I really wish the discourse around cancellation was more precise about the difference between cancelling and brigading.

"Cancelled" comes from TV. To cancel a show is to not buy more of it. But to be cancelled it must first be on air.

To cancel a project is to stop buying it/withdraw funding. Sometimes that puts people out of work, but a network cancelling a show, or a company cancelling a project, is withdrawing resources and attention, not heaping on negative attention.

Powerful people using huge platforms to harass, threaten, and pile abuse on people who criticize them aren't "cancelling." They're not choosing to ignore something. They are doing the opposite of that: they're drawing as much negative attention to it as they can.

We live in an attention economy and withdrawing attention from someone or something can have financial impacts on them (though I don't think JKR will find herself struggling).

But no one is entitled to attention. Everyone is entitled to safety from harassment and abuse.

I've seen a few folks pointing out the hypocrisy that the "anti cancellation crowd" is "cancelling people" who criticize them. They're not. They're brigading people who criticize them.

Calling the harassment campaigns they're instigating 'cancellation' is buying into their framing that disagreeing with and ignoring them is a form of abuse.

Every famous person who's ever been criticized for anything can point to a pile of harassment they've received, because famous people who behave badly get harassed. Famous people who behave impeccably get harassed. That doesn't invalidate legitimate criticism of their behavior.

And we shouldn't buy into this card trick in which they basically say "look, I have been criticized, and I have been harassed, and harassment is wrong, and therefore criticism is wrong, so you should *wink* 'criticize' people who've criticized me."

I've been harassed plenty of times as a non-dude in tech, and remarkably I am still accountable for my behavior, and for any shitty opinions I hold or express. I don't get to point to the harassment I've received and blame it on people who've legitimately criticized me.

So let's please call brigading brigading, and stop playing their game of pretending that withdrawing attention is the same as abuse. It is not, and conflating the two is a rhetorical trick to avoid accountability.

A sidenote that should be its own thread but I want it attached: you'll note that I said "criticizing" and "withdrawing attention," which are obviously two different things.

So let's talk about Crossfire for a sec.

In 2005, the political talk show "Crossfire" invited Jon Stewart on, and he criticized them in no uncertain terms. He even called Tucker Carlson, one of the show's pundits, a dick to his face.

The footage went viral online, and the network cancelled the show.

These were two separate incidents: Stewart criticized them, AND they got cancelled. Stewart did not cancel the show; powerful as he is, he didn't have that power.

Also, you'll note that Tucker Carlson is still working even after being *checks notes* called a mean name.

Then as now, criticism can lead to cancellation. The growing prominence of social media in public discourse has removed some of the barriers to critics; it's a lot easier than it used to be for criticism to find a platform.

But "crossfire got cancelled" doesn't mean "crossfire got criticized." It means it got cancelled: its funders withdrew support. The show and its pundits had been criticized many times before without consequence, because criticism isn't cancellation.

One of the signatories to the letter, whom I'll call Mr. Namesearch because good grief what a sea lion, just jumped on someone pointing out he wasn't being censored by saying "But you called for me to be fired!"

And yet! He is remarkably unfired?

So he got criticized, and that criticism had minimal or no impact on him, because he still has his huge platform and still gets paid to accuse people of "silencing" him when they point out that he's a gross harassing dirtbag.

He could get cancelled. His employer could stop offering him a huge platform and paying him to use it to say terrible things. That still would not be censorship because he's not entitled to that platform.

But it hasn't even happened. He's just been criticized.

And he has, for years, used his giant platform to incite harassment against trans women. Specific trans women, whom he points his audience at knowing that his audience will harass, abuse, threaten, and dox them.

He doesn't say "we should stop paying attention to this person because they aren't worth listening to;" he *encourages* people to pay attention to his targets because he wants to heap scorn and abuse on them.

That's not cancellation. It's brigading.