What are your thoughts on cancel culture and its impact on freedom of speech?

[RandomGuy1030]

[WhiteSteve]

Well…we’re in a weird place, for sure, because I think in the internet era, words can spread faster and therefore hold much greater impact. It’s also getting difficult to decide what’s indisputable fact vs what’s a valid difference of opinion vs what is misinformation vs what is DISinformation that is being pushed in an effort to influence/achieve a desired result or broad attitude about something. It feels like that needs to be heavily regulated, because people seem to just take things as fact and run with it, so long as it supports the answer they WANT to be true. People seem to really lean into confirmation bias.

It’s getting even crazier, as we can see with the Dominion vs FoxNews lawsuit about the alleged election fraud. Discovery has revealed the private text communications of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and more, and we now have indisputable proof the talking heads outright condemning Trump’s actions and inactions, and then the very same day we can sync up their broadcasts and find them repeatedly singing completely different tunes. And I always hear people boast about Tucker being “the most watched”, so multiple millions of people are watching and taking in his opinion, which I then hear repeated word-for-word as fact from many others in online arguments, almost invariably, so he’s very much steering one end of the conversation, it’s not some harmless comments he’s making. I hope anybody arrested and convicted for January 6th, as much as I disagree with their behavior that day, sues the absolute FUCK out of FoxNews and Donald Trump and whoever else worked to punish an enormous lie that, if true, maybe would’ve been cause for some uproar, because they’d never have been there in the first place if not for these assholes. I don’t necessarily want to see people profit from bad behavior, but a message needs to be sent that you can’t just say whatever wildly irresponsible shit you feel like and try to hide behind “free speech.” We’re fortunate that that event wasn’t deadlier, that could’ve ended up a massacre. Not sure which side would’ve been massacred, but either way, no good.

So…. cancel culture. I don’t generally support ruining a person over almost anything. At the same time, no one in the public is obligated to tolerate it if they don’t like what you’re saying, in certain ways. At the end of the day, the people who comprise the local “culture” decide what’s cool and what isn’t. “Free speech” only applies to the government, like you can say “Fuck Joe Biden” and no one can arrest you over it. No civilian is obligated to entertain it or react a certain way to it, it’s not to be confused with “freedom from consequences.” People can still decide they don’t like you and not want to interact with you. Obviously there need to be limits, we shouldn’t be able to ostracize people into starvation. Unfortunately, the people most concerned with “free speech” seem to be pushing to be able to say hateful things, it’s never something normal they’re up in arms about. I don’t know why people are so concerned with the behavior of people who aren’t them, to the point where they feel the need to comment and even try to make life more difficult from them, but I suppose you could apply the same logic to the folks upset about hateful stuff.

Overall, I think it’s disappointing and discouraging that we’re so focused on being able to be disparaging of one another that we even find this to be so important.

[snackthatsmilesback]

I thought cancel culture was like an extension of free speech. You can say whatever, even if everyone else says you're a peice of shit for saying it. And if you have a business or website or something, you can allow or disallow certain speech on your own shit. Government doesn't mandate you have to allow or disallow speech just cuz whoever don't like it. If we couldn't have cancel culture then we wouldn't have free speech I don't think.

[Anonymous]

The Left: “CANCEL CULTURE DOESN’T EXIST”

ALSO THE LEFT: OH MY GAWD! Did you see what (fill in the blank) just said? Contact Twitter, have YouTube flag their video, get them removed from Facebook, and let’s give their boss a call. Someone get on Amazon and see if we can get their books removed. Fuck them for what they said!

[exitseven]

It i a direct attack on the First Amendment. I try to ignore it as much as possible

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

Cancel culture can go back to hell where it came from.