Is "Cancel Culture" Ruining Your Compliance?

Today, I'd like to talk to you about the "Cancel Culture" phenomenon and how it may have infiltrated your company's compliance and risk decisions.

If you are not familiar with the term or unsure how it may relate to your FinTech business, let me first define the context of the Cancel Culture.

Cancel culture is a phrase used to refer to a form of boycotting or ostracism of someone, who is being "cancelled" (fired, blacklisted, kicked out, or de-platformed) because they have done or said something perfectly legal but morally wrong, subjectively offensive or politically insensitive.  

If you ask me, cancel culture, even when deployed in support of noble causes or presented as a modern social justice, is a form of mob mentality. It is censorship and an impediment to free speech, a clear path for the intolerant minority to win.

Nassim Taleb describes this "minority rule" in Skin in the Game and why a small group of intolerant virtuous people with skin in the game will eventually win the majority. Simple example: I am gluten-intolerant and my daughter is lactose-intolerant, as a result, our household ended up buying gluten-free bread and lactose-free yogurts because we both can eat them and it makes ordering simple and easy. This is how western society moved to non-smoking restaurants, bathrooms equipped for disabled people, peanuts being removed from standard airline meals, and "Merry Xmas" cards being replaced by "Happy Holidays" cards. Tolerant people will tolerate another choice, but intolerant people will cry, beg and protest until they are satisfied.

Eliminating or cancelling public smoking and being mindful of allergies makes sense because it's about health, but where it comes to opinions and political views, allowing an intolerant majority to win and dominate is dangerous.

In any area where abundance, multiple options, free market forces, broader consensus, freedom of speech, pluralism, and diversity are beneficial (which is by far the majority of economic, social, and political activities), the cancel culture becomes detrimental, because it kills ideas and creativity by creating fear and stifling growth.

So, how do you know if your company is suffering from the Cancel Culture pandemic?

• You systematically reject customers or partners from certain countries or industries because of your own ignorance, lack of understanding of their risks, and not because it is legally required. Many non-oligarch Russian passport holders living and working in Europe for years have lost their bank accounts and commercial partners because the other side decided to take a moral stance.
• You lose good business, compromise productivity, or give in to the employee's criticism because you feel you need to do virtue signalling to be viewed as a good company. Many startup founders would like to bring employees back to the office but are hesitant to do it.
• It is easier for your compliance team to say "no" than to say "yes" and they have a hard time answering the question "what do we need to have to support this vertical or work with this segment?". There is still a lot of stigma in the traditional financial industry around crypto.
• When you push back on your compliance team asking for clarifications why something is not possible while your competitors are doing this, their response is "I don't want to go to prison with you" or "I will have to escalate it to the board" or "I will only agree to this if we procure an independent legal opinion on this".
• CEO and senior management of the company are forced to speak up at AMA and company townhalls or publish social media posts on social or political issues that have nothing to do with your core business (#BLM, #me_too, #climatechange, #sannamarin ...)
• Someone who was a good performer and delivered great results was fired or forced to leave the company because of their political opinions, vaccination status, or refusal to put appropriate slogan-du-jour on their social media avatar.

Have you seen it happen? Let me know!

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