I think it comes down to quantitative differences resulting in qualitative differences.
It's not unreasonable for anyone (public or police) to notice when I am out in public, and what I do in public. But at some point an accumulation of these OK interaction becomes not OK, in the same way we already recognize that an individual simply seeing somebody in public is a protected right but stalking is not.
When the technology exists to track everything I do in the public sphere, catalog, summarize it, and sell it for profit, we are dealing with a qualitatively different animal that has entirely different implications morally and with respect to our rights as individuals.
Content that has the right to exist based on free speech protections does not by extension have the right to exist on any/all platforms. Different publishing platforms have standards they hold themselves to. For arguments sake, the NY Times does not generally allow white nationalists to write Op-Eds espousing their POVs, without clear messaging around context. White nationalism lies outside the NYTimes unique Overton window.
Its my view that 'cancel culture' isn't a new phenomenon; in the past, those with views outside the Overton window were not 'cancelled' per-se, they were instead 'pre-cancelled', by never being allowed to attain prominent statuses in the first place (how many KKK members were members of the NYTimes Op-Ed board; was their exclusion a result of cancel culture?). IMO 'cancel culture' is the effect of the Overton window moving more quickly than in the past, where individuals who have been able to attain prominent positions now find themselves outside the shifted Overton window. So the fact that this is happening to thinkers of prominent status is new, but excluding views outside the Overton window (the fundamental bit) is not.
I draw the distinction, because in my mind there are two debates to be had; (1) cancel culture is a new phenomenon and is anti-ethical to the ideals of free speech that American society has espoused in the past, and (2) cancel culture is not new but instead the Overton window has shrunk, and is shifting more quickly.
Anecdotally I see many arguments that reject 'cancel-culture' with the logic of (1); exclusion of voices/ideas is a result of a new phenomenon ('cancel culture'), and by relying on a large dose of appealing to tradition (America has never "cancelled" voices before) we can therefore reject any exclusion as a-priori wrong. If we argue instead within the context of (2), one cannot say that exclusion of ideas is a-prori wrong, instead one has to defend whether a particular idea deserves to be included/excluded from the Overton window.
It's not unreasonable for anyone (public or police) to notice when I am out in public, and what I do in public. But at some point an accumulation of these OK interaction becomes not OK, in the same way we already recognize that an individual simply seeing somebody in public is a protected right but stalking is not.
When the technology exists to track everything I do in the public sphere, catalog, summarize it, and sell it for profit, we are dealing with a qualitatively different animal that has entirely different implications morally and with respect to our rights as individuals.