Moving this to politics because it pisses me off.
"Censorship" is defined by a government deciding what media can report on, and from which angles/with which opinions on it.
What we see with Big Tech is something different. No matter how important for the public discourse social networks are, they are private property. Let's take a small-scale analogy: Imagine a town somewhere in middle England where there's only one pub. This place is where everyone goes, where people fall in love, where marriages are brokered, business deals are hedged, and politics are discussed. If you don't have access or don't got to the pub, you are excluded from the most influential discourses in society, just like it seems with social networks on a global scale.
But that does not change the fact that the pub's landlord decides who shall be allowed to drink in his establishment. If you piss him off, by being rude, by being annoying, by starting a fight, by having an opinion he does not like, or simply because he does not like your face, he will kick you out. And ban you. And no matter how much that means you now are excluded from any meaningful access to discourse, it's his right as a businessman to refuse you service. So now all you can do is keep a low profile and wait until he lets you in again. Or, of course, open up a competing pub where bar fights are allowed, and see how that goes.
But censorship it ain't, it's a business deciding whom to allow on their property and serve.
And as a sidenote, I find it darkly funny that it's those heralds of free enterprise, who decry any kind of regulation, healthcare, unions as "socialism" that interferes with the free market, that claim they are being "censored" by big tech.
Technically correct, but perhaps not inclusive of some rather crucial modifiers.
I like the pub analogy. usually I use a town square or a park because even on those at some point the police will be summoned and remove you off the premises if your behavior is disruptive enough, but let's keep with that one. The crucial element on this one is summed up on a sentence
"On a global scale"
So suppose that someone in the town in medieval England doesn't want to conduct their business in the pub, they move away, they find another pub in the town, just kidding, they have been transported to the same pub. In more modern times, it is a pub chain. And no matter where this person goes on the entire planet, the pubs are owned by the same chain. Advertising space disproportionately favors the pub. And whenever a competing pub shows up, they're fine with it until it shows the possibility to rise close to the incumbent pub chain. They can deal with this in a couple of ways:
- Buy the pub chain outright. That way you can even have the illusion of choice while maintaining absolute dominance
- Since everyone is coming to your pubs anyway, you can just edge the conversations related to the new pub into a narrative that says that it is entirely populated by assholes. This is actually rather easy. After all, nobody buys newspapers anymore, they get their news from people in the pub who have read them. Not to mention the clippings on the bathrooms (you decide which clippings you put there).
- Get the owners of that pub to sell the drinks from your pub. you're big enough that brewers willingly give you preferential treatment and will sell to you first, and independently hopefully.
Also, the drinks in these pubs are laced with cocaine. The owner of the pub has realized addicts make him loads of cash, is not especially interested in their wellbeing, and has extrapolated that the ideal behavior for his business is that everyone in the single pub chain available on the entire planet is addicted to its products, everything on the rest of their life be dammed.
Slightly more dystopic, isn't it?
Now, awdrifter's example is rather a good one, because it is an example where the fact that social media as an arbiter of truth is welcome and justified. We can all agree that misinformation about vaccines and anti-vaccine campaigns is dangerous and should be kept as tightly monitored and controlled as possible. Hilariously, anti-vaccine behavior even affects the very small, but still existent number of people who are unable to take the vaccine and end up being paraiahs no matter how many special exemption papers they have.
However, the concern, as ever, remains the execution of this behavior on matters that are not so clear cut. Unsurprisingly, these are generally political. and if they aren't, they will inevitably turn towards being political. Private enterprise will have a vested interest on one or another political stance (just as anyone else). More than one of the big platforms has been categorical in saying that their duty is to "shape the conversation". Now, if you agree with how they want to do that today it sounds great. Hooray, we're on the winning side and we're sticking it to the ignoramuses and the wicked. For everyone else, it's horrifying. This is before considering that you may agree with them today, not tomorrow. And then the structure you praised is now crushing you.
Merriam-Webster defines censor as:
"an official who examines materials (such as publications or films) for objectionable matter". There is no mention of government. And, as someone who likes free speech, I wince a bit whenever the unconfortable truth about social media and its disproportionate power on world discourse is tackled.