As a journalist and author, I am obsessed with getting the facts right. About 100 pages in each of my books consist of end notes with references to the best available sources. I enjoy debates. When I get something wrong, I issue a correction. When I'm really wrong, I will often write about why I was wrong at length, as I did in both books.
Not once has it ever crossed my mind that the government should censor people I disagree with for spreading misinformation. I was thus shocked when I learned of the elaborate and successful effort to censor me on Facebook in 2020.
And I was even more shocked when I learned that the US Department of Homeland Services had started an initiative to secretly demand mass censorship through government-funded NGOs like the Stanford Internet Observatory . And I continue to be shocked as I learn of various government censorship initiatives around the world.
I was thrilled recently to have a wide-ranging conversation with the brilliant Brown University economist, . We talked about many things, including why governments want to censor their fellow citizens in the first place.
Readers of Public know that we have, over the last year, been exploring the various motivations to censor, including financial, political, and psychological. The latter motivation has been of particular interest to me lately. Why would researchers, journalists, and even authors want to censor rather than argue with their enemies?
I have come to the conclusion that not only is there something wrong legally and morally with people who want to censor their fellow citizens, there's also something wrong psychologically. Where the desire to discuss and debate is healthy, the desire to censor and silence betrays a kind of mental or even spiritual sickness.
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the moment requires it: if you want to censor people you hate, there's something wrong with you. You are suffering from a toxic mixture of entitlement, arrogance, and insecurity. Go on a long walk. Talk to an elder. Seek help.
We live in a free society. Get used to it. Talk back to the voice in your head telling you that you have the right to shut people up. If you're too insecure to engage in free and open debate, then you have no right to demand censorship.
We seek consensus about the Book of Mormon. Joseph F. Smith wrote, "If you have built for a man a better house than his own, and he is willing to accept yours and forsake his, then, and not till then, should you proceed to tear down the old structure. Rotten though it may be it will require some time for it to lose all its charms and fond memories of its former occupant. Therefore let him, not you, proceed to tear it away. Kindness and courtesy are the primal elements of gentility."
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