ABSTRACT
The debate over “cancel culture” has become a flashpoint within the present culture wars. Yet both the term itself (which is typically used in a pejorative sense) and its application to different contexts are nebulous. In the broadest sense, “cancelling” is simply socially shaming and withdrawing support from individuals or companies in response to past transgressions. Framed in this manner, cancel culture is nothing new, as group shaming of unpopular speech and actions has been around for time immemorial. But it also refers to a type of shaming and ostracism with characteristics unique to the social media age—one rooted in a technological context where records of one’s past sins are easily accessible and retained indefinitely, where social reprobation can be disseminated broadly and rapidly and where the intensity of outrage (and resulting sanctions) can be greatly magnified through the mechanisms of social media. This chapter seeks to disentangle multiple strands of the cancel culture debate as it relates to broad questions regarding free speech. It first seeks to define “cancel culture” and describe its characteristics within the present social and technological context. It then delineates the theoretical concerns on both sides of the debate, highlighting both the capacity of severe social shaming to chill speech and the use of the “cancel culture” term as a rhetorical cudgel for those seeking to minimise healthy social criticism. Finally, it discusses how we might best resolve this debate, which encompasses conflicting social and cultural norms regarding free speech that, in the social media age, will likely shape the nature of public discourse to a far greater extent than formal constitutional doctrine.
