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If Twitter were to close down suddenly, what would happen to cancel culture?
We're used to thinking of it as an internet phenomenon, but it's mostly just Twitter. Even when the person targeted is a YouTuber, you won't see the cancel mob form on YouTube. All the outrage, all the angry calls for blood, still Twitter territory.
I can only assume it turned out like this because of how massively hypocritical Twitter has been in enforcing their rules. After all, what is cancel culture if not harassment on a wide scale, but harassment is supposedly not allowed on Twitter.
Unless the groups are either unable to do it, due to some technical/social innovation, or are forced to stop doing it by some centralized authority, it won't go away. Cancel culture has been proven as a viable tactic in an online culture war.
@laurel
I don't think you can stop a cultural phenomenon via authoritarian action. It will have to be a societal change from bottom up. Maybe someone that has studied the history of witch hunts would be able to better figure something out.
@alyx
Hard agree. Like many other instances of authoritarian measures being taken, it will just become an underground phenomemnon with more extremes and more -dedicated- members. All of a sudden, the problem became harder to uproot.
You shut down twitter today, and you'll wake up to public executions.
When it's so clear to see who's in the wrong, a counter-culture is formed against it that is equal or greater in power. However, this requires playing the waiting game, as it will take at least a generation before the earth expels the roots by itself.
@laurel
