Not long ago, I went to a show in Canberra of an extremely famous actor/comedian/singer. During the show the extremely famous person allowed questions from the audience and was generous with his time. I walked away having thoroughly enjoyed the performance.
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But when I opened Twitter the next day somebody at the same event had an entirely different experience and she had gone on Twitter to blast the extremely famous person. Her gripe was that this extremely famous person refused to answer her question and she had been insulted when he called her a name.
Her claim was not incorrect, it had happened but what missing was a broader context, which needed to be understood before anybody could make a proper judgement. There was a reason the extremely famous person refused this question and it wasn't simply a case of him being discourteous.
The extremely famous person told the crowd he had time for one more question and he wanted it to be the best one he had ever heard, one he had never answered before. The tweeter had people around her call out she had a question, which indicated it was a good one, and so the extremely famous person turned to her.
Now, in my view, her question was unoriginal and the audience seemed to agree as they groaned when it was asked. It was not the only question rejected on the night, a previous question, also meant to be the last, was also rejected as it had the same response from the audience.
This context was missing from the original tweet and was not brought up in subsequent tweets. In fact, the tweeter doubled down and when she was asked why the question was refused, she claimed she didn't know.
From my point of view, the response was delivered in a comedic vein, not maliciously, but that was not how it was perceived by the tweeter - who said she was humiliated. It's not my position to judge how she felt and she has every right to be offended.
But she should not have posted the tweet without providing the broader context as to why the question was refused.
By the afternoon, the tweet had garnered a lot of attention with the vast majority in support of the tweeter, so much to the point where the extremely famous person had responded and offered an apology. In the end, he was at the receiving end of comments a lot worse than his response to her original question.
I had watched this debate unfold throughout the day and as it went on my frustration grew at the fact this context was missing.
On principle, I don't enter Twitter debates - I only post about my work - so I did not get involved. Hence why I have also left the finer details out in this piece.
Before people start to think I am blasting social media for ruining discourse, I'm not, actually it's quite the opposite. I like social media and I believe it is a powerful tool for enacting social change and for enabling democracy in action.
In fact, I wrote a thesis that looked at the effectiveness of how advocacy groups use social media in the wake of a major news event to help their cause.
My thesis concluded hashtag campaigns have a great power in influencing news reports and setting the agenda - at least that's the easiest way I can sum up more than 20,000 words.
One only needs to look at the #MeToo movement, which had a win this week when disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was found guilty on two counts of sexual abuse and rape.
In the wake of the allegations about Weinstein in October 2017 a new hashtag emerged, #MeToo. It was actress Alyssa Milano who first tweeted using the hashtag in a call to arms to others who had faced harassment or abuse. Milano was not the first to use the term, in 2006 social activist Tarana Burke used the phrase ''Me Too'' on Myspace.
It wasn't the #MeToo movement that handed down Weinstein's conviction but what it did was keep the pressure on, and it resulted in a flurry of allegations against other powerful men who had gotten away with such heinous behaviour for far too long.
But where Twitter fails is when people try to use it to ''cancel'' somebody for innocuous reasons. People can make an offhanded remark and suddenly be at the wrath of people hiding behind cartoon avatars.
''Cancel culture'' is when people call out the behaviour of somebody and in turn this encourages others to express outrage or boycott the artistry from said cancelled person - both those on the left and right of politics have participated in the culture.
At times this cancellation is based on a mistake or a comment being misinterpreted.
There can also be cases, like the extremely famous person, where there is a broader context that can be conveniently left out of a tweet, and is subsequently ''cancelled''. To clarify, the extremely famous person has not been cancelled and I doubt this tweet will have any bearing on their future career but it does demonstrate how ''cancel culture'' has been able to thrive in social media,
Some people fully deserved to be cancelled (I'm looking at you Louis C.K) but for others, it's totally unjust.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied's Facebook post from Anzac Day 2017 is a prime example of this. She became the victim of vile racial abuse and even left the country due to a seven word post "Lest We Forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria Palestine...)". It didn't matter that she deleted it fairly quickly and offered an apology - she was swiftly cancelled.
The thing is, there is seemingly no room for mistakes in cancel culture, and that just breeds toxicity.
Former US president Barack Obama said it best: "This idea of purity and you're never compromised ... you should get over that quickly," he said, "the world is messy, there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."