Cancel Culture and Social Learning

We study social learning and information transmission in a sender-receiver game wherein senders may be attacked (“cancelled”) for challenging the status-quo beliefs. We find that cancellations (and self-censorship) don’t arise unless there is a positive probability the receiver gains a direct benefit from attacking dissenting speakers. In this case, even receivers who bear a cost from cancelling speakers attack dissenting speakers, as a means to build a reputation for “toughness”, By doing so, not only they deter future dissenters from revealing their private information but also influence the decision making process. Surprisingly, sometimes the larger the disagreement between speakers and receivers, the more information transmission is elicited in equilibrium.