- Jenna Marbles does an
impersonation of Nicki Minaj
in blackface, canceled.
Chris D'Elia allegedly texts
underage girls canceled.
J.K. Rowling makes a statement on Twitter
about transgender issues, canceled.
You, think about what
you've done, canceled.
(upbeat music)
Hey creator, I'm Ian Corzine,
your social media lawyer.
I wanna help you understand the law
and I wanna protect your artistic freedom.
Today, we're talking about cancel culture,
which has been discussed
a lot in the news of late.
We're gonna talk about
what is cancel culture.
Are there legalities
that you, as a creator,
need to be concerned about?
And I also wanna give you a preview
for where I think cancel culture is going.
First, some background,
cancel culture, the term
began to be used in the late 1990s.
It referred to TV shows that got canceled
and then eventually, it was converted
to referring to people that got canceled.
That meant that their
careers were destroyed,
their platform was taken
because they had said something,
done something, maybe even made a gesture
that was against someone's
beliefs or society's morals.
And as a result, they lost their platform,
they lost their ability to
speak, they were condemned.
It was referred to as group shaming.
We've seen a lot of cancel
culture in the recent,
gosh, 10 years or so,
and I really wanted to take a deep dive
into what cancel culture was.
I'd done a lot of research on Google,
I tried to find some discussions
about really what is cancel culture?
What are the elements of cancel culture?
And whenever I do kind
of an investigation,
I like to understand the contours
of what is the term I'm researching.
In this particular case,
I really wanted to understand the contours
of cancel culture because I
think it is a prevalent subject
that is going on constantly
every single day.
You open up your iPad or your computer,
and you see another story about a person
who's been canceled.
It's almost like a keyword
out there that signifies,
oh my gosh, this guy or this girl
is going to lose their career.
So after I did my research
for today's video,
I was able to identify two
different types of canceling.
The first one was canceling with outrage.
The second type was canceling with malice.
Now, both these different
types of canceling
share these common elements.
And the first element is the trigger.
The trigger is a statement, an
action, some sort of gesture,
any type of communication of something
that someone finds offensive.
So a good example of the
trigger could be blackface.
Anytime it's mentioned in
the news or in social media,
that oftentimes is a trigger.
If someone has done blackface,
then they are someone who is
subject to being canceled.
Another example is transgender issues.
I mentioned that in the
beginning of the video
with J.K. Rowling, when
there's a discussion
about transgender issues,
it is often an emotional trigger
that gives rise to canceling someone.
And sometimes the trigger
is a combination of things.
I was thinking about the recent
calling out of Adam Driver.
There were people who were protecting him
and there were people who said
his career should be canceled.
And the reason why they said
his career should be canceled
was because he served
in the military in 2001.
And he used the N word in a movie
when he was playing a character,
so those are the reasons.
So you had people on one side
calling out for his defense
and people on the other side,
calling out that he should be canceled,
his career should be terminated.
The second common element
is almost a question
and that is public figure
versus private citizen.
That is the question.
In order to be called out,
do you have to be a public figure?
Can you be a private citizen?
I think the answer is
actually you can be both.
An example might be Louis
C.K. who was called out.
He is public figure,
and so he was subject,
his career has been canceled.
Another example is Roseanne Barr,
another public figure whose
career has been canceled.
On the other hand, there's
plenty of private citizens
that have been called out as representing
some portion of the population.
I'm thinking about Amy
Cooper and this movement
to refer to people
similar to her as Karens,
private citizen, she was called out.
And the, I guess the information
is she lost most of her career as a result
of being called out.
I'm also thinking about Nicholas Sandmann,
the MAGA kid who was a private citizen.
Actually, he was a
minor who was called out
and eventually he really
had his life destroyed.
He actually sued and was
able to recover something,
but he was a private citizen.
So it really, the second element
is a debate between whether or not
you have to be a public figure
or a private citizen to be canceled.
Now the third common
element to cancel culture
is the call out.
And there's two different
types of call outs
that I've been able to identify.
The first is where the canceler,
the person who's seeking
to cancel another person,
doesn't fully appreciate the context
in which the statement
or the action was taken.
A good example is the
Nicholas Sandmann case
where we learned as a
global public later on
that what Nicholas was
facing in that protest march
was a different context than was
as led to believe by the media.
And another example might be
the Lana Del Rey situation,
where she published one post,
she was trying to make a statement
about something on Instagram,
but ended up defending herself
because of the statement
she originally made
on a different subject.
So those are two examples where the person
who's calling someone out,
who's canceling the other person
may not understand the context
in which the statement
or the remark was made.
And so what's really, really important
that before someone calls someone out
that they really have a full
picture, an accurate picture
of what was facing the person
who's gonna be canceled.
The second type of call
out is where the canceler
has a clear picture of what went on,
understands the context.
That might refer to the
George Floyd incident,
the Harvey Weinstein incidents,
the Shane Dawson violations
that he recently have come up
and made a video about to apologize.
Those are examples where
it appears that the person
who's seeking to cancel the career
of another really understands the context
and therefore has the means
to be able to express his or her opinion
using free speech rights and
be able to call out that person
because it offends them.
Now the fourth part of canceling
someone is the gang up.
This always happens and
this is what we see a lot of
when we read media.
We see other people
chiming in basically saying
and condemning a person who
is subject to being canceling.
What's really interesting
about this element is that,
way back when a lot of people,
there were still canceling of people,
it just was not as quick as it is today
with the social media speed.
But there's motives for
people who are ganging up.
One is they don't like the person.
Another is they wanna support the movement
that the original canceler was supporting
by calling out the person
subject to being canceled.
And then the third component,
which is kind of unique,
it doesn't, you don't
see it much in history
is that, a lot of times,
people who are ganging up
on the person who's gonna be canceled,
they really are doing it for likes.
They're doing it for notoriety.
We see it all the time.
Someone cancels someone else
and that second comment
or that early comments
about the person being canceled,
oftentimes they get more followers,
they get more likes,
they get more notoriety.
So what we're seeing
when there's the gang up
is not just a person saying,
"Gosh, I agree with the canceler,"
or "Gosh, I agree with the movement
that the canceler obviously supports."
We're also seeing some people
taking advantage of a call out
of a cancel culture by trying to jump on
and get some notoriety out of it.
And the fifth common element
for cancel culture is silence.
I see two different types
of silence out there
as a component of cancel culture.
On one hand, we have
just silence by people
who are not willing to get
involved in the discussion.
Way back when when cancel
culture really arrived,
we saw a lot of that.
Someone would call someone else out,
there might be a little bit of a gang up,
and that most people, maybe
people who had evidence
about the situation had inside knowledge
about why that person made that
statement or did that thing.
They would remain silent
for fear of being attacked
or being canceled themselves.
But what's unique about our time right now
is we're starting to
see people being called
for their silence.
I'm seeing it with George Floyd.
A lot of public figures
refuse to make a comment,
refuse to set forth their opinion,
and then they got called
out on social media
for joining the
mainstream, not being woke,
not having an opinion,
hiding, those kinds of things.
So what we're seeing in cancel
culture right now in 2020
is two different types.
We're seeing lots of silence, no question.
And I argue for you that
that actually is wrong
and shouldn't be there,
but we're also seeing people
forced to take a side.
They're forced to say
something because their silence
is gonna be called out too.
They're damned if they do and
they're damned if they don't.
So that's a really interesting component
of cancel culture that we're seeing today,
and I'm seeing it no
matter what different type
of canceling takes place.
And I say that because I alluded
to the two different types
of cancel culture as I see it.
The first is cancel with outrage
and that is one of those,
how we started with cancel culture.
That is where someone hears something
and is offended and speaks up
and use their right of
free speech to speak up.
That is kind of a pure cancel culture.
What we're also starting to see
is cancel culture with malice.
Because we've seen so many examples
of people being called
out and being canceled,
losing their lives, their
jobs, their careers,
that people realize, "Oh my gosh,
if I respond to a trigger
word or a trigger issue,
and I call them out,
then I can have some negative
impact on their life."
And they're doing a purposely.
You're seeing it a lot
with political candidates
where they do something
or something is brought up
from their past, someone calls
them out, not necessarily
'cause they have anything
against that person,
because they have something
against the movement
that the person who's gonna
be canceled represents,
and they wanna stop that movement.
So those are the two different types.
I see a type where it's an emotional hurt.
They're calling someone
out because they're hurt
about what they said or what they did,
and then we're also seeing
people who have malice.
They're looking for things
or going into the backgrounds
or doxing people to be
able to find bad stuff
that they can use to call them out
and damage their career
or damage their movement.
So after I was able to
appreciate the contours
of cancer culture, what is it?
What are its elements?
What are we facing in
2020 with cancel culture?
I turned to the next question,
is cancel culture legal?
Can you call someone out,
totally destroy their
career and not be sued?
For that, we turn to
the law of defamation.
Defamation refers to a group of laws
that certainly apply in
America, but really globally,
that says that if you
make a false statement
that injures someone's
career, their livelihood,
makes them shunned, then
that person can sue you
and recover money to compensate
for the harm that you caused.
The key components of defamation
are the false statement and the damages.
So the false statement
that the defendant made,
the person who was being accused
of defaming the other
person, was it truly false?
A lot of times, it's a
question. It was an opinion.
It's unclear whether the
statement was false or not.
There's more to the issue
than just true or false.
The other part that's
really hard as damages
to be proved by the plaintiff.
If you lose your job as a result
of a false statement made by someone
and so you can prove that now
you are making $2,000 a month
and you've been out of work for six months
directly attributable to that
false statement, that's easy.
But a lot of the time,
it's not that clear.
There was a harm committed.
However, it's hard to monetize.
It's hard to calculate the amount of money
that you should receive
as a result of that harm.
Defamation law seeks to have a balance
between, one, a free speech right.
You should be allowed to
speak out about someone.
However, you should not be
allowed to lie about someone
and then cause them substantial harm.
So understanding those
elements of defamation,
you get the answer to the question,
is cancel culture legal?
And the answer is yes
if the statements made
by the canceler are true.
If the canceler, the person
who is trying to cancel
the other person, is making
false statements, lies,
or maybe portraying the context
of what the person to be canceled face
as something different,
then that person could
be sued for defamation.
But in general, there is
kind of a desire in our world
to be able to let people use
their free speech rights,
to speak out about other people
as long as what they're
speaking out is not lies.
The greater question to me and the one
that I've had a lot of talks
with other creators about
is, okay, cancel culture is
legal, but is it ethical?
Should you cancel someone?
Should you rise up?
It could be on social media,
it could be in a public
square, a public forum,
should you do it?
And I think the real question is,
is really depends on the issue
and it depends upon your position.
If you are very much
offended by a statement
or an action of another person
and really wanna outlaw the practice
of whatever was done or said,
then I think you should exercise
your free speech rights,
but you should not do it lightly.
Because one of the things that I use
in the title of this video
is I wanted to let you know
that the first time you call someone out,
you have to be ready to
be called out yourself.
Because a lot of times,
when you call someone out,
you're judging their actions.
And so you're submitting
yourself to the public
to be judged yourself.
So I think it's a balancing test.
On one hand, you certainly,
and I strongly believe,
and I will fight for your
right to give public speech,
to be able to say what you
want so long as it's not a lie
and it doesn't cause damage.
But at the same time,
you have to understand
that when you try to cancel someone
that you are subject
to being canceled too.
And if you understand that
and you take that risk,
then you can cancel and you
may wanna go forward with it.
Some situations, you may not want to
because the harm, the alleged harm,
the thing that's supposed to be offensive
is not significant
enough to totally destroy
someone's life and their career.
And these days, as opposed
to the days of old,
we can cancel careers much easier
because social media is so fast.
Back in the day, whether
it be on a newspaper
or whether it be word of mouth,
people were canceled, of course,
but the consequences weren't so huge.
They could move away
and no one would know.
In our current situation,
it's much harder because that information
is accessible from around the planet.
So I do think the gravity
of the harm right now
for canceling someone is so substantial
that you have to do an ethical analysis
before you call someone out,
because one, you have to say,
"Listen, does this action really warrant
a complete destruction of someone's life?"
And then two, "Am I willing
to submit to the same judgment
that I put on the statement or action
of the person that I wanna cancel?"
You got to go through that
analysis before you come out
on social media and try
to destroy someone's life.
And I'm really interested
to discuss this more.
So if you have any
comments on cancel culture,
if you could think it's
good, if you think it's bad,
if you think it's somewhere in between,
I would love to hear
your comments down below.
This discussion is ongoing.
I wanna make more videos about it
because I think it's
just a unique time period
where we face this avid
desire to cancel people.
It's almost in the
headlines every single day
and it's really important
to understand the contours
of cancel culture before you engage in it.
And while you're thinking about that,
I'd also encourage you
to think about your right
to free speech.
Do you have a right to free
speech on social media?
I did a video that explores his topic,
talks about the first amendment
and whether or not we have
the right to speak our minds
on social media.
If you wanna watch that video,
you can watch it by clicking right here.
As you watch the video, I'm
gonna be at iancorzine.com
to answer any social media
law questions that you have.
