okay take two or a thread of things wrong with this. pic one: yes the protests are powerful, but you are actively undercutting them by lessening the demands here. not that that seems to have anything to do with the rest of your statement. https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1280526266274373635

“weaken our... toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity”, the demanded conformity being toleration of differences.

second picture: yes, Donald Trump poses a genuine threat, but he is not an ally to the “cancel culture” i gather this is about. in fact, where you’re getting shut down is the places you agree with him in egregiously wrong ways. as for right-wing demagogues exploiting it:

yeah, y’all are. as for democratic inclusion, y’all are the ones preaching intolerance and being told that you shouldn’t. you are the intolerant climate that is under fire. and the information and ideas about why what you’ve said is wrong ought to be freely shared, you’re right.

being called out by another person with free speech for having committed or expressed a moral wrong or a bigoted viewpoint is not an infringement upon your own free speech, but your stance as wanting exemption from criticism is an attempt to infringe upon that of others.

third picture: radical right? oxymoron, you are thinking of the reactionary right. radical is inherently on the left. how’re these people thinking of “radical”? is this why it’s considered a negative connotated term outside of radical spaces?

dissolve complex policy issues in blinding moral certainty? yeah, nobody’s doing that. except maybe TERFs who have ideas about legal restrictions to put in place and none about how to enforce them because of their strong dogmatic belief in assigned sex’s end-all be-all importance

“we uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech” and yet are suddenly against receiving any form of criticism or counter speech, however polite and measured, when you overstep bounds into what you’d define as caustic?

“all too common... calls for... response to perceived transgressions” yeah. don’t even know what you’re talking about here to be frank. are you talking about people criticizing you and then not getting booked for things or? because that’s just consequences of your own action

and the whole phrasing. if it said “real or perceived” maybe it would sit better with me. but as it is, it sounds like y’all are ignoring that you may actually be committing a moral wrong or holding a misguided or harmful viewpoint. shunting any responsibility.

fourth picture: “hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms” the punishments likely only being cutting ties with you, not choosing to continue a relationship in light of it giving you a platform to spread generally wrong and nearly always harmful vitriol

also, what reforms? you’re the one doing shit, and refuse to see differently. how are they intended to “reform” you? you’re the one that has to reform if you desire that. refusing to endorse your toxicity (again, not a punishment) or telling you that you are wrong is all they do.

and it’s all they can. “editors are fired for... controversial pieces” if they covered the controversy, no? but they often misrepresent situations, present things that are outright wrong, and fan the flames of hate that end up burning us. their employer not endorsing them any...

more sucks for them, yeah, and i wish unemployment wasn’t a problem, and they could count on housing and food and healthcare without it, but not endorsing your toxic views and giving platform to your disintegrity isn’t exactly a total wrongdoing, yknow?

“journalists are barred from... certain topics” again, only if they vastly mishandle it, to the point that it must be intentional, or only on small scale, from an employer, not from public outcry. “professors are investigated for quoting... literature in class” well uh...

the fact it’s literature or a well-known work doesn’t excuse it if it’s framed wrong, again. if you start quoting Mein Kampf without criticism, for an extreme example. it’s all about whether they provide sufficient context and do not represent harmful views or falsehoods.

“a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed study” context? please context. because there’s plenty of peer-reviewed studies that, again, are indefensible. yes, if you’re circulating white supremacy justifications from a dark time in anthropology, you’ll be fired.

“heads of organizations are ousted for what are, sometimes, just clumsy mistakes” jesus christ is this about JKR’s “middle aged moment”? that got you suspect, girl. you got everybody involved in modern harry potter to cut ties with you on your own from there by doubling down.

and if it’s about somebody else, i’m fairly sure they’re in the same boat, blaming it all on a “mistake” that accidentally made people pay attention to them and notice a lot of shitty views come up after that.

fifth picture: “whatever the arguments around each particular incident” meaning “yes, we’re probably actually in the wrong in all cases we bring up as our only examples, but now we’re going to discredit the importance of what we decided justified the importance of this”

“steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal” is that a bad thing? last time i checked, very few people are complaining that you can no longer say on tv that PoC or LGBT people are subhuman and deserve to die without people telling you off.

“paying the price in greater risk aversion among [those] who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus” (again, there’s cases where the departing from consensus really is indefensible) “or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement” (who the fuck is this about???)

again! i wish this wasn’t your livelihood. i wish everybody could live comfortably before their work is even considered. it sucks that that’s a fear. and if people are that afraid of reprisal, please either analyze your views or seek therapy.

you don’t have to worry about being called a fascist or a rapist if you’re not one, and the same logic to whatever you fear being canceled over applies here. i’m hearing the same thing i hear when people talk about “false rape accusations”

where people are defending themselves proactively, trying to make themselves less suspect, and everyone knows they’re only afraid of being seen having acted in a way they did, of suffering consequences for their own action.

“this stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time” no it won’t. jesus christ. a bad environment to be a racist, homophobe, misogynist or transphobe, is good for PoC, women, and the queer community and for their equality.

sixth picture, continued from five: “restriction of debate... by... an intolerant society” again, you are the intolerant ones. overreacting to being told that you are intolerant and that your stance in the debate is, of course, wrong.

this is like neo-nazis trying to play victim after being told they’re in the wrong. “so much for the tolerant left, telling me i can’t say other people are less than me” or whatever. “makes everyone less capable of democratic participation”...

no, it doesn’t. again, this is everybody else that isn’t you, democratically participating! then they talk about the way to defeat bad ideas (which are the ones they’ve been defending here) and they list exposure, argument, and persuasion. yet are arguing against their exposure,

and public argument against their viewpoints. that is what “cancel culture” is. the people talking about why what you said was wrong. “we refuse any false choice between justice and freedom” but you are undercutting both. advocating the injustice of taking others’ freedom to...

react to you. freedom and justice, though, sure, you can swing your fist as much as you like, but that right ends where my nose begins. you can say whatever you want, but when you start trampling over the marginalized with it, don’t expect people to ignore it and not tell you...

that you are a piece of fucking shit for it. “the possibility of good faith personal disagreement” is not under fire here. it never has been. but your disagreement has not been expressed in good faith, and at its core cannot be, because it is fundamentally disrespectful.

seventh picture: “if we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us” so your work depends on your ability to be a bigot without the public pointing out that you are one? that’s your work?

the lines of this that are not inherently problems do not apply to the case they’re presenting. the non-specific and obviously misrepresented cases they use to make their case important but then dismiss as unimportant are probably pretty clear-cut wrong too.

important retweet (by me) of a retweet (by Grumblefloof) so you should definitely make it where you can see what they were retweeting too and also jesus christ twitter doesn’t like me tying a retweet to this thread i’m having to fight with the app so much https://twitter.com/grumblefloof/status/1280633998310387718