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"No celebrity in my lifetime before the advent of this new wave of cancel culture has been completely cancelled the way they are today"

But they have, this is the very nature of the infamous Hollywood blacklist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist

Have you ever read "Time of the Toad" by Trumbo?

I think people would be blacklisted in exactly the same way in the 50s; this is all fairly well documented in relevant writings from the period.

I think we're in agreement that social media and specifically giving people access to publishing has changed the duration and discoverability of the speech.



Ah I didn't realise the Hollywood blacklist had been that serious! It's definitely not in my lifetime though, I wasn't around in the 50s. I'm also not sure that's a good example; you're talking about what could be termed a national security threat vs. something like saying you don't agree with unisex bathrooms. As I said, the scale is way out of whack.

I'd definitely be interested to see comparisons that are more like-for-like though, if they exist. I'm not familiar with "Time of the Toad", although from a brief look it seems to also deal with Cold War era issues? Again, this isn't a like-for-like comparison.




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