to explain that I'm not an insensitive or sexist person, which she seemed to imply with her remark though. I have been thinking about this incident for several days now, as I really can't make up my mind if I did something wrong or not by including the meme. If anyone want to add his/her opinion I'd be grateful therefore. The lecture was directed at B.Sc. students at a university in Europe BTW. Personally I can say it feels quite bad being called out like that, especially as someone who has never (consciously) done anything discriminatory against women or minorities. And as someone who's quite sensitive I can say that it definitely has a chilling effect on me. [1] https://twitter.com/annaegalite/status/1166446645204213760 https://twitter.com/annaegalite/status/1166446645204213760
  • volkk 5y ago
    based on the fact that you're even writing about it and really reflecting so deeply makes me think that you're probably NOT that kind of person. and that is why all of this crap is so dangerous. actual decent people are collateral damage and anyone is up for dismantling. my question to those who read this comment is: given all that has happened regarding canceling disgusting people (i.e weinstein) and potentially more controversial ones that maybe didn't deserve it (e.g aziz ansari) is it a net negative or a positive for society?
  • msie 5y ago
    Using memes in a lecture is risky, but was the women's representative herself outraged or outraged on behalf of the students?
• fration 5y ago
  You did not get cancelled for questionable comments online, or wrongthink, or whatever. You got burned for being a sexual predator. Stop making posts about it online, stop downplaying what you did by saying "I was a different person". Learn to live with the consequences of your actions.
  • LegitShady 5y ago
    define sexual predator
    • fration 5y ago
      Those are his own words.
      • LegitShady 5y ago
        I asked you what that means to you, not what it means to him. I don't think hitting on woman or convincing them to have sex is sexual predation. 'pressuring woman for sex' can mean many things. People under attack by a mob do many stupid things, including thinking that 'admitting and apologizing' will somehow stop that abuse. You accused him of being a sexual predator. What does that mean to you? how do you know what happened meets any definition of that word to you? Don't take these pressured confessions of wrongdoing as credible - they're people desperate to save their life. They may say anything to do so.
    • etcet 5y ago
      "I was terrible to women. I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I pressured them into sex. I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about" [0] [0] https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/EogdM7bU8AAY-Fu.png https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...
  • truthwhisperer 5y ago
    Loser
  • 5y ago
• karaterobot 5y ago
  The terrifying thing about this article is that after all of this, he's still on Twitter, and still feels like he has to be on Twitter for the exposure it gives him.
• deft 5y ago
  You can find his original apology here. https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admits-to-being-a-sexual-predator-at-art-industry-events/ https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi... Maybe if he wasn't so self-loathing in it the consequences wouldn't have been as extreme. When the mob comes for you its best to just ignore it rather than give in to their demands. He called himself a sexual predator, what kind of impression does that give? A sidenote, this happened at the same time as the Smash bros community was experiencing a "metoo"-ish moment, and it dragged a lot of nerdy hobbies into the mix. Many innocent people were cancelled last June, and not all of them managed to get out from the hole like Noah sadly.
• legitster 5y ago
  Honestly, the biggest mistake people make is issuing public apologies. So far, we have very few examples of them actually working. On the contrary, any amount of admission seems to show weakness. The "controversy" around Lin-Manuel Miranda seems to have come nearly entirely from his apology to a very small group of disappointed fans. There are even more examples of very publicly terrible people who have skirted worse controversies simply by ignoring them! There is no reward for being self-aware or apologetic. But there are rewards for unyielding self-righteousness.
  • shadowgovt 5y ago
    I have yet to see a well-defined playbook for mitigating the Twitter Eye Of Sauron turning on a person that has a better success record than chance. Different things have worked for different individuals (including issuing a public apology, see https://www.vulture.com/2020/12/influencer-apologies-2020-shane-dawson-jenna-marbles.html https://www.vulture.com/2020/12/influencer-apologies-2020-sh... for a collection of them and the result). It may be the case that cancellations are too circumstance-specific to say what works and what doesn't.
    • abenga 5y ago
      It may be before the online mobs grew large enough, but Tim Hardaway dealt with his homophobic comments well enough to convince everyone that he had a change of heart, and was not just trying to manage the fallout (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/02/16/ten-years-go-this-nba-star-said-he-hated-gay-people-now-he-advocates-for-them/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/02/16/ten...).
  • paulpauper 5y ago
    Doing or saying nothing only helps if you're innocent until proven guilty. An apology just helps to clarify the situation once the issue cannot be ignored. It will not make the mobs change their minds.
    • koheripbal 5y ago
• radmuzom 5y ago
  Earlier this year when Richard Stallman was re-instated to the Board of the FSF, there were a lot of tweets expressing dismay. To one of them, I replied that I personally don't think he has done anything wrong at all - and linked to a well-known article by a woman who defended him better than me. While I found some support among a few people, the amount of hate I received shook me a bit. People started adding me to lists like "a list of people who tweet stupid things". It went on for a couple of days. The good thing is that I am a nobody - I am not known in any popular online communities, I am not famous and no one really cares who I am - so I could not be cancelled. But the amount of negative emotions and energy directed at me did affect me for a couple of days. After that event, I sympathize much more with people who have been cancelled (earlier I tended to support those doing the cancelling even though I did not tweet/comment myself).
  • xupybd 5y ago
    Yeah Twitter is very toxic. I got on a few lists as well. I tried to talk to the NZ civil liberties association about freedom of speech. As it turns out they are against free speech and pro hate speech laws. I didn't know that going in. Then some people put me on a hate speech list. After that I was blocked by a large group of people I'd never encountered. It's a weird place and I'm glad to be off the platform.
    • mdoms 5y ago
      NZ Twitter is nuts. If you think US Twitter leans left you haven't seen anything like NZPol Twitter.
    • happytoexplain 5y ago
      I completely believe that whatever happened to you was totally unreasonable, but try to understand that from another person's point of view, the broad "you must be against freedom of speech" thing is "toxic", just as you have experienced "toxic" behavior from the opposite side of the issue.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
  I think the libel and defamation laws are too slack in the US. I think Twitter and News Companies who repeat libelous and defamatory tweets about people should be liable. Society has dealt with how to deal with people spreading rumors and falsehoods about people, and one of the solutions was libel laws. It is not surprising as the. US Supreme Court gutted those laws, and Congress gave safe harbor with section 230 to tech companies, that we have seen a huge spike in these problems. Hold Twitter, the posters, and any retweeters jointly and severally liable and watch the problem disappear.
  • jcranmer 5y ago
    > I think Twitter and News Companies who repeat libelous and defamatory tweets about people should be liable. Actually, given how defamation works in the US, even without Section 230, it's very hard to see how they'd be liable. In the US, if the defamation is towards a public figure (which it is for every case you'll hear about), then it's not enough that the statement be demonstrably false, but it also has to be made with "actual malice." That means you need to demonstrate that the speaker either knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard as to its veracity. Since Twitter basically publishes everything its users do, there's no way it can form sufficient mens rea to defame anybody merely by publishing a tweet. Oh, and loosening up defamation law in the US would run afoul of this pesky thing called the First Amendment.
• scythe 5y ago
  It's a little weird to hear about people being "cancelled" for things that they did. Usually, to me, "cancel culture" is the phenomenon where people are relentlessly harassed for what they said, or in some (rare) cases, where they were ("so-and-so pictured with so-and-so at such-and-such"). People getting in trouble for doing stuff doesn't strike me as a particularly new or unique cultural phenomenon.
• tijuco2 5y ago
  He should be worried about the fact that he accepted other people telling him how to behave. THAT'S humiliating.
• aestetix 5y ago
  There is only one correct response to these twitter mobs: say nothing.
• daenz 5y ago
  >If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. -Cardinal Richelieu If some people want to use the internet to destroy your reputation, they will, and there's very little that you can do about it. You can't prove anything to anyone, and once people smell blood, they frenzy on you, regardless of the truth.
  • vallas 5y ago
    > Cardinal Richelieu Funny enough, I read today that one of Richelieu posthumous historian - which was an important European scholar connected with Newton and others - got banned of Paris by the roy in the 1700s for about six lines put in the wrong context They were quite true (1) but misleading in the context presented. (1) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion:%C3%89tienne_Baluze https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion:%C3%89tienne_Baluze
• runnr_az 5y ago
  A little context might be helpful here?
• overgard 5y ago
  I've fortunately never been cancelled (I don't think I even have enough of a footprint or visibility for that to happen). From everything I've observed, the absolute worst thing you can do is apologize to the people attempting to cancel you. It's just pouring gasoline on the fire. These people will never say "oh, you learned from your mistakes, I guess I'll back off". Most of them don't really care about the truth, they care about signaling. So an apology only vindicates them. As far as I can tell, the thing to always keep in mind is if you wait a few days these things always pass pretty quickly. The internet has a very short attention span. As long as you never give those people a confirmation that you did something you regret, you're much better off in the future. Of course you should privately apologize and make amends for things you've done wrong; but those things are always more effective privately and personally done anyway.
  • surround 5y ago
    Every single internet apology I've seen has been met with "this is such a bad apology / isn't a real apology." I'd love to see an example of an internet apology where people don't criticize the apology itself (if one exists).
    • etcet 5y ago
      The Dan Harmon apology is very good and, as far as I understand (I'm not on Twitter), was generally well received: https://time.com/5100019/dan-harmon-megan-ganz-sexual-harassment-apology/ https://time.com/5100019/dan-harmon-megan-ganz-sexual-harass...
      • koheripbal 5y ago
        That was a good read. ...but if anything it sort of highlights the scope of the problem. Here is a man who could not handle working with a woman, and took it out on her. Shitty behavior, for sure. This is an order of magnitude better than being accused of being serial rapist. ....but if you think about it. Ted Harmon got away with this because he is so so so highly respected in the field. AND EVEN HE, was effectively forced to issue a public apology.
• laurent123456 5y ago
  It seems it's better to stay away entirely from certain sensitive topics. No matter your intentions, no matter what you actually think, it just takes a bit of misunderstanding or bad faith and the whole thing explode.
  • commandlinefan 5y ago
    > better to stay away entirely from certain sensitive topics Yeah... but the world would be a better place if we didn't have to.
    • orwin 5y ago
      Honestly, you don't have to.
      • username90 5y ago
        Getting cancelled doesn't just cost your job, it also costs friends and family and possibly your spouse as well. So even if the probability is small the consequences can be so huge that any person prone to anxiety won't be able to live with the risk and instead just changes their behaviour to avoid it. And when anxious people don't they just commit suicide when it happens, making the effective consequence death, avoiding that at all cost seems reasonable.
  • TravHatesMe 5y ago
    So it is better to kowtow to the mob and let them burn the village down? I agree that it is best to avoid it but that does not mean that this one-sided parade of outrage should be tolerated.
  • WA 5y ago
    No, just post anonymously. Way better. Then your voice is heard, but you don't have to suffer personal consequences.
    • mistrial9 5y ago
• Imnimo 5y ago
  >I understand why the companies fired me and don’t blame them. Nobody wants to invite a shitstorm. I don't think this is why, or at least all of why. If I'm Wizards, and I'm promoting your art, organizing conventions and events with you as a guest, etc., I would feel some amount of moral responsibility for predatory behavior that enables. I would want my game and my community to be safe for women, and I think it would be hard to say that was the case if I were still working with someone who had been predatory. Especially because it was exactly the success of working with big-name clients like Wizards that had enabled that predatory behavior. I don't think I'd be entirely satisfied with "I used to be a predator but I'm not anymore". I do love a lot of your artwork, but summarizing the reason Wizards stopped working with you as "Nobody wants to invite a shitstorm." is not the sort of statement that makes me want to see you return to the Magic community.
• jeeyoungk 5y ago
  https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CNoah+Bradley%E2%80%9D&unique=art https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CNoah+Bradley%E2%8... If you want to see some of his Magic: The Gathering illustrations
• kylebgorman 5y ago
  Sorry but this person isn't nearly famous enough to have been "cancelled".
• brink 5y ago
  Does anyone think it's any coincidence that the woke mob began cancelling people, and almost immediately it seems like every corporate entity in existence is "woke"? Intimidation sadly works.
  • orthecreedence 5y ago
    Seeing the rainbow flag in every corporate logo is such a vapid and empty gesture. Those entities don't give a fuck about queers, they just want to signal to a bunch of equally vapid people who would otherwise whine and stamp their feet. I'm sick of the whole thing. "Rainbow capitalism."
  • joeldg 5y ago
    the "woke" are just one side there... the right-wing was always the original cancel-mob.. Christian right-wingers were using cancel tactics decades ago--D&D, Heavy Metal, Comedians, Satanic Panic (people went to jail). Hell, my mom burned my D&D set. ... all the boycots and so on.. the 'woke' folks are just turning it around I think.
• Animats 5y ago
  What he's supposed to have done: “I was terrible to women. I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things.” None of which is illegal. It's not even a matter for civil litigation. He was not accused of doing this as a boss in an organization. Or in a workplace context. There were apparently no criminal charges. No EEOC complaints filed.[1] No abusive workplace charges.[2] So he acted like a jerk in social situations. It's grounds for being, say, thrown out of a nightclub. But not fired. [1] https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment [2] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-sexual-harassment-laws.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-sexual-ha...
  • rkk3 5y ago
    In his apology he also referred to himself as a "Sexual Predator" and said that he pressured people into sex... These are pretty loaded terms to be throwing around and no surprise people on Twitter took the worst interpretation. He might be worse than Prince Andrew at PR. https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admits-to-being-a-sexual-predator-at-art-industry-events/ https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...
    • blast 5y ago
      Sometimes people say that kind of thing out of shame, for example if they feel humiliated and are trying to make the humiliation stop by agreeing with the person shaming them. Such statements should not be taken as factual confessions. I don't know anything about this situation, but that language sounds like that to me. Also, the first sentence of the current article makes me think that the author is given to overstatement.
      • rkk3 5y ago
        > Such statements should not be taken as factual confessions What does this even mean? Don't apologize for coercing people to have sex if you didn't do that.
• dfxm12 5y ago
  My life ended on June 21, 2020 Who wrote this post then? I know you go on much later to say that not everyone gets a chance to start over again but I have, so do you have some perspective. At a high level, you got fired from your job, lost some friends, got depressed, but found light at the end of the tunnel and are working again, a year later (a year where a lot of people found themselves out of work for many reasons, mind you). I've got some news for you, like the chairman of the board says, that's life. But to say your life ended for mistakes you admit to making when so many people's lives are actually ended in situations that have nothing to do with them (Matthew Shepard, George Floyd, etc.), you have the temerity to say your life ended? This shows you have a lot of perspective to gain.
  • leafmeal 5y ago
    I'm dying to know if this post is satire.
  • megous 5y ago
    I have a feeling that people don't always express their experiences literally. Maybe unless they have some mental problem, where they are unable to see behind literal meanings of words...
    • dfxm12 5y ago
      My point still stands, though for any amount of figurative-ness. That's the point. The author had an experience which amounted to a terrible year, after admitting some terrible misdoings. Almost everyone had a terrible 2020 regardless of their past, and employers fire people from jobs for much more tenuous reasons than what the author admitted to. Homosexuals, African Americans, other minorites, etc. have their lives taken from them literally and figuratively just for being who they are, along with jobs and future prospects, so we can be spared the pity party here. That's the perspective that those banging on about cancel culture here are lacking.
      • megous 5y ago
        Ok, but where is he comparing his suffering to other people? I didn't have a sense he's minimizing suffering of others on his webpage.
• mkr-hn 5y ago
  I appreciate where he goes into what people latched on to and recontextualized. We shouldn't have to pre-parse everything we say and do for any possibly uncharitable read, but it can feel like it's necessary sometimes, and maybe others can learn from stuff like this. I was on the receiving end of smaller versions of this back when Twitter rage mobs were new and no one knew what to make of them. It was impossible to sort good faith criticism from people blasting their generally poor disposition at you even when it was only hundreds of people screaming. I can't imagine how it feels with a modern swarm.
  • megous 5y ago
    But he was communicating to a large public audience on Twitter. It's ok to expect from a friend in 1-on-1 to ask you "what do you mean a "sexual predator"?" in a maybe surprised, but genuinely interested manner... But expecting nuance and curiosity from random people on the internet after you label yourself "sexual predator" publicly without much context? That's quite a lapse in judgement, imo. I remember a public radio personality who publicly revealed that he served a sentence for murder when he was younger, and it was handled much better, with much better result. It was all arranged with the other people in the radio show, it was introduced in detail and context, etc. He didn't just one day wake up and decide to surprise everyone with a big reveal and apologize to society. I guess not a great comparison, but "sexual predator" has some legal/criminal connotations, too.
• SassyGrapefruit 5y ago
  Maybe the author could consider an alternate title for his article. "I engaged in sexual misconduct with multiple women. This behavior may imply life long psychological consequence for them. Yes they are the victims but let's take a minute consider its made me feel." I think we all know the answer...who cares.
  • overgard 5y ago
    Well so what's your point, this guy is irredeemable and should never be able to get his life back? At what point is the bloodlust sated and sufficient justice is served?
    • SassyGrapefruit 5y ago
      Whether or not the author is "redeemable" is irrelevant. At its core sexual misconduct is prioritizing one's own needs/desires and using someone else as an object to achieve them. It's one of the highest acts of self centeredness and it happens at someone else's expense. I don't see how writing an article about how the author's sexual misconduct has impacted him isn't a continuation of the same problem mentality. It would seem that if he had a breakthrough then letting the victims have the stage is the way to go. I believe he has to accept that... 1. No one is obligated to forgive him. 2. No one asked for him to do what he did. 3. No one has to let by gones be by gones. 4. He doesn't necessarily get to make art anymore. At least not the same way he used to. I don't think that is what the author wants to hear, but its the only honorable path forward.
      • overgard 5y ago
        I didn't see this as asking for anything. The blog post is both instructional, ie here's what happens, and an explanation. I just don't see how this notion that a person should be punished forever is helpful to anyone. He's paid a hefty price why continue to pile on? Also just because he created victims doesn't mean he himself isn't also a victim. Do you really think he deserved death threats? Do you think it was ok that overzealous people (such as a lot of the people in this thread) thought it was ok to terrorize his wife as well? Many people convicted of actual felonies don't face consequences like this. This guy has been convicted of... nothing illegal apparently? For some reason on an individual level people are willing to forgive someone for their past transgressions, but as soon as it goes to a public forum everyone needs to talk about how this person should be vilified forever to signal what a great person they personally are. To twitter mobs, any transgression against a protected group is grounds for permanent ostracism, even if the transgression is pretty mild by societies standards. I don't think we should be encouraging mob justice. 1000/1000 times in human history mob justice has always gone way too far.
• systemvoltage 5y ago
  There are real humans behind this outrage and cancel culture is much deeper than Twitter. It might be a tool to organize but I’ve seen cancel culture outside of the context of Twitter. At workplaces, friend circles, organizations and even within families. Cancel culture is a fight by one group to gain moral superiority over others. When you do that, there is no way anyone can defend including the author. Instead of criticizing the argument, they doubt people’s souls, intent, and motivation, their core values - without a second thought. That’s toxic. Our culture and heritage is built upon trust and respect. For some reason, cancel culture is dominated by Progressives which is profoundly hypocritical: Progressive causes are about acceptance, forgiveness, inclusion and equality.
  • Nextgrid 5y ago
    Twitter and similar advertising-supported platforms encourage it though. Their algorithms promote divisive content (even if libelous, plain stupid or dangerous like health-related conspiracies) as they generate a lot of "engagement" and they don't have any rules against mobs for the same reason.
• sho_hn 5y ago
  A similar story told by a media critic and novelist, Lindsey Ellis, who got in trouble with a tweet that was considered insensitive: https://youtu.be/C7aWz8q_IM4 https://youtu.be/C7aWz8q_IM4
• vagrantJin 5y ago
  I personally dont have twitter, insta, FB except for dummy work accounts, but I will say this. If a company or person takes Twitter half seriously, thats a red flag. What a person does outside of work should not even be considered until and unless there are legal ramfications. The are a lot of scary things about cancel culture, one being that it is remarkably like of witch hunts or the purges of the middle ages. More closer to home, the most vile of facist regimes would be licking their lips in approval of how a mere toy, a trinket, can be used to such great effect with little no due process. The reason why the law exists and why it is essential in protecting the rights of indviduals and the whole idea of democracy probably doesnt register, at least in an academic sense, with our twitter warriors. But I cant blame them. They're child-like. We are unfortunately a generation that refuses to grow up and caught in some weird disney loop, pseudo-adult, stage still waiting for the day we actually get to be adults. My gripe is with the people who have to make decisions and take it upon themselves to include schoolyard gossip as part of their process. It's beyond reckoning at this point.
• 3grdlurker 5y ago
  We talk about cancel culture like it’s a new horrible thing that’s developed only recently but I don’t see it that way. The internet definitely amplifies the effects, but unkindness begets unkindness, and the consequences or the social cost of one’s unkindness will always catch up to an individual at some point. That said, I draw a line at defamation. When someone is accusing someone online of having committed a crime, I think that the proper reaction would be to stay quiet and let it play out in a court, if it ever gets there. I also don’t think that companies should be allowed to fire employees based on accusations that have not yet been proven to be true, though, of course, it is justifiable once they are proven.
  • systemvoltage 5y ago
    If you read the article, even before anything gets to court, their life/career is destroyed because of this mob. Proving/disproving isn’t even on the table. This is an irrational mob gaining moral superiority over others.
    • dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
      "Irrational mob" also known as "social media". We've just scaled up and weaponised people's bad behavior and worst instincts. People have always been this way but now they have a tool to find other like minded people and act in unison.
  • dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
    Like so many things, this is something that has existed forever but now it has a new fashionable name and people treat it like it was just invented.
    • Mediterraneo10 5y ago
      Before the Web 2.0 internet made people’s real names so public, it was in fact quite difficult for things many people did to affect their employment. Your employer simply wouldn’t have been aware of how you were acting somewhere else outside their direct purview. Now, however, if an opponent knows that you are employed at X, they can bring pressure on X to fire you in an extremely public way, such that your employer will buckle to the social pressure lest it affect their bottom line. That simply would not have happened so often prior to about 2007 at least.
• hexenduction 5y ago
  Anyone go dig up the public apology from last year? No wonder it isn't linked, it literally is him saying he preyed on women, and pressured them into sex, with alcohol involved, verbatim, I'm not trying to stretch it. Turning that around into his own personal trauma narrative from the consequences of those actions is really hitting the wrong nerve for me here. Sure, apologize, learn and grow, people can change, but maybe don't write a post what you learned from a large public backlash, is that the backlash was the problem.
  • allenu 5y ago
    I read that apology as well and came away with a different opinion from what the post title wants you to think. This seems like a very interesting branding approach on his part. Play up allegations and subsequent firing as being "cancelled" and come back as a victim of mob rule. Certainly a blog post that said "What it's like to feel the consequences of your actions" wouldn't have been as effective. (I suppose you could argue it's unfair to be fired for his behavior since it wasn't work related but I assume he was representing his employer at these art shows and it's bad for their brand to have him on staff.)
• FemmeAndroid 5y ago
  I cannot imagine a colleague writing the following and not being fired, and effectively outcast from most employers in my industry, especially when it’s happening at industry events: > I was terrible to women. > I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about. I work in a fairly established industry, and that would be completely unacceptable. Even if it happened decades ago. I’ve seen people be fired for much less inappropriate behavior. In the article, Noah writes: > I had changed my behavior long before my apology was written last year. I had figured out why I had done what I had, why it was unhealthy, and how to change. I’d love to read more about that process. His past behaviors and the similar behaviors of many other men - drunkenly pressuring women into sex - negatively affect far more people than cancelling does.
  • tester756 5y ago
    but where does this quote comes from?
    • FemmeAndroid 5y ago
      His full apology on twitter: > I’m sorry. > l was terrible to women. > I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about. > I was fucking awful. > I am deeply sorry for everything I did. I apologize for the selfish, cruel, insensitive way I acted. It's no way for anyone to act. I'm so sorry. > Women deserve better than selfish assholes like I was at those industry events. Everyone there deserves respect. They should be professional environments. They should be safe environments. I violated that. time and time again. > I'm sorry, I'm sorry to everyone I hurt. I'm sorry to everyone I let down, I'm sorry to everyone. > I want to thank the peers and friends who called me out for my bad behavior. Without people doing what you do, this sort of behavior would never even be acknowledged, much less changed. We need more people like you who are brave enough to stand up for what's right. > I was selfish and scared and delayed a public apology for far too long. Private apologies are not enough in a situation like this. So here we are. finally. I wish that I could educate my younger self and snap him out of his self-centered hot-shot ego-trip. > I want you to know that lacknowledge what happened, I am ashamed, and I want to find ways to repair as much damage as is possible. I will keep putting in the work I will not run. and I will sit with my shame and not turn away from it. > I’m sorry, > Noah See this article reporting on it at the time with a screenshot: https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admits-to-being-a-sexual-predator-at-art-industry-events/ https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...
• Ensorceled 5y ago
  There has to be room among the woke for the awakening or we never make progress. I think this is the essence of any legitimate criticism of cancel culture. The lack of nuance and the lack of room. Do I ever want to see Bill Cosby or OJ Simpson in a new role? No. Some levels of horrible are unforgivable. Cancel away. Woody Allen. Same. Louis C.K.? Maybe? Unlikely. Certainly not until he makes some kind of real effort/apology/reparations. Noah Bradley? Assuming this article is accurate and sincere? There are a lot of Noah Bradley's in the world, do they deserve a second chance?
  • tw04 5y ago
    >There are a lot of Noah Bradley's in the world, do they deserve a second chance? A second chance to make art? Absolutely. A second chance to be in a position where they have any influence whatsoever over other artists and their careers? I'd have a tough time getting onboard with that.
    • Ensorceled 5y ago
      Fair. I'm on the fence myself. But it is certainly a better discussion point than "Cancel culture is bad"; a lot of these people being "cancelled" definitely should be.
• throwaway111999 5y ago
  I'm terrified of interacting with female coworkers. I don't have a "-ist" bone in my body. When I review code, I only see the code and not the person that wrote it. When I pick a team, I look at engineering ability and nothing else. I abhor discriminatory behavior and would be the first to put my career on the line to defend someone getting discriminated against. And of course I keep anything sexual FAR FAR FAAAR outside of work. Sometimes I write "guys" in chat (out of habit) and get a rush of anxiety. Did I offend someone? Should I correct it? If I correct it, will it make it more obvious? What if I get called out for using that word? How should I respond without making myself look like a goon? I've stopped giving negative feedback. It started when I needed to give negative feedback to a female engineer who wasn't doing well. I was terrified of being perceived as sexist so I just gave neutral/positive feedback to protect myself. I didn't want it to look bad so I did the same for male coworkers. Now I just give everyone positive feedback all the time. Yea, it looks like I'm a doormat or just dumb but it's worth the sense of safety I feel. I never EVER make jokes at work. I don't tell stories about my life. I certainly don't share political opinions. I don't talk about my hobbies because those might (at some point, not now) be correlated with something "-ist". Not worth the risk. I obviously don't post on social media. I do intend to start at some point, but everything I post will go through a heavy handed PR filter. I'm thinking it'll all be positive/supportive. No complaining, no calling anyone out, no responding to politicians or popular figures, and definitely never supporting anyone that I don't know personally. It's exhausting but at least it's opt-in. I just want a calm day to day life.
  • tw04 5y ago
    Or you know, just don't be a creep and treat women like human beings and you'll be fine? If you're giving negative feedback because they did something wrong/substandard work, you document it and move on. If there are questions later, you refer back. I've literally never had this be a problem. I'm not sure why talking about your personal life would be grounds for issues unless you decided to talk about your bedroom, politics, or religion. "I went hiking on X trail this weekend, it was pretty cool" isn't going to get you called into HR.
    • throwaway111999 5y ago
• mmmBacon 5y ago
  It seems like most social media platforms are hazardous to your health and livelihood and there’s very little upside to voicing your opinions.
• Udik 5y ago
  We have class actions, where hundreds or thousands of people can join together and sue a company- the claims for each consumer might be small, but put together they can add up to a substantial value. We could do with the inverse, too. One person could sue for small-ish claims hundreds of harassers. You called me a rapist on social media together with a mob of idiots? Good, that's libel for you and for the other thousand who did. It's going to cost you 10 grands and a reprimand- not enough for a single court case maybe, but put them together and they can be worth it :)
• theHIDninja 5y ago
  Stop using the term Cancel Culture. It has a much more light-hearted sound to it than the act could ever be. A more accurate term would be "Scapegoat Culture", as that is what these degenerate users partake in. They cast their problems onto someone and then force them out of society. Instead of saying "He got cancelled by the Twitter mob", say "he got scapegoated by the Twitter mob"
• JackFr 5y ago
  I’m not unsympathetic with the author, but I have to admit I’m not completely sympathetic either. > I woke up to several people tagging me in a twitter thread for my sleezy behavior at some art events many years ago. I wasn’t that person any more and I wanted to apologize for being an asshole in the past. I had apologized privately for everything, but I hoped it might show my sincerity and commitment to being better to address it publicly. That smells more like PR damage control than sincerity. The Twitter mob is bad. On that we can agree. And I cannot plumb the depths of his heart. But apologizing doesn’t absolve you of bad behavior. And if someone doesn’t accept your apology (possibly believing it’s insincere) and brings up your “sleezy behavior at some art events many years ago”, calling them out and saying I’m not that guy anymore is not really owning his behavior. > I made some desktop wallpapers to remind myself of those various laws because I have a poor memory and wanted to remind myself of them while I was reading a bunch of history books. Come. On. “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
  • goda90 5y ago
    > But apologizing doesn’t absolve you of bad behavior. And if someone doesn’t accept your apology (possibly believing it’s insincere) and brings up your “sleezy behavior at some art events many years ago”, calling them out and saying I’m not that guy anymore is not really owning his behavior. What would absolve him of that behavior? Should we live in a society where every single mistake follows you forever, no matter how much you change and try to make it right with the other party?
    • JackFr 5y ago
      No I don't think every single mistake should follow you forever. And it's not fair to judge a person by their worst action. But a sincere apology is humble and expects nothing in return. There is nothing in this piece to indicate that his apologies stemmed from anything other than damage control for his social and professional standing. From the article: > Because of my sometimes-controversial online image (mostly due to my let’s-be-arrogant-to-hide-my-insecurity bravado of my younger years that got me into this mess in the first place) Please.
• chmod600 5y ago
  A reminder that it's OK to not take sides and just support your friends. Maybe they did something bad, but we all make some serious errors in judgement. One of my friends was not cancelled but shunned by a lot of people. Not sure exactly why; it was probably a lot of minor stuff that added up. I just asked him straight: "did you do anything bad enough that I shouldn't be friends with you?". He said "no" and we moved on. Cancelling or shunning is usually not the right punishment even if someone does something pretty bad. Unless someone who is a cultural model (e.g. CEO), and just can't do their job any more, cancelling doesn't really solve a problem. It just makes people hypersensitive, politically-correct, and quiet. That's not a healthy environment.
  • lightgreen 5y ago
    > A reminder that it's OK to not take sides and just support your friends. It is probably more complicated than that. Like if you know for sure that a friend of yours did something completely incompatible with your norms (for me that would be for example stealing money from poor old people), perhaps you don't want to have them as your friend anymore. But if there's doubt and uncertainty and pressure from the community, it's better to support your friends.
    • chmod600 5y ago
      Isn't that kind of a ridiculous example? Most people in this forum would never have the desire to steal from poor old people. So if someone does, it's a really disturbing sign that goes beyond the crime itself. Of course you'd think twice about meeting that person for lunch. But sexual relationships are scarce (in the economic sense of the word "scarce") even among the well-to-do. Especially young adults, who have the greatest desire. So there's a lot more temptation. Furthermore, it's much harder to draw clear boundaries because of the complexities of flirting. Add in alcohol and poor communication, and there is a real risk that otherwise good people do some things that look pretty bad after the fact. Yes, people should behave. We should quickly put a stop to these transgressions before they escalate. And we should acknowledge that they may cause real harm to others and that some punishment may be warranted. I'm just saying that the friend you have that is accused of some bad stuff -- it's OK to not take sides. You don't have to defend them or anything, but it's OK to treat them like a normal human being. Because they probably are. But the software engineer that steals from poor old people is not a normal human, and it's totally reasonable to ghost them.
• jollybean 5y ago
  These pile-ons have transformed journalists from 'news people' who might have an opinion now and again - to 'mob leaders who think they are in control and have moral impetus'. Couple that with an actually dangerous president (that is not a political statement), and a cop who murders someone in plain daylight, with an underlying pandemic and you have 3 of the dark horsemen right there. I believe Dorsey revels in this part of it and I don't like him for that. Zuck seems to be more interested in just getting people to watch ads, which is bad, but not the same thing. I grew up respecting journalism, and I think it's an important industry, like the invisible 5th pillar of government ... but I just assume everything I read is hugely biased to the point of lacking in credibility.
• koheripbal 5y ago
  "Be a super hero online. Do not use your real name. Do not show your face." -- Dad's Rule #1 of the internet
  • wffurr 5y ago
    Actual opsec is a lot harder than that.
    • spoonjim 5y ago
      There are different levels of "opsec" required against different types of adversaries and different types of costs of being compromised. Edward Snowden's opsec looks a lot different than someone just wanting to post Trump slogans on Twitter.
      • wffurr 5y ago
        If you want to be anonymous from an internet mob, you’ll need some pretty good opsec. Simply avoiding using your name won’t be sufficient. They’re not the NSA, but OSI can get pretty intense.
• only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  Maybe just don't be a womanizer idk? Never been a problem for me.
• headShrinker 5y ago
  I can relate on a small scale. People feed on chaos. Their evening primetime dramas aren't enough to sustain them so it spills out on twitter. No amount of apology or understanding will stop them because if they accept the conclusion, their favorite reality show ends with a thud. I got canceled in the group I founded. 12 years ago I started a reddit community based on my relationships and attractions. After building to 28k subs 10 years later, fb groups and meetups around the country. Animosity toward leadership and mods began to form. A small group of users formed resistance and started a scuffle in a post, then threats toward meetup attendees directed at mods started appearing on the discord. Complaints started appearing on the facebook group. There was no reasoning or logic to their complaints and they almost seemed incorrigible... like a bloodlust. In the end, I was forced out and exiled. I would later learn that the resistance was mostly unstable crazed users who fed on drama. Since the event their reddit and facebook profiles document a life in chaos for each of them. It's weird not being able to speak in a community you designed and built over a decade. Even as your face/likeness and artwork is still in use in all the published materials. Thankfully things have mostly calmed down now.
• anotheraccount9 5y ago
  Many are looking for scapegoats to focus their anger. It gives them a feeling of doing the right thing and offers virtue signaling in the process. If you throw a rock at someone on the wrong side, surely you must be on the right side.
• nme01 5y ago
  All of those hatefull actions usually come from those which strongly support criminalizing hate speech (i.e. critique of anything they believe in)
• Seattle3503 5y ago
  It's disappointing how many people say "apologies don't work". The purpose of an apology isn't to salvage your reputation, it is to help victims move forward.
  • lelanthran 5y ago
    > It's disappointing how many people say "apologies don't work". The purpose of an apology isn't to salvage your reputation, it is to help victims move forward. Well, if the "victims" don't move on after the apology, then the apology didn't work, did it? :-)
    • Seattle3503 5y ago
      Moving forward doesn't mean moving on. An apology that admits the wrong lets the victim stop doubting or blaming themselves. So the anger comes after it is acknowledged that what was done to you is wrong. In that way, anger after an apology actually means it may have worked.
      • lelanthran 5y ago
        > In that way, anger after an apology actually means it may have worked. If that's true (you will get punished for apologising), then there is no incentive for the guilty party to ever apologise. Who would want more punishment on top of what they already had?
  • cwbrandsma 5y ago
    They can work to apologies to the actual victim, if made in some direct way. You might even get the victim to accept the apology. But all the people that feel victimized on behalf of the victim...they never forgive, and they will never move on. It is simply too easy to continue spewing their anger, they were already angry, this just gives them direction.
    • jrochkind1 5y ago
      So, if you have done harm to someone, are you going to prioritize helping those you have hurt move forward, or are you going to prioritize your reputation? I don't think the mob mentality of destroying someone who has hurt others with no way out is helpful or appropriate. But if we want to be good people who treat people right, then we realize we have hurt someone severely, we try to make it right -- even if there will be a cost to our reputations, deserved or undeserved. Even undeserved. If it's the cost of making it up to someone you have hurt severely, that's how it goes, even undeserved. Valuing only our reputation against the mob and not the well-being of the people who we have hurt and want to try to make it up to -- is sociopathic behavior. Refusing to ever admit, even (or especially) to ourselves that we have hurt someone is sociopathic behavior.
• anm89 5y ago
  I think without specifically coordinated strategies to fight this, organized by the communities themselves, the cancelers will win and take over these communities because the game theory says they will win every time and pragmatic people are going to defect to the winning team lest be open to attack themselves. Look how this damaged this community though. All the broken friendships, lost jobs. At the end of the day, the people who didn't come to his defense I think will in many ways be the losers. They are the ones left in the weakened community.
• ceilingcorner 5y ago
  American culture has a really bizarre mix of two things, which you can see playing out here. 1. Oversexualizing everything. Imagery, video, Tinder, clothing styles, everything is in your face sex all the time. 2. Remnants of a Puritan approach to sex. Absolutely nothing is okay unless explicit consent is given repeatedly. Even hugs are considered sexual harassment if not explicitly approved. I’m not casting judgment and saying X approach to sex is the right one. But this tension is bound to result in events like the one in the link. It mostly just sounds like this guy got drunk and hit on girls with a little too much fervor. Not a great thing, but probably not something one should obsess over years later. Everyone needs to lighten up, frankly.
  • tptacek 5y ago
    Social and commercial sanctions for people who "pressure" women into sex at industry events isn't "puritanism".
    • ceilingcorner 5y ago
      I’m not even sure what “pressure women into sex” is supposed to mean. Clearly some people categorize flirting as this, which is crazy to me.
      • tptacek 5y ago
        It was his word choice, not mine. He's been accused of bright-line violations that his apology doesn't mention, for whatever that's worth. For instance: attempting to have sex with someone too intoxicated to give consent isn't merely "pressure"; it's rape. (I only know what everyone else who just found out about this drama today knows, from looking at Twitter threads and Wikipedia.)
        • ceilingcorner 5y ago
          If you read the story, it seems pretty clear that he went a little overboard with his self-loathing apology. Hence my comment.
• yifanl 5y ago
  The worst part (for me at least) of social media mobs is that they can only ever "cancel" someone who genuinely wants to engage in good faith. Someone who earnestly wants to talk to an audience suffers so much more than someone who just disconnects and continues writing their (supposedly) horrible opinions. And it makes discourse online as a whole worse as more people start to realize this and we stop having conversations and instead just start talking over one another online.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• bobthechef 5y ago
  May I suggest the confessional next time.
• EastSmith 5y ago
  We need social DDoS protection.
• underseacables 5y ago
  I was reading about the mob going after Billie Eilish and it made me very sad, because her so-called sins were committed when she was 14. Cancel culture is this monster that has no decency, and no point other than tk ruin peoples lives at the lulz and amusement of the masses. Our most prudent step for the future is to get off social media, and for companies to stop giving in to the mobs. My heart goes out to this guy. I’m not condoning, forgiving, or excusing anything he has done, but when did this country turn its back on forgiveness and redemption?
• snowflake_ptr 5y ago
  Let's just call "cancelling" what it is - mob justice - and its executors what they are - mobs and mob justice apologists. Perhaps a browser extension that replaces "cancel culture" with "mob justice tolerance" would be appropriate. We already have the cloud-to-butt extension...
• silexia 5y ago
  I enjoyed reading this article by a man who was canceled in social media and fired from his job. People had a knee-jerk reaction to a book he wrote in a goofy childish style to try to get laughs. They did not take into account the actual context of his book, they simply took a few lines out of it out of context and generated a whole bunch of Twitter rage. Apple, a pretty scummy company at this point in time, actually fired the man over it. My company has a huge diversity of nationalities, religions, and every type of individual working here. If my employees launched a cancellation crusade every time they saw something they didn’t like in someone else, our company would crash and burn fast. We have employees from Pakistan and India, which have a lot of hostility to each other. We have employees who are Christian, Hindus, Islamic, among others. We have employees who are straight, gay, trans, etc. To protect everyone, we keep all of our focus on work rather than trying to browbeat people about politics or religion or anything else. All we care about is the performance of our company towards our goals. The way to solve societal issues like systemic discrimination is to eliminate all traces of it and focus on a pure meritocracy. Attempts to use reverse discrimination are extraordinarily misguided and dangerous, and will lead to the worst kinds of backlash. We already saw that happen following world war I when the Germans were discriminated against and developed so much anger that Hitler was able to rise and bring on world war II.
• visarga 5y ago
  Mob justice is biased against people who are mobbable (have something to lose, are public persons). Is that justice?
• aliasEli 5y ago
  The sad thing about it that most of his attackers also want more men to come forward and admit their wrong-doings. Their reaction will men only more reluctant to admit anything.