Does Censorship work?

 As mentioned in an earlier post, censorship is not an effective way to prevent the dissemination of information. It can slow such dissemination and make it more inconvenient, but it cannot stop the spread of information. Phenomena such as samizdat, steganography and even double entendre can be used to circumvent censorship efforts. Censorship carries a negative connotation, evoking images of totalitarian repression, Nazi and Soviet excesses, and the misery with which they were associated. Censorship seems to be all downs-side, with little benefit.

Organizations such as social media companies, news outlets and academic institutions resort to censorship not to suppress information, but to delegitimize it. It is little more than a clumsy way to cast aspersions, i.e. engage in name-calling, with respect to competing perspectives. The goal of censorship, or its modern euphemistic incarnations such as “fact-checking” or “countering disinformation” is a primitive form of argument in which one side invalidates the other’s opinions by proclamation. The “fact-checkers” and social media platforms decide that certain ideas are undesirable, so they label them and pretend that those ideas have been objectively discredited when they have not. This tactic likely has some effect in the short term, but it can only be maintained at the cost of the censors credibility. Each instance in which information was suppressed and subsequently found to be legitimate, as happened with much Coronavirus information, detracts from the authority and influence of the platforms and institutions engaging in such suppression. The result will be that social medial companies, colleges and universities and news organizations will have squandered their credibility, and it will be unavailable to them when it might actually be needed.