Accountability in the Code of Ethics and Society

Accountability is a big idea in today's world. Merriam Webster defines accountability as "the quality or state of being accountable," which, to me, means to be answerable or responsible for your actions. The Society of Professional Journalists believes accountability is important in journalism because it is important to admit mistakes and promptly correct them. As an imperfect species, humans make mistakes. Therefore, it is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. However, as I said, accountability is significant in today's world, and journalism is not the only place we see it being talked about or used prominently. 

In today's culture, people feel like stepping on eggshells when speaking on any topic. They do not want to be painted in a bad light through the public eye. So on one side, people believe it is essential to censor many things people say to uphold people's feelings. The other side believes the First Amendment gives them the right to say whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of how it will make people feel. On whichever side you believe is right, one thing is for sure; you must be held accountable for what you say. 

Whether you believe what you say is good or bad, not everyone perceives the same thing the same way. One person may think what you said is excellent, and another may be bad. One person may think it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, and another may think it condemns a whole culture. Either way, you said what you said, and you must be ready to either stand by it or face potential consequences. 

We see people being held accountable all the time on social media. For example, Jackson Mahomes was recently in the news because a Kansas City bar calls him out on social media for being entitled, irresponsible, and trashy. The bar writes a very passive-aggressive apology to Jackson and condemns him for his actions.

https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/kansas-city-bar-destroys-jackson-mahomes-well-survive-your-ego/

Jackson's fans then see Jackson and start not to like him. That leads to "cancel culture" and people trying to "cancel" Jackson. Cancel culture is the idea that people, generally the public but can be private organizations, get together to find every bad thing a person has done in their lives to compile the information to make someone look bad. Once this person is painted in a bad light, people hold this person accountable and decide whether or not that person can be a member of society. Of course, they can be a member, and it is just hard for them to do anything in life. People have pretty frankly everything over being canceled. Once you are canceled, you can rarely recover from it. I believe cancel culture is society's way of upholding values (holding people accountable) that people living in that society believe.

Some people don't agree with canceling culture, while others love it. Some people don't like it because they believe in second chances and that people can always change for the better. Others love it because it kind of keeps society in check. I agree with canceling culture and holding people accountable, but sometimes, the way to go about canceling someone can be unjust. Sometimes it is not warranted, and people over exaggerate why someone is canceled.

Whether you agree with cancel culture or not, it will be a thing because there are people who feel like they are whistleblowers and will hold people in society accountable when others won't. Since it probably won't go away, my question is, where do you stand on cancel culture? Do you believe regular people have a responsibility to hold others living in their society accountable? Is it a regular person's job to hold someone accountable? If not, whose job is it? 

Sources

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accountability

https://www.spj.org/ethics-papers-accountability.asp

https://fox59.com/news/whats-trending/downtown-kansas-city-bar-calls-out-jackson-mahomes-after-incident/