It is, by definition, censorship. It's not _government_ censorship, but it's still censorship.

Yeah, but so what?

Companies need censorship to make money. They shouldn't have to lose money simply to satisfy your or my idea of not censoring.

Now the government? Yeah. That's a whole other issue.

Yeah, but so what?

Companies need to trample on your human rights to make money.

Now the government? Yeah. That's a whole other issue.

False. Freedom of speech outweighs property rights and the right of corporations' "Freedom of association."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBozijndSLc

It becomes a political issue when all companies start engaging with it, especially when they do so under external political pressure ("We really don't want to pass a law - how about you self-regulate?").

Consider the situation in Australia, where all ISPs acted in concert to block websites. It's technically not government censorship, but the effect is the same - so any utilitarian rationale behind restrictions on government censorship should apply here equally.

Or maybe this should just be considered a form of illegal cartel.

I'm going into nitpicking rabbit hole, but the definition of 'censorship' is government censorship. The word comes from Roman republic position of 'censor'.

"The censor was a magistrate in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_censor

When its not government censorship it's called self-censorship or something entirely different.

Ironically, I've rarely seen a thread with so much downvoting as this one. Is trying to grey-out a post the same as wanting to censor it? I just went through and upvoted most of the posts that were grey.

I was thinking about it. Making up filters to filter other people expression, using rules that are not explicitly enumerated in Governing laws -- is selective censorship.

Making up speech/expression filters that are explicitly enumerated by governing laws, is censorship too -- but this one is not 'selective', instead it is mandated.

So the opposition that people have on these topics, is towards 'selective censorship', not the 'mandated' one.

The next argument for 'selective sensorship' -- is that a private business can make up their own rules.

My view is, yes, private business can -- but then, the content where selective-censorship was applied, cannot be available publicly without a fee.

So, if Facebook wants to do selective-censorship, then ok --

however, that filtered content should be available only to people who selected to participate in explicit business relationship with Facebook.