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As an R. Kelly fan, this does not surprise me all. Once censorship begins it’s easier and easier to follow that well worn path. A lot of people like to mock the

As an R. Kelly fan, this does not surprise me all. Once censorship begins it’s easier and easier to follow that well worn path. A lot of people like to mock the idea of cancel culture and pretend that it doesn’t exist - you know, the plainly disingenuous types who will say “they are a private company” out of one side of their mouth while demanding gay wedding cakes get baked out of the other. And sure there are ostensible shallow moral victories to be enjoyed by shutting your enemies up. But this impulse to control what’s said and what’s heard in the public sphere sure seems more dangerous when the stakes are higher, and increasingly it isn’t just normalized, but encouraged.

rswail 5y ago
> As an R. Kelly fan... You mean Robert Sylvester Kelly, who was found guilty of one count of racketeering and 7 counts of violation of the Mann Act after a jury trial? The same R Kelly that illegally married 15 year old Aaliyah in 1994? The same R Kelly that is now facing further federal charges of child pornography and obstruction? How is he or his cases in any way relevant to censorship or "cancel culture"? The guy is a convicted child molester and has been a sleazy person for 25+ years.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Seems pretty relevant for the reasons you just stated. Telling someone you can't like music from a child molester or that it has retroactively been deemed to not be good music is cancel card culture at its heart, the bread-and-butter most defensible part. Preventing people from procuring said music is obviously censorship.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  His sex crimes are unrelated to censorship or cancel culture. I agree with your non-controversial position that child abuse is abhorrent. I hope he is killed in prison. But I love his music, I still listen to it, and I'm not sorry for that. The twitter mob against him that harassed Spotify into removing his music from their service is the literal epitome of cancel culture. 1. Take a consensus position (raping children is bad) 2. Repeat it over and over again, loudly, to make your actual point, which is that you are a good person. Not just because you don't rape children, but also because you are bravely amplifying this view that basically everyone holds 3. Make a public demand of a company that is tangentially related to the subject somehow, which if satisfied, will do exactly nothing to help or fix the problem 4. Form a mob of those interested in signalling their own virtue, who may or may not care about the motivating issue, to strong arm said company into compliance 5. Celebrate your hollow victory and briefly feel like you did something important (you did not)
npteljes 5y ago
> out of one side of their mouth while demanding gay wedding cakes get baked out of the other Sexuality is a protected characteristic, and it's illegal to discriminate people based on such characteristics.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  The legality is entirely beside the point, although of note, in the case I referenced the Supreme Court found in a 7-2 decision that it was in fact legal to refuse to bake a cake for that particular gay wedding while being careful not to set a precedent. So your claim here is not universally true. Personally I would have baked the cake. There is a contingent of the left that is happy when force and coercion are deployed so long as its done in a wider context that benefits their political aims. They argue that a baker must be forced to go against his personal values to further a particular goal that they support, but take up the exact opposite posture as soon as it suits them. For example, Twitter is a private company, of course they can ban you for saying that thing you said that doesn't conform with my political views. At any rate, I was just trying to gesture towards a growing pack of vocal hypocrites, not re-litigate the baker decision.
lamontcg 5y ago
> As an R. Kelly fan ... okay i think i just hit enough HN comments for the day already.

rswail 5y ago

> As an R. Kelly fan... You mean Robert Sylvester Kelly, who was found guilty of one count of racketeering and 7 counts of violation of the Mann Act after a jury trial? The same R Kelly that illegally married 15 year old Aaliyah in 1994? The same R Kelly that is now facing further federal charges of child pornography and obstruction? How is he or his cases in any way relevant to censorship or "cancel culture"? The guy is a convicted child molester and has been a sleazy person for 25+ years.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
s1artibartfast 5y ago
Seems pretty relevant for the reasons you just stated. Telling someone you can't like music from a child molester or that it has retroactively been deemed to not be good music is cancel card culture at its heart, the bread-and-butter most defensible part. Preventing people from procuring said music is obviously censorship.
xanaxagoras 5y ago
His sex crimes are unrelated to censorship or cancel culture. I agree with your non-controversial position that child abuse is abhorrent. I hope he is killed in prison. But I love his music, I still listen to it, and I'm not sorry for that. The twitter mob against him that harassed Spotify into removing his music from their service is the literal epitome of cancel culture. 1. Take a consensus position (raping children is bad) 2. Repeat it over and over again, loudly, to make your actual point, which is that you are a good person. Not just because you don't rape children, but also because you are bravely amplifying this view that basically everyone holds 3. Make a public demand of a company that is tangentially related to the subject somehow, which if satisfied, will do exactly nothing to help or fix the problem 4. Form a mob of those interested in signalling their own virtue, who may or may not care about the motivating issue, to strong arm said company into compliance 5. Celebrate your hollow victory and briefly feel like you did something important (you did not)

npteljes 5y ago

> out of one side of their mouth while demanding gay wedding cakes get baked out of the other Sexuality is a protected characteristic, and it's illegal to discriminate people based on such characteristics.

xanaxagoras 5y ago
The legality is entirely beside the point, although of note, in the case I referenced the Supreme Court found in a 7-2 decision that it was in fact legal to refuse to bake a cake for that particular gay wedding while being careful not to set a precedent. So your claim here is not universally true. Personally I would have baked the cake. There is a contingent of the left that is happy when force and coercion are deployed so long as its done in a wider context that benefits their political aims. They argue that a baker must be forced to go against his personal values to further a particular goal that they support, but take up the exact opposite posture as soon as it suits them. For example, Twitter is a private company, of course they can ban you for saying that thing you said that doesn't conform with my political views. At any rate, I was just trying to gesture towards a growing pack of vocal hypocrites, not re-litigate the baker decision.

lamontcg 5y ago

> As an R. Kelly fan ... okay i think i just hit enough HN comments for the day already.