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Two years ago I wrote an article titled, "Free Speech doesn't Exist on the Internet" which is a sad truth that we have to deal with when it comes to things like social media and YouTube where almost all online content is published these days, anything that falls outside their guidelines isn't there and often isn't even produced. Personal websites are places where free speech can exist for the owner of the website and everyone should have their own internet property in some form or another and that is where we should try to go to find quality content on the internet, but if I keep rambling about that I'll stray too far off topic.
Because we don't have free speech on big tech platforms the business model of many political commentators has been to produce YouTube permissible content that is free on YouTube and then sell memberships or subscriptions or whatever to their own website where they publish things that would have gotten them banned from YouTube. It has been this way for years and the other day I decided to pay for a month subscription to one of these commentators and after watching a bit of the members only content I can say that it is refreshing to hear truly free speech. When all you watch is stuff on YouTube then you get used to hearing phrases like "YouTube won't let us talk about that," and "We'll talk about that behind the paywall," or you hear people use words and phrases that don't specifically refer to the thing that is actually being talked about or the opinion that is actually held by the person speaking you don't realize how much you are really being controlled, it is absolutely ridiculous that people have to call guns pew pews on some YouTube videos. Seeing people online say what they really want to say without any sort of filter other than their own decency is just plain refreshing and I highly recommend seeking that out.
This experience has also gotten me to think about the true purpose of censorship. Again all the time on YouTube you hear people saying "I'm not allowed to say this." but that isn't what it is about. Let's say you're an "anti-vaxer" and you make a video going in-depth about vaccine injuries, YouTube is not going to let you post that, is that going to change your stance on vaccines? No, in fact it may even validate it. That censorship does nothing to change the views of the censored restricting what you say only demoralizes you which is not its true purpose. Censorship is not about what you aren't allowed to say, it is about what you are not allowed to hear, and ultimately what you are not allowed to think.
Let's consider a different scenario, we'll stick on the topic of vaccines, you know nothing about them other than what public education and the mainstream media has told you about them so you don't see anything wrong with vaccines and you don't have a reason to look into them either, in fact you are so tuned into the mainstream narrative that you can't even comprehend why someone wouldn't trust the nice man in the labcoat. A random video looking into vaccine injuries could change your mind about that, or at least give you motivation to research the topic. However, if you never hear anything that goes against the mainstream narrative you never have a reason to doubt it. This is the goal of censorship, to keep you ignorant, whether the mainstream narrative is right or wrong. It is not about what you can't say it is about what you can't hear.
This is a perspective on censorship that we don't often hear, because the people who complain about censorship are in the business of saying things rather than the business of hearing things like you and I are. I wish people would start talking about censorship this way because I think it would trigger more of a response in the masses whose actions have the power to change the market. Hearing the term "You're not allowed to hear this," hits people a lot differently than hearing "I'm not allowed to say this," one applies to the person being influenced while the other only applies to the influencer.
And of course I'm not sitting here wearing a tin foil hat suggesting that every censored opinion is correct, maybe Jeffrey Epstien really did kill himself, maybe there is nothing wrong with ingesting industrial waste, and maybe the Earth really is round, what I am saying is that if we are never given information, either true or false, to challenge our beliefs then we never have a reason to solidify them. We should seek out places where people are allowed to speak freely so that our views can be challenged and so that we can remind ourselves that big-tech and the government don't have the amount of control over us that many people think they do. It is refreshing to see and remember that we are free.