The algorithms for social media creates echo chambers; serving you content that you already biased towards. And an open internet brings all these weirdos together to amplify and reinforce each other's messages.
As bad and annoying as moderators can be here on reddit, this entire place would be a giant cesspool of garbage if it weren't for them censoring and removing irrelevant posts.
Censorship isn't all good and it isn't all bad. And it doesn't help to think of it in such a black and white way.
Maintaining relevance, I would argue, isn't censorship. By stretching the definition, it could be... but ultimately, we can and do give that a pass. Removing recent reposts also, I would say, isn't censorship at all.
Censorship is the suppression of speech based on a person deciding whether they think the material should be distributed or not for whatever reason. You hate reposts, but I love them because most of the time that is when I am seeing that content for the first time. I may submit a post thinking it is relevant to the subreddit, and a mod can disagree and remove it, effectively censoring me.
It's very subjective and that's why there can never be a definitive argument for censorship one way or the other. That's why there will always be some compromise in censorship and free speech.
I generally agree but my problem with this is that some guy going on racist / disinformative rants shouldn’t really have a platform to do so. Think Alex Jones. People using words like suicide and murder in an informative way that explains a situation should definitely not be censored, but someone going online and telling people to commit suicide or murder should most definitely be censored.
Censor illegal content like CP, sure, but not cusswords or nudity on something for mature audience.
What's more wild is that the censorship algorithm for these websites are just dogshit, especially YouTube's. You'll see normal comments get removed, but blatantly xenophobic and sexist ones stay. Reddit is OK for now, but one sub had a mod bot give me a warning saying I was being homophobic when my comment was being super Pro-LGBTQ and had up votes, it didn't have a slur or anything in it.
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u/tykaboom 1d ago
I dont want to use social media that cencors the words suicide, murder, kill, shoot, 3d print, and gun.
Oh, and let people be racist. If they choose to be... the normal people out there will know who to avoid better.
Censorship has never been and will never be the solution.
Censorship creates echo chambers and deludes people into thinking that they are always right.