https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/965815679/is-cancel-culture-the-future-of-the-gop
Six or seven years ago, the idea of “canceling” someone was largely used among younger people online, particularly on Black Twitter, as Vox’s Aja Romano has explained.
In other words, it was just the marketplace of ideas at work.
But as the concept gained popularity, concerns grew, particularly among media and political elites, about the threat of online mobs shutting down speech.
The idea of a “cancel culture” is inherently controversial. What one person might see as being canceled for controversial statements, another might see as being held accountable for offensive or harmful views.
“Cancel,” “woke” and “political correctness” all also happen to be phrases that can be (and have been) used to sincerely debate the best way for a society to be inclusive. But that also is perhaps what made them so easily weaponizable: those original usages imply that there are ideas or words that are not inclusive — that for discourse be inclusive, some speech has to be excluded.
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more on cancel culture in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cancel+culture