this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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No you can't threaten to harm public officials here and get away with it nor is that censorship.
Whether I agree with you or not, technically, it is still censorship. Censorship is the limitations and restrictions on the freedom of expression, for example, prohibiting the publication of threats of violence is still a restriction on freedom of expression. It just happens to be censorship you agree with - that does not counteract the fact that it is censorship.
I think technically censorship is the editing of the content, not a system of consequences for the content. Traditionally censors operate in the publication pipeline, taking articles as input and providing new articles as output.
There’s information suppression, which can include both censorship and silencing of voices, which is what I’d call what you’re referring to.
Censorship usually is taken to mean the suppression of speech or writing. If you’re legally prohibited from saying or writing something, you’re being censored, by definition.
Where are you getting your definition of censorship as meaning content being edited?
From the fact that “censors” were people stationed at newspapers in the 20th century, doing what I said.
The term predates that usage by well over 2000 years. Roman censors would essentially punish people for immoral behaviour by taking away their rights or by reducing their status in some way - for example, punishing them for speaking out of turn or publishing offensive material.
This is a pedantic view of the language that doesn't add much to the conversation. When a normal person talks about censorship, they mean speech that isn't direct threats or divulging of information that everyone understands to be dangerous in the wrong hands - like personal information or state secrets, like, say, what the nuclear codes are.
Of course there are exceptions to everything, but we all understand what "censorship" means, and squashing calls for assassinations or other violence is not it.
See, what you’re having trouble with here is that you don’t want to support censorship, even though you do. You don’t like the connotations, so you find some excuse that makes it more comfortable for you. It’s cowardly and dishonest. The word means what it means. Call me a pedant, tell me I’m not adding to the conversation, I don’t care. You’re still supporting censorship whether you want to wear that label or not.