Cancel culture is a byproduct of smart technology

The argument

This perspective treats cancel culture as artificially engineered by artificial intelligence and smart technology rather than as a genuine social movement — which is why it concludes that cancel culture, understood as a value-led phenomenon, is a myth. The mechanism described is algorithmic. Posts go viral because algorithms recognise their potential to cause outrage, and the more contentious a post is, the larger the boost it receives from online platforms. Outrage is not an incidental by-product of what spreads; it is the property being selected for, because content that provokes it produces the engagement platforms are optimised to maximise. The algorithm then completes the process by surfacing such posts to the people most likely to pile into the debate and interact with them. What emerges from that sequence — a swarm of people converging on a single target — is what gets called cancel culture. The conclusion drawn is about what that phenomenon actually is. Rather than seeing it as value-led, on this view it must be seen as having emerged inorganically. The participants may hold sincere opinions, but the reason they are all looking at the same post at the same time is a ranking decision rather than a shared judgment about what matters, and the intensity of the response is a function of how the material was selected and distributed. Supporting evidence is drawn from adjacent research. This perspective has a body of work behind it, with studies showing that filter bubbles and echo chambers have also been artificially produced in this way — the same machinery generating other social patterns that were once attributed to people's own choices. Its proponents come from the science and data lobby, including the Michigan State mathematics professor Anjana Susarla and the University of Toronto Monk Fellow Swathi Meenakshi Sadagopan. If cancel culture is a by-product of smart technology rather than a movement, then the movement it is taken to be does not exist.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics argue this confuses the mechanism of spread with the reality of the phenomenon. Even if algorithms amplify outrage and surface contentious posts to people likely to pile on, that explains how a backlash travels and scales — not that the backlash is imaginary. People do lose jobs, contracts and platforms as a result of these campaigns, and those consequences are real regardless of whether an algorithm helped the story go viral. To show a process is technologically amplified is not to show it is a 'myth.' They add that algorithmic amplification and genuine, value-driven anger are not mutually exclusive: platforms boost what already provokes strong feeling, so the outrage the technology surfaces is often authentic even as its reach is engineered. Calling cancel culture an inorganic 'byproduct' therefore describes its distribution, not its existence, and does not support the conclusion that it does not exist.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Critics argue algorithmic surfacing amplifies outrage rather than manufacturing it from nothing; the underlying anger is frequently genuine, so 'inorganic reach' does not make the phenomenon inauthentic. [Rejecting C] That a backlash is technologically amplified shows how it spreads, not that it is a myth; the real-world consequences people face are unaffected by whether an algorithm boosted the post.