Even though our government doesn't censor us, our society does censor a lot of unpopular opinions. For example, the neo-Nazis who were publicly shamed and then subsequently lost their jobs. And the Google employee who was fired after writing that email about sexual harassment. I've seen other cases, too, but can't think of them off hand. And I should point out that I'm not defending those views (I think they're shameful), I'm pointing out that they were publicly humiliated and punished for sharing them.
Practically speaking, is there much difference between government backed censorship and online mob justice censorship? Each one will ruin your life, just in a different way.
> Practically speaking, is there much difference between government backed censorship and online mob justice censorship?
1. You can't sue a mob for justice
2. You can't convict or fire a mob.
3. You can move to somewhere where the mob isn't.
More neutrally:
4. Mobs are crowd-sourced. Government censors are appointed experts of some sort.
5. One rouses and incites a mob. One lobbies and corrupts a government.
6. Mobs aren't constrained by things like double jeopardy. The U.S. government is.
7. Mobs tend to be more situational than government rules. Mobs don't care about boring things, niche things, technical things, or sympathetic perpetrators.
Online mobs can make you lose your job if you're working for a company with sufficient media exposure and insufficient backbone, but governments can make you disappear whenever they please. Practically speaking, that's a huge difference.
> Online mobs can make you lose your job if you're working for a company with sufficient media exposure and insufficient backbone, but governments can make you disappear whenever they please. Practically speaking, that's a huge difference.
That's the traditional explanation, but does it apply any more now that we have the internet?
With the internet, any screw up or faux pas can cause worldwide publicity for any business. They can theoretically stand up for their employee's free speech, but in reality it's so rare that it's almost not worth considering.
At the same time, it's more difficult for the government to silence people due to the Streisand effect.
The online mob doesn't really have the resources to get publicity to more than a few things at a time, so although some people will always be hit, most will be safe. I'm not saying that mob censorship is harmless, just that it doesn't reach the scale of governments, who have actual boots on the ground.
The Streisand effect happens when you try to make people shut up about something but don't actually have the power to make them shut up. So of course they'll just talk about that unsuccessful attempt, after all there's no downside. House arrest/public humiliation/bullet through the head? Try talking about that in any way critical of the censors and you could be next. That won't actually inhibit "dangerous" ideas, of course, but it's pretty effective at making everyone stop talking about them.
One big difference is that the unpopular opinion can still be allowed to exist.
In other words, it is still possible to find neo-Nazi social media in the US. (Yes, there's been some issues on this front with some of the more visible sites due to certain Internet corporate CEOs getting "caught up in the mob", but organizations like the EFF are allowed to push back with counter-opinion -- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/fighting-neo-nazis-fut...). It is still possible to find the Google employee manifesto online, as well as social media both sympathetic to these opinions and completely disagreeing with them and anything in between.
In many cases of government censorship, unpopular causes and opinions simply disappear. They for all practical purposes don't exist. You are not allowed to talk about them at all, at least in public.
Even though our government doesn't censor us, our society does censor a lot of unpopular opinions. For example, the neo-Nazis who were publicly shamed and then subsequently lost their jobs. And the Google employee who was fired after writing that email about sexual harassment. I've seen other cases, too, but can't think of them off hand. And I should point out that I'm not defending those views (I think they're shameful), I'm pointing out that they were publicly humiliated and punished for sharing them.
Practically speaking, is there much difference between government backed censorship and online mob justice censorship? Each one will ruin your life, just in a different way.