Defined: someone performs an action, and because some group finds that action morally wrong, that person is removed from some position of power or responsibility despite the action they took having no predictive power in deciding whether they are fit to perform in their position of power or responsibility.

Since miscellaneous speech is nearly always not related to someone's ability to perform, many cancellation examples revolve speech.

I'm going to summarize a few of your points and respond to them:

1. What's with the anti-left bias? Why aren't you calling out right wing examples?

Right wing cancellations are not a current problem. I remember in the early 00s when it was, but that time has long gone. If it becomes a problem, I'll gladly complain about it. McCarthyism was wrong, but it doesn't exist anymore. I'd love for you to prove me wrong with examples.

2. Why all the cherry-picked examples?

Cherry picked from what? There's no dataset of cancellations and not-cancellations to pick from. You aren't applying this fallacy properly.

The purpose of this list is to show that even among some of the most prominent left wing leaders, cancel culture is a problem.

3. Regarding Obama: per the definition I gave, I think it would fit cancel culture. It is distinctly a left wing issue, and allies, people who are the most practically capable of working with the left are removed on unnecessary purity tests.

3. On Chomsky: I don't agree with him on everything, but I do on this. Why is that relevant?

4. On philosophy professors "facing consequences" for "being wrong."

So it follows that under your design for philosophy, the only way to remain a philosopher is to never make a morally wrong argument. I don't think that design makes sense.

5. On the twitter link:

Numerous academics and journalists are accusing a journal and the authors of racism for publishing a study that correlates covid effects to race. Pants on head stupidity. So much for the party of science.

6. On me "mischaracterizing #4":

Yes, that is what the students claim, but nothing in the professor's email indicates the professor is incapable of teaching a class and fairly issuing grades.

7. Regarding Stallman: he stepped down as the president of the FSF. How his political musings predict his ability to run free software, only the idiots who cancelled him can say.

9. On Yiannopoulos and Cheney

I'm not aware of what happened there. Are they responsible for cancelling someone?

10. On donglegate

So would this not fit the definition of cancellation?

11. On your various examples of left wing actions resulting in negative consequences to the actors (grad students, harassment, red scare, etc)

I think it is wrong to punish the actors in those cases. If moral outrage from a group of people pushes their punishment, then it should be considered cancellation.

12. On ignoring Stallman's accusers being cancellation:

I don't think it fits the definition, and I don't think the accuser suffers any negative effects for being ignored. Ignoring accusations of wrongdoing because the purported wrongdoing has no impact is in the same boat as ignoring accusations of wrongdoing because there is no evidence of the wrongdoing. Both are checks that render the accusation irrelevant.

13. On American history being full of examples of right wingers cancelling people.

I agree. So why don't we learn from the history and agree on a simple ideal that prevents it from happening to anyone?

14. On banning blacklist and master being an easy change.

I feel this is a tangential topic, but would like to discuss it anyway.

From a purely programatic perspective, it isn't an easy change. At my company the codebase has, lets say a million instances of master within it, spread across numerous packages. Lets generously assume it takes 5 minutes to build and test a replacement (but we both know that's impossibly short). Given that generous assumption, it would take about 1 developer year of effort to complete the replacement. Adding existential upset to that pain, it's also an unmotivated action. Have black programmers actually ever been surveyed to see whether they want the term removed? And further, the spearhead isn't from the ranks of developers; it comes politically from management. The actual workers get to enjoy being beaten with yet another politically conjured cludgel. So if it's a "weak-sauce paper-thin" action, with no evidence of need, has a massive cost, and fucks workers, why are we doing it? And if as you say it's beyond the pale of debate, should I be cancelled for making the argument I just did?