I don't think there would have been a straightforward way to connect that to the effects of censorship.
"interprets damage as censorship and..." where these terms are being treated as equivalent
Interpreting one thing as another thing does not imply the inverse. The order in the original quote matters.
In the context of knowing the internet (DARPANet) was designed to be resilient and route around damaged nodes, hearing "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" immediately connects the ideas.