What is cancel culture if not a combination of hate and the ability of private companies to censor people? As the ACLU notes, it's how McCarthyism worked:

"Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional. In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment, although they can become dangerous in the extreme. Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period."

I wrote about this issue here:

https://medium.com/difficult-subjects/xkcd-doesnt-understand-free-speech-or-the-difference-between-legal-and-moral-rights-20ba439dee04