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Cancel Culture

garyi said:
I don't understand twitter.

And by that I literally mean I don't understand it. I clicked the link and I don't know what I am looking at, it just seems to be a bunch of disjointed threads merged into one long turd thread.
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I thought it was just me, I genuinely can't make sense of what I'm looking at on Twitter, it seems to be totally disjointed with no obvious start point with what kicked it all off.
 
Click on the first image under the main tweet.

Then click on the arrow at the right-centre of the screen to see the following images which capture the entire exchange between Pearson and her target (a member of the public).
 
I can think of a similar situation involving a YouTuber scientist called Thunderfoot and a feminist called LaughingWitch.

She threatened to out him to his employer, and encouraged a campaign to follow suit.

It didn't really end well for her either.

It seems like there is a line which you shouldn't really cross.
 
Droodzilla: Am I missing the point here? If he was libellous then he may have to answer for that (what did he say?) . If he wasn't and she wants to rant, then so what? Millions of people ranting on line, doesn't mean they'll have any effect.

I'm honestly not being argumentative - maybe I just don't understand.
 
I think its because its a woman against a man, and every one knows its much worse that way round lol.
 
Ginger said:
Droodzilla: Am I missing the point here? If he was libellous then he may have to answer for that (what did he say?) . If he wasn't and she wants to rant, then so what? Millions of people ranting on line, doesn't mean they'll have any effect.

I'm honestly not being argumentative - maybe I just don't understand.
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I think that if this dispute had occurred in the traditional media, we would have expected the lady in question to have raised a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission (eg). The expectation being that the content provider has a responsibility and duty.

But being the Wild West of Twitter, people circumvent their controls, and become their own judge and jury. She had decided that his wrongdoing was sufficient for him to lose his job.

It strikes me that you need an impartial adjudicator.
 
stairpost said:
I thought it was just me, I genuinely can't make sense of what I'm looking at on Twitter, it seems to be totally disjointed with no obvious start point with what kicked it all off.
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I have that with Instagram.

Twitter is OK if you don't subscribe too many things.
 
Ginger said:
Bt she doesn't get to choose whether he loses his job, surely?
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Well that's clearly what she is attempting to do.

AIUI if you are libelled, in law you'd first demand the libeller to remove the libel and apologise. If they did (as he clearly has done here) then you'd only have grounds for legal action in extreme circumstances, such as where even though the libel has been removed and an apology given, substantial damage had already been done. I rather doubt that's the case here, and this woman who is, apparently, a vocal critic of cancel culture, is trying to do to this man, what she professes to abhor when done by others.
 
Understood Sue. But it isn't her choice whether he loses his job. She can make whatever fuss she likes including highlighting to his employer and that's top to them whether he loses his job. So what? Looks like an online spat to me - nothing more or less. We can call it 'cancel culture' but it's a keyboard spat. Maybe I need to get out more...
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Well that's clearly what she is attempting to do.

AIUI if you are libelled, in law you'd first demand the libeller to remove the libel and apologise. If they did (as he clearly has done here) then you'd only have grounds for legal action in extreme circumstances, such as where even though the libel has been removed and an apology given, substantial damage had already been done. I rather doubt that's the case here, and this woman who is, apparently, a vocal critic of cancel culture, is trying to do to this man, what she professes to abhor when done by others.
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Exactly. Two other points:

Firstly I doubt the deleted tweets were libellous anyway. This intervention from a fellow journalist suggests they were "nothing tweets": https://twitter.com/TomChivers/status/1346031717421821953. It also suggests that Pearson is misrepresenting the content of the tweets (what a surprise!).

Secondly, and more importantly, this is about as extreme a case of punching down as I've ever come across. Pearson writes for a national newspaper and has getting on for 100K followers on Twitter. Her target has a decent Twitter following but it's shy of 10K and he does not have her national profile and the power that comes with writing for a national newspaper. The power imbalance matters enormously; it's what makes it different from any old online spat.

There was a time when journalists saw it as their sacred duty to speak truth to power. Now they harass members of the public who offend them on social media and try to get them sack. This might be related to the fact that the Conservative government can screw up repeatedly and suffer no negative consequences.
 
droodzilla said:
Exactly. Two other points:

Firstly I doubt the deleted tweets were libellous anyway. This intervention from a fellow journalist suggests they were "nothing tweets": https://twitter.com/TomChivers/status/1346031717421821953. It also suggests that Pearson is misrepresenting the content of the tweets (what a surprise!).

Secondly, and more importantly, this is about as extreme a case of punching down as I've ever come across.
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That makes it an order of magnitude worse, doesn't it. In some sense, she is now libelling him, by suggesting he libelled her when he, in fact, probably didn't.
 
But doesn't she only wield power if people listen to her? She doesn't have any real power - only that which her followers imagine. I haven't got a clue who she is and the first thing I'd be doing is looking at what he said, maybe do some research if I was interested etc.

Is she harassing him? Harassment per se is a criminal offence - I doubt her tweets meet the criteria. Anyway, what has she actually threatened to do? Speak to his CEO. The power to do anything is with him/her, in respect of employment. What else can Pearson do?

Looks like a spat to me.
 
Ginger said:
But doesn't she only wield power if people listen to her? She doesn't have any real power - only that which her followers imagine. I haven't got a clue who she is and the first thing I'd be doing is looking at what he said, maybe do some research if I was interested etc.

Is she harassing him? Harassment per se is a criminal offence - I doubt her tweets meet the criteria. Anyway, what has she actually threatened to do? Speak to his CEO. The power to do anything is with him/her, in respect of employment. What else can Pearson do?

Looks like a spat to me.
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She's a journalist for a national newspaper. She's already named his employer, so they are drawn into the spat and have become associated with the accusations of libel. Some employers would take the view that the actions of the employee have brought the firm into disrepute. That's usually a gross misconduct offence, liable to dismissal. That's very clearly her objective here.
 
Which all hinges on what he's done... if he's done bad then more fool him and he should have thought first. If he hasn't done bad, his employer can't sack him without demonstrating what he's done to breach their policies. Otherwise an ET looms, surely?
 
Ginger said:
But doesn't she only wield power if people listen to her? She doesn't have any real power - only that which her followers imagine. I haven't got a clue who she is and the first thing I'd be doing is looking at what he said, maybe do some research if I was interested etc.

Is she harassing him? Harassment per se is a criminal offence - I doubt her tweets meet the criteria. Anyway, what has she actually threatened to do? Speak to his CEO. The power to do anything is with him/her, in respect of employment. What else can Pearson do?

Looks like a spat to me.
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I think the point is it’s part of a pattern of behaviour, amongst Pearson and “journalists” more generally: well paid and really quite (symbolically) powerful professionals use their clout to, e.g. wage a campaign of hateful disinformation against NHS staff, and then threaten ordinary members of the public who retaliate with exposure, professional ruin and expensive law suits. To add insult to injury they are almost all free speech fundamentalists who interpret online mockery and criticism as an attempt to silence them.

Pearson’s a clown and quite dangerous in the context of Covid. But BBC and others have a tendency to join in by identifying members of the public who criticise Tory politicians.
 
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