You're moving goalposts. First you claimed that this wasn't censorship, now you're saying okay it is but it's fine for them to do so here. Censorship is unacceptable in private messages, there's already reporting functionality.

I’m saying none of those causes is censorship, Facebook has no obligation to send your private messages to anyone, and I was glib enough in saying so to include my own personal squick about patterns of holes in things to emphasize the point.

If Facebook doesn’t want to send my message to you, that’s their choice. It’s not my right to send messages through Facebook and expect them to be delivered to you. Even if they contain horrific circles in a pattern that makes me squirm just describing them.

Maybe I'm misreading your message, but you seem to be writing as if your counterpart in the discussion believes these things, despite saying nothing of the kind.

Am I misreading you?

No I’m saying “censorship” as a rallying cry around moderation of a platform is effectively demanding permission for those. If you say a private company can’t moderate private messages it hosts, you’re saying it must allow private exchange of child porn. And harassing people with pictures of patterns of holes they find unnerving. And basically any harmful behavior you can imagine.

If Facebook wants to provide private messaging that’s actually so private they can’t know its content, that’s another story. But if they’re hosting messaging they know about, they’re entirely within their rights to decide what content is appropriate on their own resources.

>No I’m saying “censorship” as a rallying cry around moderation of a platform is effectively demanding permission for those.

I don't think so. The 2 specific situations you list are different. For child porn, it's illegal. So if Facebook blocks it, it's the government choosing what to censor, not Facebook.

And I think it's possible to prevent "harassing people with pictures of patterns of holes they find unnerving" without Facebook censoring content. Facebook has a block functionality, and the receiver could block the sender. As for the sender making multiple accounts, if Facebook blocks that, that's not censorship of content, that's enforcing a 1 account policy.

I wasn't saying any of those things. I was responding to the outrageous claim that this wasn't censorship.

Facebook is also allowed to censor child porn in private messages, and that they do so is a good thing, yet it's still censorship.

> No I’m saying “censorship” as a rallying cry

Is it possible to use the word censorship without it being a rallying cry (which then seems to somehow ~bend reality)?