That's a more specific and coherent definition of cancel culture, but it's certainly not the current consensus definition: many "cancel culture" debates --- probably most of them --- are about speech or opinions that the individual stands resolutely behind.
And, of course, "for offenses that are minor in comparison" or "speculative" is almost always subjective; it just shifts the debate to a different set of words, but it doesn't narrow it or offer us any guidance. People think all sorts of things are minor, or world-ending; proven, or fabricated.
> And, of course, "for offenses that are minor in comparison" or "speculative" is almost always subjective.
They really aren't. I used the word "historically" for this reason. Years ago, for example, people would openly espouse directly racist views. Today, you can get fired for using a slur in the "mention" category, rather than in the "use" category.
And speculative inference isn't anything more than saying, "this person said x, y, & z... which means they _must_ also believe horrendous things a, b & c" when it is in fact logically possible to believe x, y & z without believing a, b, & c.
You can get fired for having the wrong hairstyle --- that is a thing that in fact happens more often than firings because of cancel mobs. So we're not really saying much yet. Similarly, you can use the logic in your second paragraph to insulate any kind of speech at all from approbation; if you take what you're saying to its clear conclusion, what you're really saying is that it's never OK to boycott anything over speech. That's far beyond what even the most vigorous anti-cancel-culture advocates are saying.
Cancel culture is like vetocracy: the most censorious opinion wins. Speech norms are nuanced and subjective and ought to be subject to community debate. The same for specific alleged violations of speech norms.
We manage this alright with even very serious crimes. It is okay to take the position during a murder trial that the killing was an act of self defense or that you believe the defendant’s alibi. It is also okay to take both pro and con positions about strengthening or weakening the laws in homicide edge cases, such as the castle doctrine or vehicular negligence.
In a cancel culture, onlookers feel they must echo the condemnation, or at least not challenge it, even as they privately offer support to the accused. Ideas like “even though three people are offended, this ought to be allowed” or “actually the context makes this not transgressive” are themselves outside the Overton window.
There's (topically enough) a NYT article about Hough's incident[1], which I will briefly excerpt:
> “In a series of now-deleted tweets, Lauren Hough exhibited what we believed to be a troubling hostility toward transgender critics and trans-allies and used her substantial platform — due in part to her excellent book — to harmfully engage with readers and critics,” Cleopatra Acquaye and Maxwell Scales, Lambda Literary’s interim co-executive directors, said in a joint statement Monday.
[...]
> Hough said Monday that she could not recall whether she had deleted any tweets, and denied that any of her tweets had been transphobic. Lambda did not provide examples of the posts they were most critical of. The Times has not reviewed any deleted tweets.
...now, my sympathies were honestly with Hough until I saw "could not recall whether [I] had deleted any tweets" attributed to her. Which, if she said that to a reporter, is not a good look. Because it makes my mind jump immediately to "I certainly did delete some tweets, but I don't want to admit to it because then I'll be asked what they said".
Nobody being willing to actually say what she's being judged for so that we can make our own minds up does leave us in the awkward position of having to rely on these proxy inferences.
targeted at individuals,
for the loss of their job, invitations, or positions,
for offenses that are minor in comparison to historical offenses,
or offenses that are based on guilt by association or speculative inference,
often for things in the past,
which were things many people accepted at the time,
and often which the individual disavows today.