> see the censorship/moderation debate in public discourse today. I think a direct line can be drawn between societal Nicespeak and our almost compulsive need

> see the censorship/moderation debate in public discourse today. I think a direct line can be drawn between societal Nicespeak and our almost compulsive need to scrub social media et al. of anything sufficiently nonconformist. I'm sympathetic to this line of reasoning, but I think these are somewhat different phenomena. I am arguing that nicespeak is not actually something new, but rather the contemporary form of something that people have always engaged in. I would say a more direct line exists between current discourse policing and prior periods' "corruption of public morals" concerns, such as they Hollywood code imposed to restrict what sorts of behavior could be depicted on screen, the prohibition on swearing or nudity on television, or the banning of "immoral" books in libraries.