Censorship Culture
Description
Lee Jussim:
"Censorship involves shutting people up and takes two main forms:
- De-platforming: Not permitting them to use a platform to express themselves.
- Punishment: A credible threat of punishment for expressing ideas.
What is a culture of censorship? It is mostly informal processes—social, political, organizational, and psychological—that "justify" or implement suppression of the free expression of ideas. This includes the skeptical questioning or challenging of people—such as political leaders, elites, scientists, so-called "thought-leaders," and media outlets.
But it is not just the suppression of people; even more important, it is the suppression of ideas. When the expression of certain ideas has a high risk of punishment, one has a culture (or subculture) of censorship. How high is "high"? One answer is "when large numbers of people start to self-censor out of fear" (self-censorship will be the topic of my next essay).
Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky described it this way: "Can you express your individual views loudly, in public, without fear of being punished legally, formally, in any way? If yes, you live in a free society; if not, you’re in a fear society."
Informal social norms are even more important than either censorship instituted by the government or lesser authorities.
Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO of The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a staunch defender of free expression and academic freedom, recently wrote:
"Free speech culture is more important than the First Amendment... because free speech culture is what gave us the First Amendment in the 18th century... It's what informs the First Amendment today—and it is what will decide if our current free speech protections will survive into the future."