When it comes to free speech conversations, we often talk about “cancel culture” and the harm deplatforming does to people and their careers. Time and time again, there has been public outcry when (usually bigoted) people are held accountable for the things they do and say. We give more grace to the white supremacists, racists, and transphobes. For example, Milo Yiannopolous speaking at Berkeley sparked protests on campus in 2017 but got a supportive tweet from President Trump. Gina Carano was heavily supported even after months of her problematic social media history. Then when an antisemitic Instagram post got her fired from the Mandalorian, she was just as quickly picked up by Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, who all decried Cancel Culture. 
cringe ngl
There are many other examples of instances like these, and sure they may get fired from one thing, just to get picked up by the next.
According to an article by Vox, Georgetown University’s Free Speech Project suggested that the right’s crying about Cancel Culture is overblown. The project’s leader, Sanford Ungar writes, “Most of the incidents where presumptively conservative speech has been interrupted or squelched in the last two or three years seem to involve the same few speakers: Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and Ann Coulter “ all people who been mask off racist AT LEAST once in the past.
However, this isn’t as clear-cut as left-wing adjacent people have the upper hand. In fact, it’s more like the opposite. As conservatives and right-wingers complain that they’re the ones who were canceled, we shouldn’t forget the red scare and the subsequent blacklisting of anyone who was believed to be a communist or the letter Martin Luther King Jr received that he suggests he commit suicide, to his literal assassination. Or even the black panther party being labeled a terrorist organization, being infiltrated and “neutralized”, its leaders and members assassinated, imprisoned and/or exiled. It all feels like being canceled to me.
(also ‘canceled’ being a term that came from black lgbtq+ people that now conservatives are weaponizing is not lost on me)
More recently while Qanon conspiracy theorists, Trump supporters, and fox news all complain about cancel culture, a lot of them still have platforms, shows, and other apps and places to congregate. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram still have some vile people on their platforms and actively do nothing about them.
Meanwhile, it’s the people on left being targeted.
Ferguson activist and former State Rep, Bruce Franks Jr was peacefully protesting in Arizona when he was arrested, he was charged with “Aggravated assault on police, resisting arrest, rioting, criminal trespassing, and unlawful assembly.”
When the officer’s body camera video was reviewed there was audio of officers targeting Bruce by name, “And keep those two in front, Bruce Franks, take him into custody, red shirt, these two right here, two in custody, Bruce Franks.”
The charges were later dropped against Bruce.
Other incidents include Facebook and Twitter purging leftist voices randomly. Media Matters has done studies, “showing that conservative content on Facebook has greater content than other engagement”
Or the time a self-identified communist was visited by California Highway Patrol on behalf of the capitol police for ‘threatening’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but simply tweeted about her “disappointing answer in response to a question about Palestine/Israel”
According to intercept reporter, Ryan Grim, AOC said “They did not report this” and “asked Capitol Police to look into what happened”
Grim follows up, that even though they don’t know who reported the tweet, they know that AOC didn’t report it.
The Intercept also reports of a Political Science professor, Pete Hatemi, at Pennsylvania State University who was reached out to the faculty advisor for a group called Young Americans for Freedom. A group that “were declared white supremacists, believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory, and supporters of the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys. Some were involved with neo-Nazi activist Richard Spencer. And at least one had participated in the assault on the U.S. Capitol”
When he declined the group lashed out, publishing the email on a conservative website, Campus Reform. Following this was a lot of hate mail, some even threatening violence. However Hatemi was not the only one. Isaac Kamola, assistant professor at trinity college closely watches the site and surveyed 338 people, they found “that at least 40 percent of respondents received “threats of harm” following a Campus Reform article, mostly via email and social media but also often by phone, text message, or postal mail. One professor reported receiving thousands of emails, many of them laced with violent, racist, and sexist comments,”
Other findings include:
“In the most extreme cases, he added, online trolls published the professors’ personal information online, forcing them to change their phone numbers, leave their homes, and retain security. Less than half the people surveyed by Kamola reported receiving support from their universities’ administrations, and more than 12 percent reported facing disciplinary action as a result of a Campus Reform story. Three people said they lost their jobs.”
And that “Black professors were disproportionately targeted”
This is the problem, so often black and other marginalized voices are targeted by these anti cancel cancel clubs. People who supposedly hate the “woke mobs”, fighting back with unwoke(?) mobs. Using the exact tactics they say they hate, to censor others. Though it’s against black, brown, and queer people so I guess that makes it okay. There are actual people being censored and “canceled” and it’s not the people crying about it on national tv and to millions online.
This was quite interesting to read. I have been hearing about 'cancel culture' for a while now. And my personal feeling regarding this is that, no matter what side a person may be on, both extremists on both sides are all bigoted. Not having an open mind is where the problems lead. I would say I am personally in the middle, sometimes lean toward the democratic side, while other times lean toward the republican side under certain context. Like for example, I believe that everyone should have the right to voice their opinions, but I absolutely despise those who attack one another because they don't agree or think they are all 'idiots' so to say. While there are a lot of problems in the republican ways of thinking, the democratic side of the spectrum is no different. Back in the day, the democratic side was considered the working class while republicans were the 'rich white people'. So I am not entirely sure why or when it got flipped with more people saying republicans are the working class citizens. History is quite odd! I personally think divided parties are the root to disaster honestly. If people were more open minded and accepting of one another, the world would be quicker to peace rather than war. Taking it back to cancel culture now, I feel like this entire thing causes nothing but problems. Adding political views into that mix causes more monstrosities. The answer to everything is quite simple, if people cannot get along and start attacking one another on personal levels, get rid of the platforms that allow them to do so. I have always said social media like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and so on, are all just pure evil (hence why I do not have any of those platforms anymore. And trust me, my life is better off!). People have more guts to say whatever they want behind a screen but when it comes to speaking in person they do not. Take away some of their platforms, takes away some of the issue. I loved your post! It got me really thinking about the topic at hand. Nicely done Tiara!
ReplyDeleteMost of the time nowadays when I hear about "cancelling" it's in the context of a youtuber or streamer getting called out; it's so weird to me to see it being used by platforms like fox news because it doesn't seem like something that should be granted so much importance, which is along the lines of what you're getting at here. Cancel culture, as it has been interpreted by the right, really is not an issue--there's a hypocrisy in labeling leftist disagreement as a witchhunt while at the same time criticizing every progressive agenda as radical and a threat to democracy. I think there are times where "cancel culture" is toxic and inherently bad, but not in the way the right thinks it is. When it's used to dogpile on everyday people or even some influencers, especially when they're still young people ripe for making mistakes, then I think concerns about "cancel culture" are valid; however, in terms of a real affect on the world and censorship in general, it's definitely blown out of proportion.
ReplyDeleteTiara, great post! I definitely have observed similar things about "cancel culture" and, as someone who considers themselves a socialist, it's frustrating--Republicans are quick to tout "free speech" but also insist that socialist speakers should be able to speak or work in academia. I think "cancel culture" is something that can never really touch influential people like celebrities (the average person is a different situation--I think of our conversation in class about a professor criticizing a TA who questioned her students' anti-gay marriage views). I think JK Rowling illustrates this time and time again--she's been openly transphobic for years, but I don't see Harry Potter's influence changing at all.
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