What They Don't Want You To Know About Cancel Culture - Rikki Schlott

Rikki Schlott is a journalist, columnist, free speech activist, and author. Saying "you can't say anything any more" is the internet's tagline. Cancel culture has been the hot topic over the last few years. But why has it taken over the discourse so much and just how much truth is there that it's getting worse than ever before? Expect to learn what Rikki learned from a mass analysis of Twitter bans, whether the rates of people being cancelled are increasing, if the cancellers actually enjoy the cancelling of people, what drove the increase in cancellations, if free speech is really dead in America, whether apologising works and much more... - 00:00 Have Calls for Cancellation Increased? 06:34 Stats About Self-Censorship in Academia 10:50 The Motivations Behind Cancelers 14:17 Researching Mass Twitter Bans 18:16 Cancellation Enforcement Mechanisms 24:51 The Subjects You Can’t Touch on Campuses 34:40 Free Speech Law Vs Free Speech Culture 40:03 Is Cancellation Just Accountability? 47:29 Predicting the Future of Cancel Culture 52:36 Potential Solutions for Cancel Culture 57:29 Advice to People Threatened With Cancellation 59:44 Where to Find Rikki - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostRikki Schlottguest

Jan 18, 20241h 0mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Inside Cancel Culture’s Rise: Free Speech, Fragility, And Silent Majorities

Rikki Schlott discusses the explosion of cancel culture since 2014, arguing it’s driven by social media, institutional abandonment of free speech values, and a generational shift toward fragility and protectionism. She and Chris Williamson trace its roots from early campus political correctness to today’s pervasive self-censorship among students, professors, and professionals. They contend that cancellations fail to eliminate bad ideas, instead driving them into more radical echo chambers while training everyone else to walk on eggshells. The conversation closes with potential solutions, emphasizing parenting, institutional neutrality, corporate backbone, and a renewed, lived culture of free speech rather than reliance on laws alone.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Cancel culture now rivals and exceeds McCarthy-era repression in scale.

FIRE has documented over 1,000 attempts to get professors fired since 2014, with 200 sanctions—twice the rate of ideological firings during McCarthyism—suggesting historians may view this period as a major free speech backslide.

Social media turns ad hominem attacks into a viral, low-cost enforcement tool.

Platforms allow anyone to pile on without engaging arguments, making individuals into public examples and incentivizing others to replicate shaming rather than debate, like a highly transmissible “meme virus.”

A small, highly motivated minority is driving widespread self-censorship.

Surveys show roughly two-thirds of students and about 90% of professors self-censor, while about four in five Americans say political correctness has gone too far; yet an aggressive minority wields disproportionate power, creating a “tyranny of the squeaky wheel.”

Deplatforming extremists doesn’t erase their ideas; it radicalizes them in echo chambers.

Data tracking mass Twitter bans and the growth of Gab show purges drive banned users to more isolated platforms where their views circulate with less criticism and stronger reinforcement.

Youth raised on smartphones are hyper-vulnerable to permanent digital mistakes.

Schlott notes middle-schoolers are already being “canceled” over saved snaps and posts, arriving at college conditioned to self-censor and terrified that any adolescent misstep can define them forever.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

We are now outstripping McCarthyism at roughly twice the pace.

— Rikki Schlott

Cancel culture and illiberalism thrive by making everyone feel alone.

— Rikki Schlott

Censorship does not make these ideas go away. It just puts them into more obscure crevices of the internet, where people are more likely to agree and have a positive feedback loop.

— Rikki Schlott

Liberty lives in the hearts and minds of every man and woman, and if it dies there, no court or law can save it.

— Rikki Schlott, paraphrasing Judge Learned Hand

Cancel culture is a cheap tactic to win arguments without winning arguments.

— Rikki Schlott

Historical rise and data on cancel culture and academic firingsSocial media as an accelerant and structural mechanism of cancellationGenerational shifts from resilience to fragility and safetyismCampus culture: self-censorship, bias hotlines, and ideological conformityConsequences of deplatforming and creation of extremist echo chambersFree speech culture vs. free speech law and the need for normsPotential solutions: parenting, alternative education paths, and corporate/institutional reform

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