Call-out culture is not productive and does not bring about social change.

Former President Barack Obama, JD, stated, “Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out… That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”

Addressing harmful behaviour is important, but so is understanding that everybody is on a different step of their journey, so we all make mistakes. And we all have different strengths.

 Callout culture is a slippery slope and leads to intolerance in democratic societies as people systematically exclude anyone who disagrees with their views.

Instead of cancelling people, we should be motivating more people to tell their stories, to add inclusivity and complexity. We need more tolerance and willingness to enable the existence of opinions or behaviour that one does not necessarily agree with and not seek to harm the offender.