Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
If you use the word "censorship" so broadly, you rob it of genuine meaning.
One does not rob "censorship" of its meaning by using one of its definitions; to remove or suppress information on moral or political grounds. In fact the very denial of this definition is to rob it of genuine meaning. What is being proposed is self-censorship. Indeed, institutionalised self-censorship. How one can deny this I find a little hard to grasp. I would in fact be hard pressed to think of a better example.
When we correct a grammatical error, are we censoring the error? When we decide that a picture of George Washington goes on the George Washington page, rather than the Thomas Jefferson page, are we censoring?
These are done purely on editorial grounds. When we make a decision to hide or remove an image based on some people's moral objections that it is "pornographic", "disgusting", "sexually explicit", etc. we are not making a purely editorial decision.
We make editorial judgments all the time, on all kinds of things. Should we put a scandal about a politician high in the article or further down? Should we show a picture at the top of the page, or the bottom? Should we show a picture directly or via a link?
Yes we do make editorial judgments all the time. What brings them into the realm of self-censorship is the reasons for those edits. Some have grasped this point early on and attempted to frame their argument in terms of "aesthetics", which I find a little disingenuous.
If all of those things are censorship, then censorship doesn't sound so bad after all.
Yes but this is a straw man argument.
I don't care for this argument for another reason. Many of us who propose putting the image on a link are literally prepared to risk our lives to fight censorship, should be become necessary. We are extremely opposed to censorship. Calling us censors is a "low blow" then, because it causes us to fear that we have done something terribly out of line with our own principles.
Yes but you are using but one definition of the word to mean that of censorship imposed by authority. I agree, that's not the kind of censorship we are faced with.
This is why I think it is important to move this debate away from questions of "censorship" -- which is manifestly is not -- and towards "quality of presentation of information".
I think we should face up to what is actually being proposed and get on with deciding a very important question: is self-censorship a course we want to take or not?
Christiaan