If a firing or whatever is described as an example of ‘cancel culture’, that usually means it was driven by some kind of orchestrated pressure from third parties.
Typically it means those third parties (usually online activists, the ‘cancellers’) have gone out of their way to get the person fired/disinvited/whatever, with the specific motivation of diminishing their public standing. This may involve techniques such as deliberately fomenting online outrage with the aim of creating a negative PR situation for their employer that will go away when they fire the the targeted person.
(Just explaining what I think the term usually means; not saying anything about any specific claimed instances of it.)
Typically it means those third parties (usually online activists, the ‘cancellers’) have gone out of their way to get the person fired/disinvited/whatever, with the specific motivation of diminishing their public standing. This may involve techniques such as deliberately fomenting online outrage with the aim of creating a negative PR situation for their employer that will go away when they fire the the targeted person.
(Just explaining what I think the term usually means; not saying anything about any specific claimed instances of it.)