Kirsty Wark 'worried' about cancel culture

Kirsty Wark finds cancel culture "really worrying".

The 65-year-old broadcaster thinks an online "mob mentality" has become a "real issue" and warned it is very "dangerous" to hound people just because they hold opinions which others disagree with.

She told the Sunday Times magazine: "I think there is a real issue about cancelling people.

"It\'s a really, really worrying aspect of our society, because what it does, it encourages a kind of mob mentality, which is completely fed by the internet and which can become incredibly dangerous.

"People who have neither been charged nor convicted of anything are found guilty in the court of public opinion. Once we start going down that road, where do we stop?"

Kirsty insisted the best way to understand opposing opinions is to "engage", not cast people aside.

She explained: "It\'s really difficult as a journalist to say that people should be cancelled for ever, because you have to engage in order to understand. It\'s really important that you actually air the argument."

Citing the backlash against J.K. Rowling for wanting to protect female-only spaces, she added: "Obviously there are lots of people who feel very hurt by what J.K. Rowling wrote. But not publishing her? Locking away? That\'s not the way to deal with it. You have to engage."

However, the \'Newsnight\' presenter also feels sympathy for the trans rights activists who want the author to be cancelled because she believes they are frustrated at not having a platform of their own.

She said: "If you were a young person who\'s feeling really insecure, and you had no money to make your voice heard, well, maybe it was about the fact that she has a voice and you feel you don\'t have a voice.

"Maybe you\'d feel she had the privilege of a voice... It\'s very hard for some people to find a voice. If they don\'t have the education and so forth.

"And if they find themselves without access to the education, and without the wherewithal or friendships or family to help them through things -- the feeling that they are in the wrong place in their body and they want to transition -- it\'s tough for them. I can\'t imagine what that would be like."