Fake News Leads to Cancel Culture

 Audrey McQuillan 

am646319@ohio.edu

    Fake News has become a problem in our country since the development of social media. Social media allows fake news to spread fast and wide. 

    We are currently being raised in a society of cancel culture. Merriam Webster defines cancel culture as, “The mass withdrawal of support from public figures or celebrities who have done things that aren't socially accepted today. This practice of "canceling" or mass shaming often occurs on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.” 

    This idea of cancel culture is a real and prevalent thing in society today; however, sometimes fake news can interfere and lead to wrongful accusations which can lead to outcasting individuals from society. 

    We can find many examples of cancel culture used in this manner, and an example would be  Nicholas Sandmann. 

    In January 2019, high school junior Nicholas Sandmann, from Covington Catholic High School, attended the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. A day later, a video of Sandman was posted, supposedly “mocking” an American Indian who had just participated in the Indigenous Peoples Day. Sandmann was pictured in the video wearing an “Make America Great Again” hat, which led to even more resentment and backlash on social media. Sandman was verbally dragged through the mud by news outlets, politicians, and other individuals on social media. 

     

                                                               Source: Cincinnati Enquirer

 

     According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “Sandmann sued CNN, NBC, The Washington Post, ABC News, CBS News, the New York Times, Gannett and Rolling Stones for defamation.” 

    These news stations created lies and slander around Sandmann’s encounter with the American indian and completely ruined his reputation. Sandmann later won the cases due to the clear slander and defamation surrounding his name and image that was illustrated by these news outlets.

      However, Sandmann is one of many cases of defamation that has occurred in this country due to wrongful and dangerous harm of cancel culture that is seen throughout society today. 

     

    Kyle Rittenhouse, Goya Foods, Joe Rogan, and more recently, Johnny Depp, are all real life examples of how defamation, fake news, and cancel culture have destroyed people’s reputation and lives. We can see individuals who are “canceled,” such as Joe Rogan, actually use this attempted “cancel” to their benefit, and actually become more popular than they were previously.

    
 However, “canceling” does not happen to famous people exclusively, as we have seen from Sandmann and Rittenhouse, and can be a very dangerous tool which can lead to mob rule, which is the exact opposite of what our country’s values and beliefs represent.