it's not my body for testers around it, against what they call hate speech biology. seen as president writes, groups and trades unions were reacting to what have you. and they said that to well, economic for linked of us, that will show him the reports from one as ours response. you know, it's and see that the president have you, emily speech on the other side of the world was a media anger, fear. and the determination to resist organizing public assemblies like this one to discuss their response that i shouldn't, it shouldn't that i've shown k, 40 seed and did, and diverse was a provocation, a consolidation office ideology therapy and several protest since president relate, took office in december 2023, with a radical policy to comp, state spending on health transports in education. how do i get the most and, you know, hopefully everyone feels they should protest, but also that they can take these discussions today with plants and to our families

. because these are problems to touch on lives at this moment. as close the ministry for women and diversity, a policy institute against discrimination and racism. is there a problem my life and then last month and doubles? it may need more be will to see the offending, isn't diversity inclusion, equity, immigration, abortion? environmental ism gender ideology, amongst others the, the heads of the same creature whose aim is to justify the advance of the state to the appropriation and distortion of noble causes. but if and there is it because noble cause is he said with freedom and liberalism is promoted by donald trump in the united states presidential binding hungry who we code is the friend, the italian prime minister, georgia, maloney for the delay was thick and almost to an international audience, but they were listening here in knowledge and see you don't, many didn't like what they heard. you know, i thing now to defend. they see a stress for that hold one right?

origin. cedar in 2010 was the 1st country and not to in america, to legalize same sex marriage to the boss and in 2020. okay. and most of what we're seeing are retreats and destruction of everything we bought and worked to years for, for social programs, for laws that respect our rights. javier malays government is destroying the state, which means that a large part of our public politics no longer exist. and now they're going for what remains the delay when the elections with the problem is to read it. can you reform argentina's back to the economy for testers? are asking what price to that house, one rights that we're showing, the route to 01 as iris. that's it for me carry johnston, you can find more information on our website and i'll just say what the com needs continues on those off to the st states the

we are to see the status of legend some clothes and the stories of civilizations that market history was this is where the story of the vanity story to tell a in an age where our every move and social media post or comment is under constant council culture emerged sparking fears to base about accountability and censorship. today we dive into this polarizing phenomenon, shaping our digital lives to ask, is it a tool for justice, for a weapon of fear? and these voices, and this is the street, the culture doesn't get

about being by counsel. culture is just about taking people down. look at that, look at on the high did people can about getting the whole story. they didn't, it was just cancel, go to be vindictive. so entire right now, cancel culture is the reason we have the need to move in general. go through the reason women can finally pick up journal culture is the reason we finally get justice. cancel cultures are the best thing that happened to you, like you don't even know the council culture is definitely more than just a buzz word. it's a battle ground for ethics, free speech and power dynamics. for some, it's a vital way to hold people accountable, especially those in a position of power for others. it's a form of month justice, that silences voices and stifles debate. to help us go through the concept and the implications around it. we have joining us today of rationing for la, founder of a new startup. explain dot c o dot. is that a and former editor in chief of the male and guardian, and have post south africa?

check on tyler banassi program director for the masters in need of communication and development at the london school of economics. i'm christina brown and shaheen with lauren co hosts of the on council culture podcast. thank you all so much for your time. thank you for being part of the discussion today, christine, and show him. i'd like to start with you. we decided to do this. busy because as we observe the internet here on the stream, um, if you was like there's no escaping counsel culture as a concept. but as a concept that has evolved over the years and it has different meaning to different people. can i get you to 1st define what council culture actually is? of course i think when we talk about cancel culture, we are specifically referring to parts of reality or the idea that people deserve to be punished when they do things that we don't like or that wouldn't gain to be

socially unacceptable. and when we talk about cancel culture, but just using language that is accessible to more people to be ality is that there is no such thing as canceled culture. cancel culture is just basically car. so reality and it's like most accessible format. it is a way for people too often insight mobs to take down people who they don't like. it is often a lot of language, a lot of rhetoric that is weaponized, a part of what christina and i are attempting to do with our pod cast is to take back the legitimacy of accountability. and what that means, because when we water down the legitimacy of accountability and we recognize it against people, we just don't like or we try to disappear people or participate and carson morality or trying to punish people. but little people have them disappeared when we disliked them,

we kind of take away from what is like cancel things or things that should be treated seriously. like we've all seen on a very public stage, someone do what is very clearly a nazi salute. but when we are watering down what it means to be held accountable, that can result in that not being taken as seriously as it should be. it is alarming, and we should be alarmed. but when we are all participating in car surround e and constantly beating up on each other on the internet, it kind of takes away from where i should be. and so what we're trying to do is kind of challenge that on its face and waters down the power of the users. christina, do you have anything to add to that definition? and i think it was perfect. i added that. i think a lot of people, this is something that's a human. i also discuss it that they conflate cancel culture with it being outrage, culture because so much of both of us being on the receiving end of moments where

we've been cancelled. and people want to allegedly hold us accountable, and it's been based off of outrage and people weapon, isaac, things like shaheen said, being really carswell not taking our apologies or anyone's accountability into account. and that affects the question, well what is the point of this? i think council to started out as something that was an attempt to bring harm to the forefront because there's so many different types of people and isms, and phobias that harm a lot of communities in groups and having social media where anyone can really share how they're feeling and their experiences brought that to the surface and i think that we have it yet as a culture on done to the car surround it assume is talking about and we've been indoctrinated with that. so we want to count ability but what does that look like? and what does that look like with pure social relationships where we're not in

community, gets the people that we see in online and have their handles. that's not the same as sharing community and a space where you can help each other accountable in real life break bread with people and touch the human being that you're trying to cancel. so i'm now we're in a stage, which is what i see when i started our pod cast. we're after years of being visible online and having multiple situations where we've been, dost, or our jobs have been called. i lost the job from this personally. so we want to bring in a new wants to okay, we want and our actual accountability. what does that look like? was outrage of some of that? how i said, yeah, that accountability with just the outrage actually is. um shakuntala you wrote about counsel culture back in 2021. i'm and what are the things that you said is that the media we're getting it all wrong. can you help us get it right? yeah, i, i mean, i want to 1st say that i very much agree with what my colleagues have just said. i

think human christina, trying to do something which we really need to do within communities, which is to be more compassionate with each other so that people can actually land and find out who is on our side and understand historically, who is in power and using that power against us, so i have nothing at all to disagree with with what has been said. but when i wrote that piece i was writing at the time when there was a massive backlash against black lives matter. and i think now we see that backlash in government, it's been in government in india since 2014. and i want to put the phrase cancel a culture into historical perspective in relation to 3 things. one of them is violence, actual physical violence against communities, whether that's violence, through through rates, through paul grounds, and ethnic cleansing, or violence through bombs and starving people out. and that is

a definitive way of telling people you cannot speak. the 2nd one is, but historically modernize communities have and should always have some means of speaking back to the powers that oppress them. and boy quotes, cultural and social boy quotes have historically worked in places like south africa, again stopped by side. and in cases where particular companies are being extremely agreed use and how they treat local communities, boy clips have been very effective with all these tools. when i said this is a red herring, when i said this is an invention of the media, i meant that all of these tools are being appropriated by the far right, by those in power to get people fighting each other within communities. and that's why i said the media have got it or wrong. it is fascinating and thank you so much for clarifying that because it is fascinating to see how that has been used in different ways throughout the last few years. um has an a rush, the i watched your,

your ted talk where you describe feeling very publicly and then making global headlines for it. and then being publicly shamed, which had a devastating effect on your mental health. would you say you were cancelled? of course on these not one absolutely say i was cancelled, but i what i'm reading during about the conversation right now is how my colleagues have friend, how the sort of idea of folding power to college has been almost the 1st on the united solve and started to be news against people who have to just not had much power. so they, i was a young woman of color into the 1st time with a lot of powerful enemies and kind of traditional spaces. and so when i made a mistake, a lot of people who had had peace with me for whatever reason, i felt i've been unjustly given a possible position john's into the fray. and very much with my colleague previously said um, kind of use the tactics that perhaps originated within community movements to hold

the power to account, to effectively create a pile on and create a reaction and, and what was the pressure um, kind of the kind of attack that happened on me, which was like a, a social media attack was a little a 2 day to 3 day few at a very intense period when my employer was a, they wasn't the mom that i despise. busy and they kept going, i try and talk to us close out of my job. there was no due process, there was no punishment that was to push on to what a mistake i had made. other people had gotten much worse and had not faced such sanction. so i think would be under those things, i agree would, is one that it is the mob justice element to it. and to many of these tactics as might have the most out of cross with movements to hold tyler, to account a kind of being used by the problem with states me. and i think, i don't know if you agree with me, but i think we've seen an example. an interesting example of the ass, i'm sure he mentioned briefly very recently because all over social media these

past few weeks where the political developments in the west, notably some pretty extraordinary moments. and the presidential integration, like this one, the, to a little must gestures know his words ignited a serious debate on line with many people timidly wondering how some of the powerful continued to get away with so much um shaheen. what did you make of the debate that happened online and what it tells us about social media and about the society we're living in. and i think that everybody who just spoke did a really amazing job of highlighting exactly how the people in power utilize and manipulate like the masses through like the bastardization of these times that

we have all created to kind of keep each other safe by people who are typically pushed to the margins of society when we create language and come up with these tools to effectively call out the people who oppressed us or who are in power. they in turn, flip it on our heads and forced us to use these tools against each other. and once we do that, we can water down what these things actually mean. and when it's time to actually hold someone accountable, like a loan mosque who is very clearly again, doing a nazi salute. what happens is that people can say, this is just cancel culture, which has historically over the last few years, have been proven to be used in cases where it just does not apply, or where it has been. very cars are all towards people who truly did not deserve it because of simple, smaller mistakes and wins when you can create that illusion that anybody who's held

to that fire is somehow being, you know, put in the system or used uh, using these terms and an inaccurate way, it can kind of like minimize the impact of what they're doing is a manipulation tactic that happens on a mass scale. and we're witnessing witnessing this in real time. christina, you're not of your head and you agree with that. i agree with that so hard to lee i read was what everyone is saying this far. i'm really enjoying this conversation and that we've come to to a place where we can discuss this. i want to touch up and when we're looking at the one of us and whatever, what else was saying about it being what the nice people in our webinar using the tools that work from community to have accountability. i think it's also depending on the visibility of the person and the identity identity and the marginalization is that the person that is visible has because i've had people who shared my

marginalisation also attacked me. i've seen in fighting between people of the same race of the same sexual orientation of the same social economic class finding each other and what the nice thing those tools against one another. so i would love to see that to just only those that have power over me, your social, social, academic power. me sometimes is people that look like me and, and share rooms with me and back to what she was saying about it minimizes the actual harm being done when you have someone with your boss who's a rich white man doing a salute. if you had a note that is undoubtedly anti semitic, we all know the roots in that which, which it has uh, which it has denied for the sake of this conversation. the one was denied doing this. and that's what i think one of the things that is also fascinating about this conversation. and i want to put this to 2nd tell is the idea that perhaps many people are waking up to the fact that um, social media is essentially not the level playing field that we all think it is

that we don't get the same chances in the same space is in the same voice is um, at least we don't count as much as some other people do our voices at least don't i think you're absolutely right. and i think also what christina said is absolutely right that within our communities, and i think i'm speaking of someone who's probably one of the oldest people in the room here long ago. but i wasn't, maybe i don't think more of a sorry. go ahead. what years ago and i was part of organizing that was a lot of what we call putting the reservation even within less communities within like communities, for instance, because i'm in the u. k. i'll take the example of who is and who isn't the, who was and who wasn't allowed to call ourselves black. so we've had a lot of different words in terms you know, 30 years ago i was part of black, great black action groups for justice and equality. and now that's been fractures

and schisms within that with different people saying, you know, you're not allowed to quote yourself based, so that which has only weakened community. so bullying within our own communities. all which has happened. the thing i would say is that we need to use the right times for these things if we choose to use. and i don't doubt to have good reasons for using the word counsel culture, which was to use a word which has been weaponized by those in power against us and is being used. for instance, in instances where people speak out on behalf of the palestinians being massacred or on behalf of survivors of costs or other costs through a state in india, in the us and south africa. then we are, we are sort of playing that game it's, it's a difficult line to walk. but i think historically there's no doubt that that's been a hierarchy of hate, aimed very much at the most vulnerable, even within marginalized communities. which means that we are often on the receiving end of pate and abuse from outside and bullying,

and one upmanship from within the community. and i mean, it's not new that the rich and the powerful or at least let's just say the powerful um, can use certain techniques and reverse things around to actually perpetuate the model . the benefit to them. um, i want to bring another element to another elements that we saw was a compelling argument in this conversation. take a look. we are not censored or silenced. we are surrounded by an inundated with more speech that has ever existed in the history of communication. and it is all weaponized by professional outrage. hunters of all stripes, scouring the globe for graduation speech snippets, off hand comment storing promotional tours out of context, comedy bits, lane marketing ideas, or any words and phrases. they believe they can latch onto to generate monetized clips, outrages the engine of our modern media economy,

and sometimes someone loses a job or something else happens like that. that should never happen. the rush, the, your thoughts on this, on how outrage cells to well, absolutely, i can't help but agree with that to play because i do feel these know due process to the way we go about getting this accountability at the moment. people have to cancel culture bucks, month justice. but the fundamental idea around justice as fallback is super nice ation has held, is that they is due process, but you are innocent until proven guilty. the problem with online moms and social media, just as if it isn't due process. and i think what the company just played, i believe it was by a, a comedy host of the get his name and makes the point that this isn't just how they were not in a vacuum people on just yeah, just a stupid story isn't just naturally say of people just naturally thing,

what comes to mind building incentivized to be increasingly hostile, increasingly divisive, because the other buttons on do so to me, social customs, the vote that sort of speech and to come up to my experience, i fell into that truck as an end to the publication of the house post where i was, i was wanting most pressure from my bosses. and this is the kind of news because it's really living in. and it's the reason i create my own start up cuz it's so topic. but i didn't know, especially to get more do you smoke small engagement and also the through warranty with being divisive. so i allowed a device of comments piece onto the website and in service to the next to me talk sick and god be internet. and obviously everyone turned around those and who was baptized and i talked before and i, i was forced out of my job and it had, you know, subscriptions for myself mentally as well as professionally. but the real real take away the is that the entire information ecosystem, not just on social media,

but in journalism, increasingly speaking. and then you would also do us a probably subject to this is that we don't have so much pressure to about these algorithms, which appeal to the lowest common denominator of human nature. and i get to the emotions. it's been proven by many studies of, of how things have devolved in terms of the social media and media. negative emotions get more action and engagement than positive on. and so people increasingly are those kind of statements and takes on, on heart issues to, to yep, to shock the audience, which in gave with i could not tell you how many times i was asked to bring people that disagreeing to fight on air. so we would go viral, i think cause conversations like this one we have here and much more constructive or the way christina, i wanted to get your take here going forward. um, what do you think we can do collectively um, towards holding our sales. i'm those in power accountable. surely we can all do better in the space. i'd be i'm actually going to take something i

watch the rest of your ted talk last night and i really, really enjoyed it. and there was a part where you were speaking about allowing people to make mistakes. and because council culture isn't allowed in the states and actually learned from them, we're doing society of the service and moving forward. i don't know what social media or online is prepared to do, but i think my personal reason and what she and i agreed on for why we started the pod cast is my way. and our way of moving forward was to hold an example and hold a space for what new wants, accountability, grace, understanding and growth like. and our 1st 2 episodes, we both go into our own stories of experiencing castle quoted for the 1st time and harassment and threats and doc seeing similar to what has already been shared and where we were mentally during that time. and. and in the response of that,

and also the lessons learned since then. and i just hoped to kind of lead by example and have these really open valuable conversations. and some people are ready to hear them and some people are, i think we, we, before we even, you know, publish the pockets of it. so people are trying to cancel the uncomfortable trip, i guess. but this choke because of the conversation we are trying to, to have and, and something that so moving forward, i think if everyone can kind of think of moments where they might have made a mistake or had a missed up or been confused and, or felt like there to protect themselves and have greece for themselves and those moments where they have to learn from it. then degrees can be spread amongst other people into their direct communities and communities on line. perhaps if you're angry at so many papers because they're doing something right with the pod cast, so will be monitoring that and watching that and listening. i'm 2nd. tell them one final word. one final question for you. what would you like to see people and take

away from our conversation today? what would you like the conclusion of this debate that wasn't media debate to be i would definitely like to 2nd what christina just said and say, i would love to have much more. com, graceful conversations with i'm an acceptance of people's ability to make mistakes and to get things wrong. but i also want to draw attention to the different types of counseling which doesn't get cold canceling. and that's going to be a much more difficult pathway to take. so when someone has the visa withdrawn, because they going to speak about the murder of a group of people in palestine, that's counseling and the biggest way, but nobody calls it that it's sense to ship. it's all kinds of things. so when someone actually has a bomb dropped on their house because they've been judged guilty of being a terrorist at age full, that's canceling. it's much, uh, it's genocide. and i want to see us talking about those things while extending

grace, an easy conversation within our communities. i think that's something that we can do whether we are on the internet or not on the internet. and getting control of some of these companies breaking up monopolies and preventing the people in file from controlling both mainstream and social media is going to be a big uphill battle for all of us. absolutely, and we're here for us and thank you so much for bringing the children of gaza into this conversation. i can tell. thank you enough talking color the russian is a he and christina, thank you for your time today. thank you for being part of the stream. and thank you all for tuning and stay in touch with us online. you can use the hash tag or the handle a g screen to send us your questions and suggestions take care. and i'll see you soon. the a february on as jersey to 3 years on from the outbreak of the war and ukraine. i'll just view it,

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