Cancel culture: A debate on freedom of expression and social accountability in social media

In the past few years, the idea that a person can be canceled — in simpler terms, culturally blocked from social, economic, political platforms or career — has become a polarizing topic of debate socially and politically. This act of publicly boycotting and calling for accountability mostly found in liberal democracies where traditional justice systems seem not to work has been intensely promoted through social media. For many people, this process has become an important tool of social justice — a way of combating, through collective action, some of the huge power imbalances that often exist in society. For many others, this trend has been termed as a thought police that is out there to curtail freedom of speech and open debate and is promoted by a politically progressive social media. In an earlier age, one might simply have said that when somebody or institution is boycotted, that they were held to account for promoting certain views deemed unacceptable by a particular group of people. Indiscriminate use of this form of boycott has grown into a constant issue on social media in many societies today. But the confusion about the culture, the ease with which it changes and the general haziness about the difference between Cancel culture for social accountability and plain-old criticism or consequences, can tend to make this method of boycott a sloganeering meaninglessness where it can be anything for anyone one who can use it and therefore nothing. That this form of boycott has transformed into a political tool and feature of modern life is not in question. The process of Canceling might not be a form of ideological phenomena that as the study has found out, it can be easily misunderstood. This dissertation thus traces this nascent trend to grasp a meaning of the many debates it has generated that have recently dominated social media. I deal with the question of how canceling happens, who really cancels and whether it's really an attempt for social justice or a calculated effort to curtail freedom of speech. I argue that canceling is a tool that is being used by any one with the power to boycott anything. Despite the claims that it's a politically left attempt to limit free speech, I show how the political Right, Lobby groups and Authoritarian regimes have used the boycott method. My dissertation expands the range of debate around the boycott culture by revealing how it immensely contributes to polarization of societies today. I discuss how this form of boycott is nowhere near what is being thrown around by populist politicians that it is a liberal conspiracy to exact progressive political norms. Social media has probably brought in new measures about how we review shame and enforce boundaries. Sites like Twitter and Facebook have of course increased group identity outrage bolstering it to levels never witnessed before thus creating a polarized political environment in which culture, groupings, clans and associations play a vital role. In another era, accountability for transgressing social norms were being enforced through traditional institutional decision-making and leadership, today things have moved in an unprecedented way. Now accountability for misdemeanors by people in powerful positions are enforced instantly with a tap on a mobile phone. And unlike any other tool, a smart phone, an internet connection and belonging to a social media site poses a potential threat to the growing polarized societies amidst us with weakened institutions, and rising populist advocates. The many tenets at play on social media has made it simple and important for individuals to form a crowd with perfect strangers from anywhere around the world and gang up on one's perceived enemies, or a perceived idea. But the pressure such groups create can conveniently be used as cover for oher aims. In finding out such cases, I have used secondary data in my thesis to aim for a broader understanding of a topic whose importance has recently been seen due to increasing polarization in many societies. I did a content analysis around the dynamics of the so-called boycott culture, freedom of expression, open discussion, and the impact of social identities on our social behavior displayed on social media. This data collection method allowed me to answer my hypothesis questions. In my analysis, I learned that what has been termed a culture of cancellation or boycott can increase polarization in societies and empower populist politics. Through the research conducted, I found that everyone cancels and this culture is not necessarily a progressive left political issue. The political Right cancel, authoritarian regimes cancel, and even lobby groups cancel. The term they call a boycott may be different, but the process often plays into social media where netizens of this group gather to press for an action to cancel.