I believe, like @marinelife, that censorship is a kind of cultural indicator. Just as in a religion, specific beliefs serve as a way to meet others like you out there in the world, censorship exists in order to create that illusion of standardized citizenry that the masters of that society so desire.
I say illusion because there are so many ways to subvert the censorship, that it seems fruitless to even have it. In Russia there were the samizdat newspapers (self-published) that were passed around from hand to hand. In China, we see the efforts of the Chinese government to control the internet by blocking certain passages. The problem with that is that there are so many alternative routes on the internet that the information can get through for those interested enough to make it get through.
I’ve been on any number of internet sites and they all have rules of one kind of another. For example, many want to avoid “dirty” words, like c*unt, sh_t, cocksvcker, fuckwad_, etc, etc. There is absolutely no way any website can avoid all possible permutations of a word so that it is possible to enforce the rule.
Therefore, owners of such websites rely on people to “flag” objectionable posts. Or perhaps they don’t have silly prohibitions about words, and seek to enforce a culture in other ways. Here, there are rules against bad spelling. Such a ruel coudl probabely be suvberted in simple ways such as transposition of letters or pretend “mistakes.” Or, someone could write something that appears, on the face of it, to be a serious response, but was actually nonsense.
Satire and sarcasm are some traditional ways of subverting rules concerning content. There are many famous Russian novels that do thsi. I think Gulliver’s Travels (which I have never read) is supposed to be satire. “Much truth is said in jest.” It is so easy to compose something that, on the face of it, sounds like it meets the requirements of the masters, but is actually pretty much nonsense, or worse, subversion. Enough people do this, and the society breaks down. And believe me, sooner or later, people rebel against censorship and the society does break down—usually rather catastrophically. I’ve heard of a number of websites that suffered this fate.
Another mechanism by which societies try to enforce their vision of the culture is by planting toadies and stool-pigeons to champion their way of doing things. Often they urge people to do things the master’s way because they have the power and it is fruitless to resist. There is someone who appears to be a toady in this thread, and while I’ve been lurking, I’ve seen several others. Their refrain is all pretty much the same. “Conform, or leave.”
Now the interesting question is why masters think it is so important to enforce their own version of culture using ham-fisted techniques such as the ones I have described here. It’s like trying to get drug users to stop using drugs by making drug use illegal. All that happens is that the use goes underground.
An alternative technique that actually works can be seen in the anti-tobacco efforts in the United States. I wish my country would employ them. You employ social pressure—ads, education campaigns and the like. You limit the outlets for the undesirable product or activity. It is not hard to create the society you want without censorship.
But most masters are lazy and can’t see straight. Or perhaps, to be charitable, they are ignorant. Censorship looks easy, so that’s how they try to enforce cultural similarity. And indeed, it may work—at first. But eventually the populace will catch on, and despite all the toadies and police and other enforcement efforts, the society will be torn down.
There’s a reason why the US is a model for the rest of us. Freedom of expression works. What boggles my mind is how so many people can see this example and constantly claim, “but we’re different.”
You’re not that different.
I’m sorry to blast you with such a long post as practically my first one here, but this is an issue I feel passionately about, and one that, in my country, I have worked hard on.