Dave The Web Guy
Yes, Your Blog Can be Censored, But...
01/02/2022
I happened upon:
Yes, a web hosting provider can "censor" you as much as Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media forum might. A web hosting provider might decide to take you offline at any time. So why do I offer up "running your own blog" and "hosting your own site", like yours truly, as some sort of panacea for avoiding it?
It's because it's more a question of resiliency and the culture of web hosting providers. Twitter and Facebook have decided to become moderators. Chances are your web hosting provider of choice, such as GoDaddy, has not.
Twitter and Facebook have hired teams of people looking for things to act against. A wise move considering that the top energy of these places involves people pumping in ground-level content, at what must be millions of interactions per minute.
On the other hand, a crank like me pushing out a blog post maybe once every few weeks, and then having that blog post generate enough interest to push people over the friction barrier to comment back, hardly merits a single intern doing the same.
But of course there are "high velocity" personal blogs out there, so even if there is a temptation to monitor activity with an eye to zap any hint of non-conformity, the impulse goes against the early-established ethos of web hosting which is something along the lines of "we just give you the space to rant, the consequences are on you".
Those dynamics do not make for bulletproof protection of course, which is the basis for my overall philosophy that no forum, analog or digital, is ever going to be completely free of the risk. In fact the Wikipedia article for internet censorship currently breaks down 7 control points that can be exploited in a way that either knocks you offline completely or severely diminishes your reach and influence.
But look: Having your own hosted blog or website drops you much farther away from the frontline debate and all of its component triggers. You are protected much better in cases where you are making a strong statement with perhaps ambiguous clauses, than you are on social media where there is less tolerance for either, particularly in the accumulation dimension.
The snippet from a Reddit thread above about Marjorie Greene's Twitter account being suspended over Covid misinformation posts, which prompted me to make this entry, is ironically itself a reminder why you can't even rely on the conduits of discussion on these matters to take place. If you visit the thread now, you'll find that it has been locked by the moderators.
So yeah, if you want greater resilience against censorship, and certainly more direct control, you need to get back to blogging and web hosting.
By Dave for Personal Blog.
Comments (0) | Promote (0) | PermShare | Focuses (1765)
Register to Comment
How to Share
Status quo institutions are attempting to kill the hyperlink and relegate you to social media. Resist by sharing this content's hyperlink. To share this content copy the URL below to your clipboard and paste it to the medium of your choice. Never let the world forget about the World Wide Web.
The COPY button may not work in all browsers. If not, rely on clicking on the box and pressing CTRL+A, CTRL+C to get the link into your clipboard (or long-press if you are on mobile device).
