A Suggestion on Changing Rhetoric

Instead of talking about freedom of speech or freedom of the press, talk about freedom of seeing and freedom of listening.

The difference between content moderation and censorship is simple: Content moderation is keeping people from seeing or hearing things they do not want to see or hear (false fire alarms, death threats, pointless insults, porn, etc.) and censorship is keeping people from seeing or hearing things they want to see or hear.

That way, a famous XKCD cartoon becomes a defense of content moderation istead of a defense of “cancel culture.”

The program Bleep appears to be a start at taking content moderation out of the hands of the forum and putting it into the hands of the users, where it belongs.