Nuanced Censorship

Two typical dictionary definitions of "censorship" are:

1. The process of removing parts of books, movies, letters, etc. that are considered inappropriate for moral, religious, or political reasons.

2. The practice of limiting access to information, ideas or books in order to prevent knowledge or freedom of thought.

Both leave open who is the censor – a government, religious authorities or other.

In contrast, Ayn Rand asserted that “censorship” pertains only to government being the censor (link).

Whether you agree with the dictionaries or Rand, it would be helpful to have two terms to distinguish who the censor is in this era of “hate speech” and actions by Facebook, Google, and YouTube. “Censorship” could refer to censorship by a government. “Quasi-censorship” could refer to censorship by a non-government entity such as Facebook, Google, or YouTube.

The distinction is still not as clear as it may seem at first. Suppose:

- the government passes a law specifying what sort of content can be legally censored by Facebook et al

- Facebook et al heavily, successfully influences the legislative details such that the details are much like what Facebook would do anyway on its own.

Hence, the legislation is authored in effect by government and other entities, crossing the presumed boundary between “censorship” and “quasi-censorship.” But at least it affords a boundary between legal/illegal and extra-legal (not a matter of law). That leads to a different distinction. “Censorship” could refer to censorship by a government. “Extra-legal censorship” could refer to censorship by a non-government entity.