Is America's level of censorship worse than China's this year?

I agree. China is extremely censored. The United States wouldn't be able to pass censorship laws of that caliber without horrendously violating our constitutional rights. But, you're right, there will be an increase in censorship in the future. It's kinda scary actually.

@Kindred: As proven this year, you don't need laws.

@Kindred: society doesn't need to pass censorship laws if the media censors itself

@Invisible: Are you referring to Twitter? Websites like that are allowed to censor, but I wish they didn't. Then again, Jack Dorsey is a huge cuck, so...

@Invisible: You're confusing censorship with the actions of private industry. Censorship is about government action. Your right to free speech means the government can't control your speech (outside of obvious shit like death threats).

That said, Facebook and Google are so incredibly powerful now that they have tremendous authority over how we communicate. And Facebook has every legal right to censor. They aren't the government and you can choose not to use facebook. I'd argue they should be nationalized, but hey, different story.

@lorne13: Clearly you don't understand the level of censorship in China. It's to an extreme, and it's institutionalized, so no, regardless of how much the media censors itself we will never surpass the level of censorship that China has unless our government passes some constitution-violating-a** laws.

@Kindred: I think you missed the point

@lorne13: I think you missed my point. You were replying to my original comment, were you not? This thread is asking if our censorship laws are worse than China's. With all due respect, you're the one who missed the point.

@Kindred: The best way to implement censorship is to convince people that there is no censorship because look over at China's laws! We don't have them, therefore all this crap I see on /r/politics MUST be real! I mean, the site even democratically promotes content, right?

@Kindred: the question related to levels of censorship. I feel that having the media owned by the wealthy who censor them for economic reasons results in higher levels of censorship than any government would be likely to achieve, but either way the original question didn't mention laws, just levels of censorship