MANNERS, NOT RIGHTS:

For years one side has claimed that certain incidents were infringements of freedom of speech, of association, or even of rule of law. These incidents were less "shut your mouth" and more "fire this person immediately," or, further, "join me in calling for this person to be fired." They involve using speech to call for social sanctions, the manner of which can take many forms. A business can be boycotted, an employee--rather than facing termination--may be subject to an embarrassing internal investigation, or reprimand, or on the harsher end, demoted or transferred to a position with fewer prospects for career growth. Publishers can retract articles or papers, or terminate book deals. Brands can terminate sponsorship deals and advertisers can withdraw their buys. Invitations to events can be rescinded or never sent in the first place. Friendships can end. The very mechanisms which sustain and fulfill us in commercial and civil society, and indeed in private life, are also the very mechanisms that can be used to influence our actions--or simply to hurt us.

This of course is to cast it all in a negative light, but the entire problem is that it's not possible to characterize these things as illiberal or immoral or even undesirable in general terms. Ending an abusive relationship isn't immoral. Ending a friendship with someone who unpleasantly dominates all conversations with QAnon conspiracy theories is not illiberal. Firing an employee who pressures their direct reports to donate to particular political causes or campaigns is not undesirable. One side calls the demand for and delivering of social sanctions illiberal, or infringements of the liberty of the sanctioned, while others respond by pointing out, correctly, that freedom of speech, of association, and of contract, are all that has been exercised by the sanctioners in these cases.

There is no coherent formulation of rights which renders any of these illiberal.

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