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I know that this is a hopeless request but can we stop using the word "censor" when we are really talking about curation, or editorial policy, or private busine

by gwright 14y ago

I know that this is a hopeless request but can we stop using the word "censor" when we are really talking about curation, or editorial policy, or private business decisions, etc? Government imposed restrictions on speech and/or commerce is something entirely different from plain old business decisions and it would be nice if we didn't conflate the two things by overloading the meaning of "censorship".

bookwormAT 14y ago
IMHO, restrictions on speech and/or commerce do not need to be imposed by a government in order to count as censorship. Any controlling body will do. If you control software distribution on a plaform, you directly or indirectly control every information that customers of that platform receive. I think this covers censorship. Of course iOS does not have a dominant position in the market yet, so censorship is limited by the customers choice to switch to another device. But as I explained above, the moment to speak against the control is now, as long as there are still alternatives left. I think this "plain old business decision" is a political issue of great importance.
- gwright 14y ago
  Ok so now 'business' is the same as 'politics'? The problem with tossing all these things into the same etymological barrel is that you lose the ability to communicate effectively about their differences. Government restrictions imposed by force are not the same thing as market realities created by private decisions. Business decisions are not the same thing as public policy crafted via the political process. It is true that business decisions can have public policy implications and vice versa. That doesn't make them the same thing though.
eschulte 14y ago
"Mr. Tower's [your] distinction [...] is spurious. The essence of censorship is the suppression of a particular point of view [...] over the channels of the mass media, and the question of who does the censoring is one of form only." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship

by gwright 14y ago

bookwormAT 14y ago

IMHO, restrictions on speech and/or commerce do not need to be imposed by a government in order to count as censorship. Any controlling body will do. If you control software distribution on a plaform, you directly or indirectly control every information that customers of that platform receive. I think this covers censorship. Of course iOS does not have a dominant position in the market yet, so censorship is limited by the customers choice to switch to another device. But as I explained above, the moment to speak against the control is now, as long as there are still alternatives left. I think this "plain old business decision" is a political issue of great importance.

gwright 14y ago
Ok so now 'business' is the same as 'politics'? The problem with tossing all these things into the same etymological barrel is that you lose the ability to communicate effectively about their differences. Government restrictions imposed by force are not the same thing as market realities created by private decisions. Business decisions are not the same thing as public policy crafted via the political process. It is true that business decisions can have public policy implications and vice versa. That doesn't make them the same thing though.

eschulte 14y ago

"Mr. Tower's [your] distinction [...] is spurious. The essence of censorship is the suppression of a particular point of view [...] over the channels of the mass media, and the question of who does the censoring is one of form only." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship