Ok, let's say there's this country whose government tells all the media companies (read that as social media today) that no Jewish person is allowed to speak on their public forums...sound familiar?
Now replace the phrase "Jewish person" with "Trump" or "Trump supporter".
I predict your first reaction will be to say the US government did not do this...my simple response is "So what?"
Censorship by itself does not have to be conducted by a government to be censorship.
It merely needs to be the banning of free speech from a public forum.
Trump WAS banned from Twitter, and Axios has a whole list of other places he and his supporters were banned from (google it), including Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, Discord, and several others that aren't nearly as big.
The most common retort to this is: These are private companies, and should be allowed to ban people they want.
The most obvious comeback is: So you're saying you're ok with censorship from public forums? As long as it's not by the government?
Or are you going to insist that what is currently happening on social media sites in the US does not match the definition of censorship?
From google:
Censorship:
the suppression or
prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered
obscene, politically
unacceptable, or a threat to security.
Emphasis, "suppression or prohibition of ... news, etc. that are considered ... politically unacceptable"
Also notice that the government isn't listed as the sole arbiter of censorship.
Further, there is a significant amount of evidence that's been emerging the last few months from a series of reports referred to as "the Twitter files" (google it), that actually _does_ show a significant amount of US government pressure on at least Twitter itself to censor US citizens...and this actually _is_ illegal in the US.
But you know, none of that really matters for this discussion, I suspect you simply latched onto Trump because he's probably an easy political target for you.
I think the real contention we have is whether or not preventing somebody from posting something new on a website should be considered censorship or not...regardless of whether or not their old posts remain up...
I think that's a form of censorship.
Google seems to agree.
Do you agree? or disagree?