The Problem with Censorship

Censorship of political thought is a silly idea regardless of whether it is done directly by government, as has been the rule in the past, or by corporations as is the norm today. More often than not, the censors get exactly the opposite of what they hoped for.

The reason for this is that the chances of getting censorship right is virtually zero. Top quality censorship has to be done subtly, and with style. It must be viewed as a necessary and useful intrusion into the public debate. Otherwise people end up resenting the censorship, and sympathising with the ones being censored. The sensors must in other words be fairly sophisticated. They must also be very numerous. That's a tall order to fill, and very expensive to boot. The censoring agents will therefore have to employ less subtle methods. They will use machines to censor in bulk, and they will employ people so devoted to censorship that they are willing to work for very little money.

No matter how technologically advanced we become, censorship will remain a tool of the brutes. Machines will fail to filter correctly, and volunteers will make it worse. The end result is something that is either so clownishly stupid that it backfires spectacularly, or so horrifying that it silences people without changing their minds. Either way, there will be resentment. But in the event of apparent success, we get a further dynamic. The censoring agents start believing their own propaganda. Emboldened and internally pressured by their peers, they move the goal post farther to the extreme. This pushes the enabling agents in this direction, opening the middle ground for the opposition. From the looks of it, this is what's going on in US politics at the moment. The Democratic party is drifting farther to the left, allowing Republicans to capture the middle ground.

Joe Biden receives presidential medal of freedom

By Chuck Kennedy - https://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse/photos/pb.63811549237.-2207520000.1484275919./10155140878359238/?type=3&theater, Public Domain, Link