With each new effort by social media companies to reign in the deluge of digital falsehoods, accusations pour forth that such efforts represent censorship. In reality, the two represent very different concepts, with censorship referring to the repression of ideas in alignment to political, social or moral views, while gatekeeping in its broadest sense refers to efforts to maintain the quality of information published in a given venue. A censor prohibits discussion of topics with which they disagree. A gatekeeper is viewpoint-neutral, ensuring only that the information has been thoroughly vetted and verified.
Censorship has become the new rallying call for those who oppose any effort by social media companies to curb in any way the spread of falsehoods on their platforms. Platforms argue they are neutral publishing mediums merely blindly forwarding messages onward, while at the same time increasingly stepping forward to remove content that disagrees with their own views of acceptable speech and removing falsehoods.
Clouding the issue is that social platforms are ramping up their efforts to both enforce their acceptable speech rules, which do comprise a form of censorship and at the same time curate the quality of content flowing through their servers, which represents gatekeeping.
All major social platforms define lists of ideas, narratives, viewpoints and beliefs that run contrary to the views of the founders and executives of that platform. Such lists are defined and redefined on a whim and primarily reflect Western neocolonialist perspectives on how the entire world should think. Such efforts represent the very definition of censorship in which restricted topics represent social and moral views rather than operational ones. For example, banning images of partially dressed art museum statues has nothing to do with ensuring accurate information, it represents a moral consideration that nudity is “bad” for society. Similarly, a user sharing documentary video of threats of violence they have received represents standard journalistic practice, while social platforms that suspend users for such activity are exercising the powers of censorship in determining that such republication is not "good" for society.
In short, censorship concerns itself with whether a particular communication is “helpful” or “harmful” to the cohesiveness of society and whether it aligns with the needs and desires of elites.
In contrast, gatekeeping in its broadest sense is not concerned with the societal impact of a narrative, it considers only whether the narrative is accurate and supported by available evidence.
A leaked government watchdog report documenting extensive corruption by senior officials and including all relevant evidence might pass the gatekeeping test if it is determined to be an accurate document and the evidence supporting it is verified. In contrast, the report could still be stopped from publication through censorship due to the harm it would likely cause to governmental elites.
By combining censorship with gatekeeping, social platforms have led to a public conflation of these distinct topics, driving the societal backlash against their fact checking efforts that otherwise would likely enjoy much broader public support.
Instead, social platforms must work on more clearly distinguishing their efforts and establishing visible boundaries between them. Most importantly, they must work on the public messaging surrounding their efforts, drawing clear lines between their content enforcement rules and their quality improvement efforts.
In the end, both social platforms and society at large must recognize the clear distinction between the dangers of censorship and the benefits of gatekeeping.
