In 2013, Justine Sacco, a PR executive at InterActiveCorp (IAC), tweeted out "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" before boarding a long flight to Cape Town. She had no idea the storm she set off on social media. By the time she landed, #HasJustineLandedYet was the top trending topic. She was fired before she got off the plane.

This stands out to me as one of the first #CancelCulture campaigns against a regular person. Thereafter the policing of speech on social media really took off and no one was safe. In 2014 there was #CancelColbert after the show's official account tweeted "I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or whatever." Stephen Colbert managed to survive this; others have not.

After that something snapped, the policing of speech on social media was entrenched. There are countless examples of regular people and celebrities who found themselves on the wrong side of the internet mob. The culture wars had begun and for years no one was safe. It didn’t matter who you were, or the context of what you were saying, if the mob turned on you it was unrelenting. Initially it seemed it was driven largely by the left, a policing of language, opinions, insults and jokes. Many were caught.

In 2018, Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting the Oscars for old homophobic tweets he had posted. Roseanne Barr in 2018 had her show cancelled by ABC over some tweets. Folks are still trying to cancel J.K. Rowling for her views on transgenderism. Kanye West (Ye) has been banned, reinstated and banned more times on social media than I can count, lost deals with Adidas, Gap and Balenciaga. And speaking of Balenciaga they had some kind of mad advertising campaign featuring children and bondage-themed teddy bears that went down so poorly I think they are too scared to internet anymore.

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death there is an account on X.com (Twitter) that has come up in my feed who has claimed to have contacted over 450 employers showing them content of their employees celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk and demanding they be fired. Encouraged it seems by mobs of internet vigilantes who have discovered their addresses or personal details to further expose them. And by all accounts they have had success, getting many of these folks fired. In the US it doesn’t take much, your employer can look at you and say "I don’t like this, you are fired."

Where once this pendulum was swinging to the left and the policing of speech and public shaming was being weaponised against anyone whose opinions could not hold up the times, now it has swung all the way to the right. As various individuals have dedicated time and resources to find those who have dared to reflect on Kirk’s legacy negatively and expose them to whoever they can find who can make them feel some kind of consequence.

There are no rules. What you say today may be meaningless but, in a few years, framed as being something totally hateful requiring that you repent forever and live in perpetual shame.

Many people on the internet are learning that free speech has consequences, people don’t seem to realise that. Not only that, but it is actively policed and the rules are made up as you go along. What you post now might be of no consequence but in a few years’ time who knows. It is the Wild Wild West.

Perhaps this argument should be something more profound like "Free Speech is an illusion". Then one could counter this and look at philosophy and quote legal scholars that argue for the importance of free speech and the role it plays in ensuring dialogue and strengthening democracy. The importance of this fundamental freedom.

Or perhaps take inspiration from Morpheus in the Matrix. "It’s a computer simulated dreamworld, Neo." Take a red pill, free your mind, accept that free speech is an ideal which seems to function according to whichever political ideology or movement is in power at the time. It sure feels that way.

Perhaps this pendulum that has now swung from the left all the way to the right will come to settle in the middle at some point. The moderates will rise. People will come to understand that expressing opinions that you disagree with do not warrant death, hounding, doxxing, or some kind of physical retribution. Arguments can be defeated through debate and the opinions that individuals hold do not have to define them for a lifetime.

I don’t know. The internet is a crazy place right now.

Jordan Griffiths is the Private Secretary and Advisor to Deputy Finance Minister Ashor Sarupen.