Censorship

This post will address the topic at a more general level.  It will however address some internal things at Vox Nova.  Those things addressed are my opinion.  I will attempt to make that clear when I comment upon them, but I figured I would offer it up front here as well.

There are many who don’t like comment policies on blogs.  I generally don’t like them, although I do find some entertaining.  There are times when they are essential.  For example, I know of one blog that represented itself as a forum for Lutherans and asked that only Lutherans comment; hence non-Lutherans were censored.  Oddly enough, even this minimal level of restraint can cause offense with people.  Such people would ask whether the Lutherans were afraid to hear the truth.  Most folks I think recognized the private association just didn’t want to offer their forum for outsiders to proselytize.

The intersection of public and private is always interesting.  For example, is filing a criminal complaint a public or private matter?  I would consider it a private matter, since the intent was not wide dissemination.  One has little difficulty composing an argument that it is indeed a public matter.  Another interesting case is refusing entry into a church.  My understanding is that many churches in Rome prominently post dress codes and refuse entry to those who don’t comply.  If this were ever attempted in the U.S., there would be an outcry.  Even presently when a church is closed, you find people attempting to argue that they can’t be arrested for trespassing in their own church.

The examples I have given so far may seem odd in a self-titled post on censorship.  The reason I offer them up is that the first offers an example of an openly private transaction.  Victims of crime who file a complaint have an expectation that the act of filing itself will be handled in an appropriate manner.  They and the accused also have some assurance, often explicit, that the accusation itself will not bring about a societal condemnation.  Admittedly, there exceptional cases.  The second example shows that institutions can have a character of their own whose interest is greater than any member’s interest.  We are more often willing to see these conflicting interests in areas other than censorship.

At present we live in a very liberal society with regards to public speech in particular.  Some of this has been very deliberate, like sunshine laws.  This reflects the predominant view in society that whatever harms public knowledge would cause are obviated by the benefits disclosure offers.  Except we really don’t believe that or we don’t act as if we believe it.  At its zenith, many communities had public access stations that offered mostly trash.  So we as a society are willing to agree that some things by their very nature are not conducive to the public good.  The floor provided by Manhattan’s Public Access channel would seem reasonable, as in not too high, for most people.  A counterexample people may be tempted to offer is YouTube.  Even they have standards.  Despite that, the garbage to quality ratio on YouTube is very high.

When the censorship objection is lodged, what the objector should be doing is stating why they have a right to be doing what they are doing.  (By the way, email is the best way to lodge an objection over censorship, not the forum from which you were censored.  If the next thing you offer is “Don’t taze me man”, don’t be shocked if you are tazed.)  All too often people say to the effect, “I know I was rude or I shouldn’t have sworn, but they still shouldn’t have censored me.”  I have actually been censored a time or two for those reasons.  I don’t offer that reply though, because I don’t believe I have a right to swear or be obnoxious.  Typically, I will let the situation rest at that and not offer further comment.  I have even been known to email the author and apologize without an expectation of reciprocity.  Sometimes I can unilaterally by jerk.

The funniest comment I have seen was to the effect of “I can’t believe a Catholic forum engages in censorship,” as if there was something particularly offensive to catholic sensibilities.  Certainly there are areas within the Catholic tradition where open speculation is encouraged, but there are other areas of Catholic tradition that are heavily formalized.  Many a layman has had great frustration attempting to get an official response from a dicastary.  More often, when a response is received, the response will be to the effect of “X asked me to respond to your inquiry to him….”  What made Pope Benedict’s personally answering the petitions of some of the victims of sexual abuse by priests so significant is that this kind of meeting is very rarely done.  Offering injurious speech and dangererous ideas as well the failure to censor and punish the same have been addressed by serveral Pontiffs.  On many Catholic blogs you will see the Danish cartoonists that drew cartoons intended to offend Muslims as evidence of a coming Dhimmitude because so many places censored the cartoons.  The Vatican on the other hand had no issue condemning the cartoons.

I have probably deleted more comments on this blog than anyone else.  Do I enjoy censoring content?  Not particularily.  Do I play favorites?  Yes.  Those commenters I have seen commenting for awhile have significantly more freedom than those that haven’t.  For fairness obsessives, this means that indulgence is granted.  Do I feel any sadness when a comment is deleted?  No.  I sleep well at night.  My purpose with censoring content is to keep the conversation moving.  Considering my purpose here is to talk about my ideas, it works well for me.