Cancel culture is a term used to describe a cultural phenomena in which individuals control which opinions are acceptable and therefore can be expressed, and which aren’t and therefore should not be voiced. Borrowing the term coined by George Orwell, it relies on a ‘thought police’ comprised of civilians. Punishment in this case is social exclusion of the person or organisation to commit the ‘crime of opinion’. It is yet another evidence of our opinion as output of the social group (see how our opinions are formed). In the 2019 global survey the World of Political Science, involving almost 2,500 scholars studying or working in over 100 countries, it was concluded that in predominately liberal cultures, like the UK, Sweden, and even the US, right-leaning scholars were most likely to perceive thought censorship, whilst in societies characterized by more traditional moral values, like Nigeria, it was mainly left-leaning scholars who complained about the existence of a cancel culture.
