How quickly we cry "cancel culture" and use it as a way to further political agendas in the name of dubious freedoms?

We have a censorship program here on Hive - if the larger community doesn't like your behaviour or viewpoints, you'll be chased off the platform in that it just won't be lucrative for you to stay here. It's not perfect - some good people have left due to downvote wars - but it can work, such as when people are plagiarising or generally being assholes.

We'd like to think we can have absolute freedom of speech - in an ideal Hive, and an ideal world. But we know that's a spectrum - I probably sit more on the 'fuck you and your racist/misogyny' side of things. There should, I believe, be consequences for any kind of speech that incites hatred and violence, or dehumanises people. That kind of speech absolutely should be questioned.

But it’s not that easy.

In an ideal world, artists promoting hate wouldn’t need banning because no one would support their music, and they’d get no financial incentive to put it out there.

But it’s more complex than that. Look at Boy George’s pro-Israel song, removed from Bandcamp for breaching it’s policy on Ai-generated music. George, however, has argued that it’s simply another ‘cancel culture’ issue, and that he’s been silenced for being pro-Israel and being Jewish (like we’re still having arguments on the differences between anti-semitism and anti-genocide??).

On one level, silence for political opinion is an absolute travesty to human rights.

But what’s interesting is how we’re not arguing about how shit the lyrics are, and how he clearly used Chat GPT to write them (they really are that terrible) but how we’re suddenly arguing about censorship. It’s not about the song itself but his right to say it. People are jumping to his defence not for his message, but his right to say it.

Look at songs that have been cancelled across time for their political message. The Rolling Stones song ‘Street Fighting Man’ was pulled in ‘78 by many radio stations as they thought it’d invite violence in protests against the Vietnam War.

Jagger joked that he wished music could start revolutions, but didn’t think they actually did. The song still resonates - it captures the frustration of people who think policial protest along conventional channels is failing. What can ordinary people actually do, the song still asks, against the injustices of war, whether it’s Vietnam, Gaza or Ukraine?

Shouldn’t music operate to make people feel uncomfortable to enact change? Should I be gleefully watching the cancellation of Boy George simply because I find the message of the song absolutely repellent? That I should cry 'cancel' because I'm anti-IDF? What makes me right and him wrong?

Framing Israel's actions as simply "war" ignores the decades of history that preceded October 7 and, to my mind, helps justify the devastation we've witnessed in Gaza. Many of us can't separate the song from that reality especially as we’ve watched the genocide of the Palestinian people unfold on our screens and believe it’s a consequence of years of dispossession that started well before October 7.

But then I remember Cop Killer by Body Count. In 1992, many radio stations wouldn’t play it. In the aftermath of the death of Rodney King due to police brutality, Ice T sung about killing cops - a deliberately provactive song. We loved it. It captured the rage we felt to people we believed to be untouchable. Isn’t that what George does in his song - endorse violence because he is on the side of peope who believe that what has been done to them is deeply unjust?

^{For the record, killing cops as revenge probably isn't a way to solve the broader issues at play here, and I'm not sure it'd go down that well in the current climate despite ongoing police brutality or ICE as we've seen recently}

But Georges song feels more like he’s endorsing violence by the IDF which have been the far more powerful side, slaugthering women and children and thousands upon thousands of civilians. He seems to postulate that killing people at a dance festival is an absolute reason to go to war.

Some Zionsists seem to think they'll be on the right side of history here. Standing up against anti semitism through the right to defend themselves will ultimately be seen as morally right. That doesn't really sit well with me at all.

It's hardly going to be seen as the greatest protest song of all time, I'd argue. It's lyrics are banal.

Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit was also taken off radio because it felt that her condemnation of the killing of Black Americans via lynching was too controversial. Now it’s seen as one of the greatest protest songs of all time. Was it morally right to cancel her or was it just because we were uncomfortable at the reality of the injustice at the time?

I’m not that keen on governments deciding what political songs we’re allowed to hear, but I also don’t think every song deserves an audience simply because someone says they have a right to free speech. If it’s actively encouraging violence and hatred, I dont think any radio, website or streaming platform has an obligation to host it. I’m glad that George’s song was pulled, regardless of the fact it used Ai - in fact I’m glad he used it so Bandcamp had an excuse pull it.

The less pro genocide voices are amplified the better - it's why I won't even listen to his song, let alone that it's written by Ai. I mean, gross.

I think what I find interesting is how easily accusations of ‘being cancelled’ become part of the political message. George positioning himself as a victim means we stop asking if the song is truthful or whether it’s just more Israeli propaganda. Using Ai to do it just makes all that more replusive, furthering inhuman violent agendas with artificial 'human' creativity.

I mean, George's song could just be sung back at him, surely?