Specifically, "the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" is a statement of John Gilmore and originally referred to Usenet (not the Internet)

Specifically, "the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" is a statement of John Gilmore and originally referred to Usenet (not the Internet). In its most literal sense, it refers to the fact that Usenet tried to achieve reliability by replicating a complete set of recent articles by a flood fill-like algorithm, regardless of the specific path that they took to reach an individual node. Therefore, if you deleted an individual article in one place, it would still propagate elsewhere, even if it took a longer route to reach a given destination. It also has a more figurative interpretation in which net users try to maintain connectivity and the free flow of information, and try to find workarounds when either is disrupted.