January 12, 2021

Posted by Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

photo by Pixabay user LoboStudioHamburg

If the opinion editors at The New York Times decline to publish your cogent and insightful essay on a matter of great public importance, are they practicing censorship?

No. They are exercising editorial judgment, or maybe mere business judgment, depending on the pressures they feel nowadays to get audiences to engage with their content. It may be good judgment or bad judgment, but it is not censorship. Censorship occurs when the government restricts or compels expression under threat of penalties, which may be administrative, judicial or extrajudicial, such as directing a mob to your home. The New York Times is a privately owned, privately run platform, which its proprietors may offer to or withhold from contributors as they see fit. To demand they do otherwise would run afoul of the First Amendment’s press and speech freedom guarantees.

Read article: https://www.palisadeshudson.com/2021/01/defining-censorship-before-denouncing-it/

#censorship #freedomofspeech #socialmedia