In John Stuart Mill's seminal work On Liberty, he explicitly calls out the tyranny and power of social consequences and their ability to chill free speech. He n

In John Stuart Mill's seminal work On Liberty, he explicitly calls out the tyranny and power of social consequences and their ability to chill free speech. He notes that social consequences for minority opinions can be even more severely chilling than even state consequences. Of course, as I recall he also basically offered no solutions. Social consequences are both necessary and cause problems. It's really a very complicated thing. People should be free to explore ideas that turn out to be bad without losing their livelihoods. We need to hold people accountable for their actions, but we also need to allow people to make mistakes and learn. If I think about what happened with Lindsay Ellis, that seems like a gross overreaction. If I think about how people on Twitter sharply criticize Chris Pratt because of the church he attends (which is also attended by other Hollywood stars) then that seems like an overreaction, too. On the other hand, the response to Kevin Spacey seems like it might be more appropriate. The real issue is that "being cancelled" is only a problem for people who are famous and not powerful. If you're powerful, being cancelled really doesn't do anything at all. Indeed, if you're powerful, being cancelled can just get people to agree with you more even if you have actually done the awful things you are cancelled for. Nevertheless, there is so much pearl clutching, clout chasing, outrage Olympics, victim identity politics, and manufactured wedge issues on social media that it's just one big rat's nest. Worse, it all overshadows the real problems like actual political issues and misinformation being spread to manipulate opinion.