Owen Jones says 'cancel culture' doesn't exist—facts say otherwise

The Guardian columnist Owen Jones took to Twitter on Sunday morning to express his view that "cancel culture" does not exist, but is rather a strategy used by those with large platforms to shut down others who criticize them.

Jones tweeted: "'Cancel culture' is public figures using their privileged platforms to complain about people using social media to criticise them, normally because of their publicly expressed views about minorities who are hugely underrepresented in public life."

While Jones garnered a lot of praise for his bold tweet, there were others who suggested that his claim was patently false. One of these people was Martin Daubney, who tweeted that he could debunk Owens' assertion with two tweets.

Daubney posted two tweets, both of which featured University of Cambridge professor, Priyamvada Gopal. The first reveals a tweet by Gopal saying that "white lives don't matter. As white lives." The next one reveals a news article quoting Gopal saying: "'White Lives Don't Matter' Cambridge Professor Says She Resists "Urges to Kneecap White Men Everyday.'"

Gopal received a promotion from the University of Cambridge after tweeting "white lives don't matter." Meanwhile, David Starkey was forced to resign in disgrace from the same institution for his comments on slavery.

Both developments follow Cambridge University's recent statement following criticism against Gopal. "The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial and deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks," the institution stated. "These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease."

Twitter user Fraser Myers used Owens' own tweet again him, showing that Owens had previously reached out to the University of Oxford to confirm that the Deputy Director of External Affairs and International Strategy would be "fired by the end of the day."

In early June, students at UCLA demanded that the university fire two professors for bending to the whims of students amid the death of George Floyd. The first professor was Gordon Klein, who refused to grant students' wishes that they be treated special because of their skin color. The second professor, W. Ajax Peris, was targeted by students for reading aloud MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," which includes repeated instances of the n-word.