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Orwell Was Right (taibbi.substack.com)
11 points by freediver on March 16, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment



A decade ago it was common to read about how Chinese social media censorship [1] and that was usually shown in a negative light in our media. I remember reading how some users bypassed censorship by avoiding saying certain words or using homonyms.

On the past three years we've been more tolerant to this happening in Western social media. It's even a requested feature.

Now it's not uncommon TikTok videos, Twitter spaces, and YouTube videos sometimes avoid saying or writing certain words to avoid triggering automatic censorship, avoiding account bans or influencing the algorithm.

Quoting the article:

"When I first read 1984, it was difficult to imagine how Emmanuel Goldstein could be a villain for “advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought” or for “demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia.” Now free speech and peace advocacy are universally understood to be stalking horses for fascism. Anyone who advocates those things is a lesser or greater Goldstein"

[1] https://cpj.org/2016/03/the-business-of-censorship-documents...




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