Cancel “Cancel Campaigns.”

Subject: Cancel “Cancel Campaigns.” Mon Sep 23, 2019 3:28 am

Left-wing journalists are working to deplatform independent content creators. It needs to stop.

Cancel “Cancel Campaigns.” QddXH3u

“Cancel culture” takes no prisoners. The threat of being socially ostracized over a misspoken word, an errant gesture, or an opinion no longer in vogue is one that looms over us all like the sword of Damocles—but one that sways erratically, killing its subject with a thousand cuts. No one is spared the burden of having to mind themselves at all times. If you forget, society will tell you that you’ve stepped out of line. The cuts are a constant reminder.

The idea of losing your job over a tweet used to be impossible for anyone to fathom. When Gawker “canceled” Justine Sacco for over an ill-conceived joke, it felt like a one-off exception. And yet in 2019, an event like Justine Sacco’s social termination is now a daily occurrence. Someone, somewhere, is getting canceled.

For some, “cancel culture” can be a kind of peasant rebellion. Media scholars like Lisa Nakamura call it a “cultural boycott.” As she explains, “[i]t’s an agreement not to amplify, signal boost, give money to. People talk about the attention economy—when you deprive someone of your attention, you’re depriving them of a livelihood.”

There are times when this kind of grassroots cultural boycott is justified—for example, to hold predators like R. Kelly accountable. But for all the well-intended efforts there have been to out predators, cancel culture has faced a maelstrom of criticism for being confused, ineffective, and toxic—and rightly so. Cancellation has always been beholden to the rationality of mobs. As it’s become more prevalent online, pseudonymity and viral transmission has given cancel culture a different degree of ferociousness.

This is particularly the case when the “mob rationality” that under-girds cancellation isn’t rooted in a “mob” at all, but a tactically-deployed, decentralized attack from multiple fronts—one issued from a position of power.

Using social media, small groups of media elites are able to masquerade as an “organic” mob—in effect, turning the people’s power against them. And far from protecting us from abuse, “cancel campaigns” have become a strategy that these groups of left-wing journalists use to strangle independent content creators and destroy their livelihoods.

More here: https://humanevents.com/2019/09/22/cancel-cancel-campaigns/

fuckers

Cancel “Cancel Campaigns.”

Cancel “Cancel Campaigns.”

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