It feels like censorship is only decried when something is taken away from us. Like a parent taking a toy from us.
But what we don’t always realize is that censorship exists at all stages before that thing is ever even ours. And censorship isn’t necessarily the right word.
Decisions were made before that toy landed in our hands. Someone had to think of the original idea. Somehow that idea was selected among the many they had. Then it may have been brought forward to a group who then decided that the original magenta color was not marketable so they changed it to yellow and then decided that the elephant logo was too divisive so a hedgehog was selected. And so on.
Decrying censorship is ignoring all the many decisions, and many possibly biased decisions, made before that toy/product/book/article/publication was put out into the market. Decrying censorship as evil means that the original decisions were perfect and any new information is not as valid.
What we are really upset about is not censorship. We are upset about losing the toy that we thought was ours to have and losing any semblance of control in the process as a rabid consumer. But was did we ever really have control?
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