6 ms·

Looks promising, but let's see how this is interpreted in practice: we unfortunately live in a world where the statement "I like Harry Potter" can be weaponized

Looks promising, but let's see how this is interpreted in practice: we unfortunately live in a world where the statement "I like Harry Potter" can be weaponized into the "direct threats, harassment" excluded from freedom of expression. (Why? Because JK Rowling doesn't think transwomen are real women, so if you support her writing, you are clearly denying that that trans people have the right to exist.)

hyperbovine 4y ago
I smell a straw man. Please show me a specific incident where "I like Harry Potter" led to the speaker getting cancelled.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  "can be weaponized" - not "has been" - is a pretty big disclaimer. Threats & harassment are (sadly) quite common on-line. And "speaker getting cancelled"is your criteria, not rippercushions'. In any case, a "Looks promising, ... in practice." sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction, these days.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  That claim is a strawman of your invention, but here's the backstory on Rowling, complete with a long list of Hollywood celebrities including Harry Potter stars dissociating themselves from her: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
  - comex 4y ago
    That is about J.K. Rowling, not about someone who said “I like Harry Potter”.
    - rippercushions 4y ago
      No, it's also about everybody associated in any way with Rowling, who were also forced into servile apologies to avoid getting cancelled themselves.
      - hyperbovine 4y ago
        Which is still unrelated to your original claim.
  - snotrockets 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
      surely at this point you must realize it was just a story about wizards and witches, lol
      - snotrockets 4y ago
        I wasn't too fond of the books when they were first published (showing my age here), and I don't feel a need to reread them. But here's the fun thing about stories: you can find whatever you'd like in them. As a reader, you are allowed to put part of yourself into the story; it is no longer just the author. If you want Harry Potter to be a story about queerness, it is yours to make it so. If you want it to be a story about the problems of British education, it is just as much.
    - devmunchies 4y ago
      > LBGTQA+ I believe it’s just the “T” in this case, snotrockets.
      - snotrockets 4y ago
        An injury to one is an injury to all – if you single out the T, you're no A.
  - justin66 4y ago
    What I got from your reply is that even you don't believe your previous statement we unfortunately live in a world where the statement "I like Harry Potter" can be weaponized.
- Dig1t 4y ago
  I'm not linking evidence here, but there are tons of examples of this happening on Twitter.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Without linking, there’s no value to that statement as the reader can’t evaluate whether those statements are true, leaving out significant details, or representative of some trend.
    - peanutcrisis 4y ago
      Not sure if such pedantry is necessary, this is something that can be trivially searched up.
      - kspacewalk2 4y ago
        It absolutely cannot be. What you're claiming to exist in fact does not. You're welcome to prove me wrong, of course.
        roflyear 4y ago
        I'm waiting for the link too!
      - acdha 4y ago
        Pedantry would be trying to make some kind of unnecessarily fine distinction like arguing that the situation was totally different because the person claimed to be a Harry Potter super-fan. This is basic media literacy of the type taught to school children. Without a source, we don’t know whether anyone is even talking about the same thing or evaluate how trustworthy it is. People write lots of things on the internet and since search engines customize results there’s no guarantee that anyone will get the same result. This matters because someone who is confident that they’re honestly representing the facts rarely needs to be evasive. When you see so many people commenting about something which they assert is true but won’t even name, it’s usually an in-group shibboleth which they are not confident will stand up to scrutiny.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  A nurse helped fund an "I heart J. K. Rowling" billboard and is having her job threatened. Close enough. https://www.newsweek.com/nurse-being-investigated-i-love-jk-rowling-sign-over-threat-gender-diverse-people-1611017 https://www.newsweek.com/nurse-being-investigated-i-love-jk-...
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    A billboard she offered to fund, but in the end did not. Not that it matters, a selfie of herself smiling in front of it was sufficient evidence of thoughtcrime.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jbeam 4y ago
JK isn’t even cancelled, let alone those who enjoy her magnum opus.
- peanutcrisis 4y ago
  Doesn't reject the fact that attempts were made to do so. The threat of cancellation is very real regardless [0], and not everyone is able to make it out unscathed like JK Rowling. [0] https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/professor-mike-adams-suicide-will-always-haunt-me https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/pr...
  - yeahButt 4y ago
    Boycott used to be a necessary and lauded aspect of American democracy and free markets. Now it’s been relabeled “cancel culture” and the public are fascists for denying a person here and there oodles of figurative prestige. A minority of elites sure have the masses convinced “canceling” a rich person is the true threat to democracy. The end of a society is nigh when the elites are fighting to preserve their power to exploit the masses carte blanche. We grow their potatoes; not the other way around, and don’t you forget it!
  - zzzeek 4y ago
    JK Rowling was not cancelled in any way. Gawker Media however, was, by a deranged billionaire who abused the legal system to exact revenge on a gossip-oriented news site and its entire media conglomerate. "Cancel culture" to the degree that it exists as any kind of actual threat to free speech is squarely a right-wing endeavor.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > Gawker Media however, was, by a deranged billionaire who abused the legal system to exact revenge on a gossip-oriented news site and its entire media conglomerate. Gawker Media wasn't cancelled; they intentionally violated a direct court order. Maybe you should be arguing that the court should not have ruled against Gawker in the first place, or arguing that the court should not have directed Gawker to cease the publication of nonconsensual nudes, or that the court should not have brought the hammer down when Gawker continued its publication of nonconsensual nudes. I'm curious why you think it is okay to publish nudes of someone against their will. https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/824/503/e53.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/824/503/e53...
yucky 4y ago
[flagged]
- ndhlms 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - crackercrews 4y ago
    [flagged]
we_never_see_it 4y ago
As a non-American these SJW movements terrify me. Because like spreading democracy these movements will be used to justify invading other countries. Hollywood and the woke media apparatus will prime the American suburban class how the regime needs to be changed to protect your favorite oppressed minority class. Or at the very least Americans will be provided opporunities to feel good about themselves. Your country, America, is killing innocent people in other countries; but don't worry, feel good about yourself by using proper pronouns for the new they/them celebrities.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hutty 4y ago
Fortunately, Rowling is uncancellable in practice, so she can keep on fighting to maintain the rights of women to have single-sex spaces without worrying about what a bunch of anti-women activists think. As eloquent as she is, JKR isn't just talk - she recently founded an Edinburgh-based centre to help women who have been sexually assaulted, giving them a safe, female-only space for support in a crisis. It's heroic work, and alongside her many other charitable contributions, I'm glad she's doing such good in the world.

hyperbovine 4y ago

I smell a straw man. Please show me a specific incident where "I like Harry Potter" led to the speaker getting cancelled.

bell-cot 4y ago
"can be weaponized" - not "has been" - is a pretty big disclaimer. Threats & harassment are (sadly) quite common on-line. And "speaker getting cancelled"is your criteria, not rippercushions'. In any case, a "Looks promising, ... in practice." sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction, these days.
rippercushions 4y ago
That claim is a strawman of your invention, but here's the backstory on Rowling, complete with a long list of Hollywood celebrities including Harry Potter stars dissociating themselves from her: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
- comex 4y ago
  That is about J.K. Rowling, not about someone who said “I like Harry Potter”.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    No, it's also about everybody associated in any way with Rowling, who were also forced into servile apologies to avoid getting cancelled themselves.
    - hyperbovine 4y ago
      Which is still unrelated to your original claim.
- snotrockets 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
    surely at this point you must realize it was just a story about wizards and witches, lol
    - snotrockets 4y ago
      I wasn't too fond of the books when they were first published (showing my age here), and I don't feel a need to reread them. But here's the fun thing about stories: you can find whatever you'd like in them. As a reader, you are allowed to put part of yourself into the story; it is no longer just the author. If you want Harry Potter to be a story about queerness, it is yours to make it so. If you want it to be a story about the problems of British education, it is just as much.
  - devmunchies 4y ago
    > LBGTQA+ I believe it’s just the “T” in this case, snotrockets.
    - snotrockets 4y ago
      An injury to one is an injury to all – if you single out the T, you're no A.
- justin66 4y ago
  What I got from your reply is that even you don't believe your previous statement we unfortunately live in a world where the statement "I like Harry Potter" can be weaponized.
Dig1t 4y ago
I'm not linking evidence here, but there are tons of examples of this happening on Twitter.
- acdha 4y ago
  Without linking, there’s no value to that statement as the reader can’t evaluate whether those statements are true, leaving out significant details, or representative of some trend.
  - peanutcrisis 4y ago
    Not sure if such pedantry is necessary, this is something that can be trivially searched up.
    - kspacewalk2 4y ago
      It absolutely cannot be. What you're claiming to exist in fact does not. You're welcome to prove me wrong, of course.
      - roflyear 4y ago
        I'm waiting for the link too!
    - acdha 4y ago
      Pedantry would be trying to make some kind of unnecessarily fine distinction like arguing that the situation was totally different because the person claimed to be a Harry Potter super-fan. This is basic media literacy of the type taught to school children. Without a source, we don’t know whether anyone is even talking about the same thing or evaluate how trustworthy it is. People write lots of things on the internet and since search engines customize results there’s no guarantee that anyone will get the same result. This matters because someone who is confident that they’re honestly representing the facts rarely needs to be evasive. When you see so many people commenting about something which they assert is true but won’t even name, it’s usually an in-group shibboleth which they are not confident will stand up to scrutiny.
LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
A nurse helped fund an "I heart J. K. Rowling" billboard and is having her job threatened. Close enough. https://www.newsweek.com/nurse-being-investigated-i-love-jk-rowling-sign-over-threat-gender-diverse-people-1611017 https://www.newsweek.com/nurse-being-investigated-i-love-jk-...
- rippercushions 4y ago
  A billboard she offered to fund, but in the end did not. Not that it matters, a selfie of herself smiling in front of it was sufficient evidence of thoughtcrime.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jbeam 4y ago

JK isn’t even cancelled, let alone those who enjoy her magnum opus.

peanutcrisis 4y ago
Doesn't reject the fact that attempts were made to do so. The threat of cancellation is very real regardless [0], and not everyone is able to make it out unscathed like JK Rowling. [0] https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/professor-mike-adams-suicide-will-always-haunt-me https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/pr...
- yeahButt 4y ago
  Boycott used to be a necessary and lauded aspect of American democracy and free markets. Now it’s been relabeled “cancel culture” and the public are fascists for denying a person here and there oodles of figurative prestige. A minority of elites sure have the masses convinced “canceling” a rich person is the true threat to democracy. The end of a society is nigh when the elites are fighting to preserve their power to exploit the masses carte blanche. We grow their potatoes; not the other way around, and don’t you forget it!
- zzzeek 4y ago
  JK Rowling was not cancelled in any way. Gawker Media however, was, by a deranged billionaire who abused the legal system to exact revenge on a gossip-oriented news site and its entire media conglomerate. "Cancel culture" to the degree that it exists as any kind of actual threat to free speech is squarely a right-wing endeavor.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > Gawker Media however, was, by a deranged billionaire who abused the legal system to exact revenge on a gossip-oriented news site and its entire media conglomerate. Gawker Media wasn't cancelled; they intentionally violated a direct court order. Maybe you should be arguing that the court should not have ruled against Gawker in the first place, or arguing that the court should not have directed Gawker to cease the publication of nonconsensual nudes, or that the court should not have brought the hammer down when Gawker continued its publication of nonconsensual nudes. I'm curious why you think it is okay to publish nudes of someone against their will. https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/824/503/e53.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/824/503/e53...

yucky 4y ago

[flagged]

ndhlms 4y ago
[flagged]
- crackercrews 4y ago
  [flagged]

we_never_see_it 4y ago

As a non-American these SJW movements terrify me. Because like spreading democracy these movements will be used to justify invading other countries. Hollywood and the woke media apparatus will prime the American suburban class how the regime needs to be changed to protect your favorite oppressed minority class. Or at the very least Americans will be provided opporunities to feel good about themselves. Your country, America, is killing innocent people in other countries; but don't worry, feel good about yourself by using proper pronouns for the new they/them celebrities.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hutty 4y ago

Fortunately, Rowling is uncancellable in practice, so she can keep on fighting to maintain the rights of women to have single-sex spaces without worrying about what a bunch of anti-women activists think. As eloquent as she is, JKR isn't just talk - she recently founded an Edinburgh-based centre to help women who have been sexually assaulted, giving them a safe, female-only space for support in a crisis. It's heroic work, and alongside her many other charitable contributions, I'm glad she's doing such good in the world.