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Many people seem to be equating the process of editing with censorship. I was an editor most of my career. We were subject to the laws of defamation and contempt, plus rules around taste, accuracy, balance and fairness. No one was guaranteed a run. The editor’s word was final.
The social media platforms did not exercise any editorial responsibility and that was a problem when anyone could say anything - no matter how wrong or harmful or downright dangerous. When that person was the most powerful individual in the world, we had a real problem.
What is happening now is the digital platforms are going to have to start taking responsibility for what is transmitted on them just as publishers and editors have always done. This is a good thing.
Of course, the great irony here is that the digital platforms are discovering their social responsibilities just as much of the traditional Fourth Estate, led by News Corp, has abrogated its own.
The Murdoch media, seeing what a nice little earner that platforms without filters can be (a sluice pipe for filth), has adopted that model itself - the difference being that its output retains the appearance of being professionally moderated and edited.
So,spare me the breast-beating about the Trump Twitter ban being an attack on ‘freedom’. There IS and has never been absolute freedom. You still can’t cry ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre and the freedom to publish, to claim to be a journalist, comes with a responsibility to society
