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You know it is getting bad when even Mr. Bean is calling you out. In an interview earlier this month, Rowan Atkinson equated cancel culture with a \u201cmedieval mob, roaming the streets looking for someone to burn<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is an apt comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2015, British journalist Jon Ronson wrote a great book called \u201cSo You\u2019ve Been Publicly Shamed,\u201d where he explored public shaming on the internet and interviewed people who had been on the receiving end of the online mob. No one could have predicted how online public shaming would mutate into the ubiquitous and toxic cancel culture that has become so powerful today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A medieval mob, roaming the streets looking for someone to burnROWAN ATKINSON<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cancel culture doesn\u2019t just come for celebrities and politicians. It pursues regular everyday folk, too. As an employment lawyer, I have seen my fair share of unjust terminations. One aspect of cancel culture I find particularly troubling is how the mob goes after people\u2019s jobs. This is no trite matter. It is one thing to call someone out and shame them on online. But to attack a person\u2019s ability to put food on the table is a line that shouldn\u2019t be crossed. It doesn\u2019t take much pressure from the cancel culture mob to cancel someone\u2019s employment contract. Employers, especially large companies, are terrified of bad press and the thought of trending on Twitter for the wrong reasons is the stuff of nightmares<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few angry emails and an unsightly mention in a BuzzFeed article may be all it takes to get you cancelled at work. Forget about an investigation or proper human resources protocols \u2014 there isn\u2019t time for that. One of cancel culture\u2019s greatest strengths is its speed. With social media and the 24\/7 news cycle, the process of cancelling a human can take mere hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In any other scenario where a complaint is made against an employee, there would usually be a proper investigation process undertaken by the employer that could take weeks, maybe months. The employee would be permitted to present a defence and the full context would be examined. Termination for cause, which is the capital offence of employment law, would be a last-resort option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Due process goes out the window when it comes to cancel culture. By the time all the facts come to light, it is too late. The damage has been done and the mob is onto its next victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If companies would just keep their nerve instead of panicking and hitting the fire button, they could avoid potential liability from unjustly fired employees. The cancel culture mob usually loses interest after a few days, but the lawsuits from terminated employees linger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A friend once asked me, isn\u2019t cancel culture just the product of a free market, like consumer activism? The answer is no. Cancel culture is about power and control. It is a highly effective tool that gives a self-appointed and often small mob the power to control who has and doesn\u2019t have a platform or voice. What it takes to be cancelled is completely fluid and changes almost daily. Cancel culture is the antithesis of free speech and the enemy of due process and fairness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cancel culture is the antithesis of free speech and the enemy of due process and fairness<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal isn\u2019t just to humiliate or to shame. And it certainly isn\u2019t to elicit an apology. The objective is to literally remove a person from every semblance of their life \u2014 personal and professional. To destroy that person\u2019s career, influence, respect and render them so radioactive that no company, person or employer will ever want to touch them with a 10-foot pole. In other words, cancelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are always stories of a cancel culture victim months later, where some reporter has dredged up all the facts and evidence and tells the full story in the proper context. You read it and think \u2014 that was really unfair<\/em>. And then you go about your day, while that person has to live the rest of their life with this humiliation plastered all over the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are there some people and groups out there who deserve to be deplatformed? Of course \u2014 this has always been the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But do the vast majority of people who have made a mistake or said or done the wrong thing at some point in their life deserve due process and a second chance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cancel culture is a toxic practice that we should cancel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathryn Marshall: The cancel culture mob could come looking for you, too Due process goes out the window when it comes to cancel culture. By the time all the facts come to light, it is too lateAuthor of the article:Kathryn … Continue reading Kathryn Marshall: The cancel culture mob could come looking for you, too<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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