To be clear, movie and music ratings aren't censorship. Moreover, only broadcast television and radio are censored (perhaps because radio waves are a public platform?). I'm not going to argue that censoring broadcast is ideal or valid, but I'm certainly less sympathetic to the plight of massive media companies than I am to millions of private citizens.

> To be clear, movie and music ratings aren't censorship.

To the extent they are incorporated with schemes that limit access to the rated content imposed by powerful entities outside of the transaction, they are part of schemes of censorship. (Public censorship schemes that incorporate movie ratings, and thus delegate to movie raters the role of public censor, are common.)

> I'm not going to argue that censoring broadcast is ideal or valid, but I'm certainly less sympathetic to the plight of massive media companies than I am to millions of private citizens.

Censorship by a third party equally impacts the rights of the parties on both sides of a potential transaction; broadcast media censorship restricts the freedom of both massive media companies and millions of private citizens.

> To the extent they are incorporated with schemes that limit access to the rated content imposed by powerful entities outside of the transaction, they are part of schemes of censorship. (Public censorship schemes that incorporate movie ratings, and thus delegate to movie raters the role of public censor, are common.)

No doubt they are part of "schemes of censorship" in some literal sense, but if someone publishes a rating and another chooses to use that rating as the basis of censorship, the onus is still squarely on the part of the censor and not the rater.

> Censorship by a third party equally impacts the rights of the parties on both sides of a potential transaction; broadcast media censorship restricts the freedom of both massive media companies and millions of private citizens.

You're conflating several things. Yes, censorship by a third party has similar effects to government censorship, but we treat them differently because the government is a special entity (ultimately because it enjoys a monopoly on violence and force). There are legitimate questions about when a third party becomes so powerful that it can unilaterally affect government (as with social media companies being a vector for the manipulation of elections), but this is the purview of anti-trust as I understand it (and I strongly support anti-trust action against social media corporations for precisely this reason).

The other conflated issues are "freedom to speak" vs "freedom to hear". Yes, restrictions on the content of broadcast media corporations limits the "freedom to hear" of millions of citizens as it does with restrictions on social media; however, restricting social media also infringes on millions' freedoms to speak.

Indeed, when you consider that the volume of communication in a social media network is combinatorial, the impact on regulations is far greater than for restrictions on traditional broadcast media.

> You're conflating several things. Yes, censorship by a third party has similar effects to government censorship, but we treat them differently

My post was discussing whether censorship occurred and whose freedom was affected. While it did mention certain explictly public schemes, it nowhere argued that other schemes should be treated as government censorship, so you are inventing a position here for the sole purpose of claiming it is in error and a conflation of different things.

>> You're conflating several things. Yes, censorship by a third party has similar effects to government censorship, but we treat them differently

> My post was discussing whether censorship occurred and whose freedom was affected. While it did mention certain explictly public schemes, it nowhere argued that other schemes should be treated as government censorship, so you are inventing a position here for the sole purpose of claiming it is in error and a conflation of different things.

You brought up the 'third party vs government' dynamic; I was merely mentioning that it's distinct from the dynamic of 'freedom to speak' vs 'freedom to hear'. I specifically never claimed that you were arguing that we should treat third parties the same as the government. No need to speculate about my motives.

> You brought up the 'third party vs government' dynamic

No, “third-party” contrasts with the parties involved in the transaction (mostly the source, which may exercise self-censorship, which does not restrict the freedom of the participants the way third-party censorship does.)

The government would be an example of a third-party censor, not something distinct from it.

Fair enough, I misunderstood your meaning; thanks for clarifying. The "'freedom to listen' vs 'freedom to speak'" concern still stands (i.e., no, restricting private citizens' speech on social media platforms doesn't have exactly the same effect as limiting the content that broadcast media corps can publish on the airwaves).

Censored for children only. I don’t think anyone over 18 is subject to the censorship. That is disregarding laws specifically targeting pornography, of course.

Imposing a proof burden on someone to view content is a restriction of their freedom even if they meet the requirement and have access to the required proof.

> To be clear, movie and music ratings aren't censorship.

And yet I consider restricting access to educative LGBT+ films under the banner of "18+" to be censorship

I was distinguishing between "rating films" with "restricting access", but yeah, the content of the films doesn't matter--it's censorship whether the content is LGBT+ or Al Qaeda beheadings. The pertinent question is whether a third party is obligated to show you that content. As it relates to social media companies, my position is that if a company is exercising the right to censor (effectively to curate content) then they must also take responsibility when they curate illegal content, such as child pornography or intellectual property--they don't get to have it both ways.

Similarly, I don't think your local theater's prohibition on minors viewing 'adult' content compares favorably to a large social media company which steers and manipulates so much communication that it can unilaterally sway national elections. The latter is an issue of national sovereignty.

> To be clear, movie and music ratings aren't censorship.

True, calling them censorship is kind of stretching the definition.

But there's still a small group of people that decide those ratings and the commercial impact of those ratings, as far as I know, is massive.

So it's not direct censorship, but it still has a "chilling effect".

Like I said, I'm not going to die defending censorship of Hollywood or CBS or whomever, but I am much more concerned with the rights of ordinary citizens who only recently got the right to communicate in any sort of broadcast fashion (still nowhere near the power that the media industry enjoys).

The internet was such a big deal because groups of people could finally interact without the mediation and filtering of a large (typically corporate) entity determining what's "fit to print". You don't have to search very hard to find the bounds of acceptable thought from corporate-sponsored media, even pre-internet. I don't think I'm alone in feeling constrained and frustrated with that situation. Sure, it's not a North Korea situation, but it's not great either.

There are some very real problems with unfettered access to communication, and I don't think we've solved them yet. I am very concerned that this law will have a range of unintended negative consequences, and I don't think defending our existing (flawed) structure really proves that it'll all be fine.

Specifically we're talking about moving from a model of centralized media control (eg: media companies and the conglomerates that own them) to one where a select group of people get to manage the filtering of content on the largest platforms. That seems like something that will be almost impossible to manage properly, and ripe for (at a minimum) political manipulation.