The advent of cancel culture as a form of digital public discourse poses a significant challenge to freedom of expression in India by generating a form of horizontal chilling effect that operates beyond traditional constitutional restraints on State censorship. Unlike vertical restrictions governed by Article 19(1)(a), cancel culture involves decentralized social mobilization through digital platforms, where reputational condemnation, professional exclusion, and psychological harm may arise without meaningful opportunity to respond, judicial oversight, or procedural safeguards. This creates a constitutional lacuna in which informal social punishment can substantially affect expressive freedom without directly engaging the existing framework governing State action. The doctrinal foundation for examining this phenomenon lies in the Supreme Court’s decision in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, where vague and overbroad restrictions were invalidated for their potential to produce a chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech. This article argues that algorithmically amplified social condemnation can generate a structurally analogous chilling effect, although through informal and decentralized mechanisms rather than explicit legal prohibition. The resulting tension raises questions concerning the horizontal application of constitutional values, particularly freedom of expression and principles of procedural fairness, within digital public discourse. The article therefore contends that addressing cancel culture through expansive State regulation risks reproducing the very dangers of excessive speech control that Shreya Singhal sought to prevent. Instead, it proposes a resilience-based constitutional approach centred on four structural interventions: strengthening counter-speech as an alternative to cancellation, developing proportionate accountability norms for online communities, encouraging procedural fairness in digital accountability practices, and investing in digital literacy. Such an approach seeks to preserve democratic pluralism while mitigating the informal chilling effects generated by algorithmically amplified public condemnation.