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Comment by southernplaces7 | Hacker News Reader

The prudishness of censorship has always been a blight upon people's ability to express freely in interesting ways. It's even sadder to see it take spread in the supposedly liberal modern world like never before through bland corporate algorithmic controls enforced by emotionally stunted PR functionaries, blanketing the digital world with saccharine expressive mediocrity.

Amusingly, this algorithmic censorship within contrived social media "communities" is being enforced by some of the most morally bankrupt, psychologically parasitic technology companies on the planet.

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The prudishness of censorship has always been a blight upon people's ability to express freely in interesting ways.

I disagree. Expression is separate from distribution. People are almost always free to express themselves. Sometimes, they can only do it in private or anonymously. This is why safe spaces are important. Additionally, interesting artistic expression can be a reaction to censorship.

Maybe a simple analogy is rock n roll music or rap music. At a time, it was was being censored way worse than this. After reaching critical mass despite not having mainstream infrastructure, it thrives today. Just because something isn't mainstream, it doesn't mean it's not being expressed, cultivated, consumed or explored. Just like there were clubs that supported alternative music, there are corners of the "digital world" that support art of all kinds.

On that note, a lot of people were smart and embraced the Streisand Effect. Come see the art Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want you to see :)

You disagree that censorship has historically been a stain on free expression? Or do you disagree with some deeper point? Do you really think the big tech platforms' algorithmic blocking of content with nearly zero human intervention in all the absurdities that happen is generally a good thing? Do you also think that the modern tech platform attitude towards nudity and sexuality (visibly, decidedly censorious) is a good thing as well?

I won't even ask about the utter stupidity that is blocking historic works of art because a brainless algorithm can't distinguish one human creation from another in the right way.

Does Target have a right to not sell porn? Or is that censorship?

I don't think Target deals with user generated content so it's a bit of a different situation.

I'd suggest you learn a bit more about the practice of valid comparisons.

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