Trump, permanently banned from Twitter, is a poster child for the victims of “cancel Culture.
According to a new survey released exclusively by Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies and CAPS-Harris on March 1, a majority of Americans say they see “Cancel Culture” as a threat to their freedom. Another study from the U.K. found that 84 percent of black Britons refuse to topple statues.
According to The Hill, 64 percent of respondents said they believe Cancel Culture poses a threat to freedom in the United States, while 36 percent said it is not a threat.
The term, defined as cultural boycott, has been used frequently in political discourse over the past year. Conservatives, in particular, have become accustomed to using it extensively. The theme of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was “America Uncanceled.
The poll found that more Republicans than Democrats believe the culture of cancellation is a threat. 80 percent of Republicans say the culture of cancellation is a threat, while 20 percent say it is not. But among Democrats, 48 percent still call a culture of cancellation a threat, while 52 percent say it is not.
Former President Donald Trump (Trump) was banned from Twitter earlier this year, leading critics to question whether the social media giant should have the power to do so.
Mark Penn, director of the Harvard Center for the Study of American Politics and the Harris Poll, said, “Americans are showing increasingly substantial concern about the growth of a culture of cancellation. Tech companies need to be aware that the public perceives them as acting out of a Democratic tilt, while voters are calling for new regulations to ensure fairness and openness. Amazon, in particular, still has a strong image compared to Facebook and Twitter, but if it expands the range of banned books on its platform, Amazon’s image could begin to suffer.”
Amazon recently pulled the book “When Harry Became Sally” by Ryan T. Anderson from its site.
The survey of 2,006 registered voters was conducted Feb. 23-25 by Harvard University’s Center for the Study of American Politics and Harris.
The full poll results will be available online later this week. The survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris panel and weighted to reflect known demographics.
More than 80 percent of black Britons disapprove of bringing down statues
Another new study released Feb. 24 by the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank, found that only 16 percent of black Britons believe that tearing down statues is a legitimate form of protest, dropping to just 5 percent when it comes to the direct use of force against police.
Last June, protesters were widely criticized when they toppled a statue of British slave trader Edward Colston and threw it into a river during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest in Bristol.
At the same Time, the group, which claims to be the voice of the Black Lives Matter movement in Britain, has previously advocated radical politics that few black Britons agree with, according to the survey.
In the United States, the Black Lives Matter movement has also lobbied to “take away police funding.
But the latest study shows that less than one in five black Britons support reducing investment in their own police forces, and only 25 percent support replacing capitalism with a socialist economy, compared with 23 percent of the broader population.
The study was published in a report titled “Black Lives Matter: A Voice for All Black Britons? (BLM: A voice for all black Britons?), which compares a nationally representative population of 1,000 general population British respondents with a sample of 558 black British respondents.
What is “cancellation culture”?
A “culture of cancellation” refers to an act of boycott, especially one initiated online. It is common in social media for someone (usually a well-known person) or a (well-known) company to say or do something offensive or unacceptable and then be boycotted by public opinion, having their job opportunities, business endorsements, corporate sponsorships, and even their online presence “cancelled”.
Many of those who use the term point to decisions to censor and remove historical statues or landmarks of historical figures. Conservatives also use the term to describe the role of big technology in silencing some people on social media. “Culture of abolition” has become a globally popular term starting in July 2020.
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