This blog is part of my 38 34 before 38 series. I write a blog for every single day for the 38 days leading up to my 38th Birthday.
Warning: There is a tangential discussion of abuse. Read at your own discretion.
I have written about how people, even well-informed and educated people, get the concept of Free Speech wrong. And in turn their definitions of censorship are just as incorrect.
Also, there is a huge gulf between what people online say about censorship, and what people deem acceptable behavior in a public place. And in turn, what they deem “censorship” depends upon if the “censored” subject agrees with their politics.
What is censorship?
There are many usages of the term. When describing malicious censorship, people mean to refer to state repression. Despite the fact that many democracies, like Australia, have official state censors. While others, like the US, have private industry group that might as well be state institutions.
The operative term being “mean to refer to” in the previous paragraph. Almost every time I have encountered the term on Social media, or reddit, or hacker news, the term is not referring to any state repression. It is referring to moderation policies employed by platforms such as Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Some might argue that these all encompassing communication platforms are similar to state institutions. But even then, those people do not have a problem with state backed censorship most of the time.
Because it is justified.
Social mores
Every state in the world has some limits to expression, like slander/libel, state secrets, etc. There is discussion to be had on where the state is over-reaching. But one form of censorship that is universally agreed upon is the ban of distribution and publish of CSAM(Child Sexual Abuse Material).
There are degenerates who might disagree, but most would not state it in public without guarantee of anonymity. The ones who do are shunned socially. No decent human being would argue against this censorship. Not only, we would have no problem if any social platform removed such media. The people railing against ‘censorship’ would celebrate it.
What this shows that there is a line for all of us. For some, this is the only line. In my opinion, that is not restrictive enough. There should be no pictures of children on social media. I know I am in the minority. However, if I was in charge of a social media platform, I would censor all family vloggers. And I would be well within my rights. I have no obligation of tolerating ideas I find abhorrent. You might disagree. You can leave the platform.
This is not me proselytizing. I am just trying to illustrate that certain amount of censorship is not only acceptable, but necessary. Where that line is usually arrived upon by unwritten social rules. They vary from community to community, but they exist everywhere.