'Cancel Culture' and the Sin of Backbiting

This happens all the time: A prominent person, call her "Smith," an expert on X, is asked to speak at a university about X. But some people don’t like Smith’s view on X, or Smith’s politics. And so they try to get Smith’s speech "cancelled." To do so, they hunt through everything that Smith ever posted on social media, to find a comment or two which, taken out of context, will look stupid, thoughtless, or insensitive to various mobilized interest groups.