Moderation v. Discretion v. Censorship: They're Not The Same
Moderation is a platform operator saying "we don't do that here". Discretion is you saying "I won't do that there". Censorship is someone saying "you can't do that anywhere" before or after threats of either violence or government intervention.
Regular Techdirt commenters have seen that paragraph show up often in recent months. But what does it really mean? Well, as the person who crafted that bit (and who uses it on a regular basis), I'mma do you an explain.
Moderation
Moderation is a platform operator saying "we don't do that here". When I use that phrase, I may cite a column from a blog called Thagomizer. (That column helped me start crafting my bit in the first place.) In the column, writer Aja Hammerly refers to it as a "magic" phrase:
["We don't do that here"] is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says "we don't do that here", it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn't push my morality on anyone. If they want to do whatever it is elsewhere, I'm not telling them not to. I'm just cluing them into the local culture and values. If I deliver this sentence well it carries no more emotional weight than saying, "in Japan, people drive on the left." "We don't do that here" should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals.
All moderation decisions on an interactive Web service boil down to "we don't do that here". When Twitter punishes a user over a tweet that breaks the rules, the admins have all but said that phrase. Twitter doesn't care if you do "that" elsewhere. But it doesn't want you doing "that" on Twitter.
What makes this different from censorship? Moderation lacks the force of law. Twitter can ban a user for breaking the rules, of course. But it can't stop that user from posting their speech elsewhere. Someone banned from Twitter for saying racial slurs can go to 4chan and still post those slurs. Moderation is a social consequence: A moderator thought someone was acting like an ignorant jerk, and they showed that jerk the door.
Discretion
Discretion is you saying "I won't do that there". Some people might think of discretion as self-censorship. But that phrasing focuses on the negative idea of chilled speech. I prefer to think of discretion as an act of personal restraint.
As an example, consider the hypothetical case of Joe Straightdude. Joe doesn't believe he hates gay people (though he doesn't "agree with" homosexuality). One night, he sees a pro-LGBT post on a Facebook group that rubs him the wrong way. He writes an angry reply to the post that includes a well-known anti-LGBT slur. But before Joe posts it, he stops himself. He thinks about whether his reply needs that slur. Then he thinks through the possible fallout of posting the whole reply. After a few minutes of thinking, he deletes what he typed without posting it.
What makes discretion different from censorship? In the example above, Joe wouldn't have faced any legal fallout for his reply if he had posted it. And no one forced him to not post the reply. He made his choice based on whether he wanted to face negative social consequences. Joe took responsibility for his actions and showed restraint all on his own.
Censorship
Censorship is someone saying "you can't do that anywhere" before or after threats of either violence or government intervention. Lawsuits. Arrests. Fines. Jail time. Threats involving any of those four. Any one of those things suck more than an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. When they're attached to speech, they become the tools of censors.
I could come up with hypothetical examples of censorship, sure. But why do that when so many real examples exist?
- the existence of laws that criminalize blasphemy
- Shiva Ayyadurai's attempt to sue Techdirt over the assertion that he didn't invent modern email
- the DMCA notice sent to Twitter by a gun rights activist to take down a video of her
- the Chinese government's attempts to memory-hole the Tiananmen Square Massacre
- Hungarian police arresting a man for posts critical of the Hungarian government
- American Media Inc. using legal threats to stop Australian booksellers from carrying Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
What sets censorship apart from moderation and discretion? Simply put, censorship has the rule of law behind it. Twitter can't stop banned users from using the speech that got them banned on another service. But a court that rules to suppress speech puts the weight of the law behind that ruling. It says, "Publish that speech anywhere and we'll fine you or toss you in jail." The same goes for police officers who punish people for legal speech that offends others. And people who threaten lawsuits and arrests qualify as wannabe censors at "best". Such actions can, and often do, result in chilled speech.
And chilled speech, unlike discretion, carries an air of legal consequences. The lawsuits filed by Devin Nunes to identify Twitter user @DevinCow have one real purpose ("unmask that user"). That user feels emboldened to mock Nunes because they remain anonymous. But if Nunes succeeds in his goal, that user would have less reason to keep posting. Nunes would take the choice of discretion out of that user's hands. ("I don't want him to sue me again, so why risk it?") To put it another way: Discretion is when you show restraint; censorship is when the government restrains you.
Censorship can also happen without any actual legal threats. American movie studios will often censor their own films to appease foreign governments, even if those governments don't threaten legal action. But countries like China can make or break the profitability of a film. The threat is thus implicit: "Censor your movies or they won't play here." Studios have a financial incentive, then, to censor their films and "play nice".
Moderation As "Censorship"
Some people refer to moderation decisions that affect them as "censorship" because they feel they've been censored. Maybe they think a platform punished them for holding certain political views. Maybe they think a platform punished them for bigoted reasons. Whatever the reason, those people feel that losing their spot on the platform is censorship. But they're not angry about losing their right to speak. (Twitter, Facebook, etc. can't take that away from them, anyway.)
A platform the size of Twitter or Facebook comes with a built-in potential audience of millions. Anyone banned from Twitter loses the ability to reach that audience. For some people, such a loss can feel like censorship — even though it isn't. No one has the right to an audience. No one has the right to make someone listen. But entitled people think they do have those rights, and any "violation" of those "rights" is "censorship".
On the other hand, marginalized creators who lose that platform may be dealt a huge blow to the reach of their content. And if they feel like they were punished in some way for bullshit reasons, their feeling "censored" holds far more validity. Just ask LGBTQ YouTubers whose videos were demonetized because the videos contained pro-LGBTQ content.
In the strictest of legal senses, what Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. do when they moderate speech on their platforms isn't censorship. But when it comes to morals and ethics…well, everyone has an opinion.
The Last Word...That Isn't
And in fairness, most of what you read above is an opinion — my own, and nobody else's. I don't consider what I've said to be the "last word" on the matter. If anything, those three sentences only summarize my opinions on these issues. They don't get into the morality or ethics of moderation, such as Blizzard's decision to punish Blitzchung for his support for Hong Kong. They don't say "people can't use 'censorship' in a colloquial sense" (although I do think that cheapens the concept). And besides all that, opinions should be discussed, debated, and even changed.
Think of this, then, as an opening for that debate. Use this as a springboard to form your own opinions, and share them in the comments. Agree with me? Great. Disagree with me? Even better — because through disagreement and reasoned discussion, we can improve and refine our opinions.
But don't get mad if one of your comments gets flagged. That isn't censorship — it's moderation, working as intended.