I think of “cancellation” as being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion; this is somewhat orthogonal to being tried and convicted in an actual cou

I think of “cancellation” as being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion; this is somewhat orthogonal to being tried and convicted in an actual court of law. An example of someone on the left being cancelled is Al Franken. I don’t think Thiel really changed the public’s opinion of Gawker. They were always considered extremely low-brow tabloid media, and to their users I think that was sort of the appeal. They didn’t shut down due to a drop in popularity, they shut down because a lawsuit bankrupted them.